The glasschord (
French: fortepiano à cordes de verre) is a
struckcrystallophone resembling the
celesta, invented circa 1785[1] by physicist[2] M. Beyer of Paris.[3][4] It creates sound by using cloth covered wooden
hammers to strike glass tubes laid on a cloth strip, with no
dampeners. The instrument has a range of three
octaves, in various models from
c' to c'', f' to f'', and g' to g''.[5] The instrument was largely inspired by the
glass harmonica created by
Benjamin Franklin,[6] and was given the name glasschord by him.[7] On 6 July 1785,
Thomas Jefferson that Franklin carried a version of the instrument with him, describing it as a
sticcado.[8]
Beyer originally presented the instrument on 19 January 1785, in a presentation at the
French Academy of Sciences, while the instrument still was nameless,[9] with the instrument being publicised in the
Journal de Paris multiple times through the same year.[10]
^Beyer, M. (1806). Notice sur le glace-chord de mon invention, et sur quelques autre instruments en verre, ainsi que sur divers objets de mécanique, que j'ai imaginé ou perfectionnés (in French). Paris. pp. 1–12.