Re: Glass Harmonica & Frank London

[Matt Jaffey <mjaffey2...>]

Thanks to r l reid for clarifying the difference between a glass harmonica
and a bunch of half filled wine glasses. I also enjoyed looking over the
URL's suggested by Bryan Stover, in which there are illustrations of glass
harmonica's, which are in the "spindle mounted glass bowl" formation.
According to these URL's the invention is indeed attributed to Benjamin
Franklin, and the problem with the lead in the glass wasn't insanity - it
was death.

My prior entry on this thread made a wrong assumption for the following
reason: Frank London's own PR about his new "cantorial based" album says he
uses a glass harmonica. I saw him on TV playing "cantorial based" music,
and being accompanied by a bunch of upright goblets, each partially filled
with water. I assumed his PR was referring to the "instrument" that I saw
accompanying him. So either he misused the term "glass harmonica", or he's
tried both approaches, one on the album, and the other on TV.

Matt

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