XVII

I had read about instruments made by Abbot Mazzocchi Domenico Mazzocchi (1592–1665), an Italian composer who experimented with microtonal music and instrument design., where bells were rubbed with two or more violin bows, but the idea of using the violin bow to investigate vibrating bodies was one I had first. The observations of Lichtenberg Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), a physicist famous for "Lichtenberg figures" created by electrical discharges. regarding the figures that appear when resin dust is scattered on glass or resin plates under different electrical conditions (found in the Commentaries of the Göttingen Society of Sciences), upon which I also conducted various experiments, stirred in me the thought that perhaps the diverse vibrating motions of a plate would likewise reveal themselves through a variety of appearances if I scattered sand or something similar upon it. Using this procedure on the aforementioned plate, a star-shaped figure appeared; one observation then followed another, many of which—concerning the vibrations of plates as well as other acoustic subjects—I made known in a publication: Discoveries Concerning the Theory of Sound (Leipzig 1787. 4.).

While I was occupied with these investigations, and for some time thereafter, my situation was very unpleasant. I possessed no fortune, as my father's charity—which was abused by many—had not permitted him to set anything aside from his very good income; I enjoyed no salary from my fatherland (just as I have never received one since); and the opportunity to perhaps gain some advantage through lectures is not to be found in Wittenberg, because lectures—with the exception of a few so-called bread studies original: "Brodstudia"; a term for practical courses taken solely to earn a living or for professional qualification rather than for the love of learning.—are either paid very poorly or not at all by most people. I therefore had no further support whatsoever, except from my mother (for so I may more properly call my stepmother), who, however, gradually lost the greatest part of her fortune in the process. It would have been partly extremely ungrateful and partly unwise if I had wanted to leave her, especially given her sickly condition at the time, as she suffered from terrible anxieties (which subsequently ceased through the medical help of my friend, Doctor and Professor Langguth), as much as I might have wished, just as in earlier years, to be able to look around the world further; moreover, there was no prospect at all for the improvement of my situation, but rather for its worsening. Despite the disposition granted to me by nature to be cheerful under moderately favorable circumstances—where I have almost no concept of how one can create vexation for oneself from within—it was impossible under these circumstances that I could have enjoyed my existence. Yet I did not let my courage sink entirely, but strived