Acoustics

...me all the more to provide a better existence for myself through my own strength. I held the thought that an artist who knows how to attract some attention is less bound to a specific location and has more opportunity to find profit and a good reception almost everywhere, compared to a scholar who dedicates himself to academic life. I hoped to achieve this—not through the talent of a virtuoso, because I had begun to learn music so late—but rather through the invention of a new instrument. I believed I could accomplish this better than another because I had been the first to investigate the nature of so many sounding bodies. Thus, the unalterable resolution was made: a new instrument must be invented. A multitude of mechanical ideas crossed my mind, which, as correct as they seemed at first, were nevertheless rejected again because they were either not quite feasible or would not have achieved what was required. Among other things, I wanted to build a keyboard for the HarmonicaThe Glass Harmonica, popularized by Benjamin Franklin, consisting of rotating glass bowls.; for this reason, I had a Harmonica brought from Bohemia and conducted experiments that seemed to succeed reasonably well. However, I later set it aside and sold the Harmonica because Röllig, Nicolai, and others had anticipated me, and I preferred to produce something original rather than something others had already provided, and about whose value public opinion was somewhat divided.

Afterward, the thought occurred to me whether it might not be possible to produce a sound by stroking glass rods in a straight direction with wet fingers, just as occurs with the Harmonica by stroking in a circle. I knew from theory and experience that glass rods, such as those in my EuphonChladni's invention (1789), consisting of glass rods that communicate vibrations to metal rods., do not produce tones by themselves through such stroking; it was therefore a matter of discovering how the structure of an instrument must be arranged so that this effect would properly occur. For a year and a half, I had reflected on this and conducted experiments before I knew whether an execution entirely suitable for my purpose was possible or not. Meanwhile, the idea had become so fixed in my imagination that I sometimes even saw myself playing in this manner in my dreams, and believed I heard the sound approximately as it actually is in my Euphon—namely, similar to the Harmonica, but with less lingering resonance and more clarity. Finally, I obtained the sought-after solution to this problem on the 2nd of June, 1789; I then pursued further investigations and the construction of such an instrument in total secrecy, without saying anything about it to others, because if it succeeded, there would always be time for that later, while in the opposite case, I would at least be spared the belief that I was starting...