Glass harmonica by rubbing glass or crystal goblets or bowls. The alternate instrument consisting of a set of wine glasses (usually tuned with water) is generally known in English as "musical glasses" or the "glass harp". When Benjamin Franklin invented his mechanical version of the instrument in 1761, he called it the armonica, based on the Italian word "armonia", which means "harmony". The unrelated free-reed wind instrument aeolina, today called the "harmonica", was not invented until 1821, sixty years later. The word "hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica" is also recorded, composed of Greek roots to mean something like "harmonica to produce music for the soul by
Glass harmonica the rim of a wine goblet to produce tones is documented back to Renaissance times; Galileo considered the phenomenon (in his "Two New Sciences"), as did Athanasius Kircher. The Irish musician Richard Pockrich is typically credited as the first to play an instrument composed of glass vessels (glass harp) by rubbing his fingers around the rims. Beginning in the 1740s, he performed in London on a set of upright goblets filled with varying amounts of water. His career was cut short by a fire in his room, which killed him and destroyed his apparatus. Edward Delaval, a friend of Benjamin