Anne Ford it was considered controversial for a woman to play the "masculine" viola da gamba, referred to at the time as the "viol di gambo". Ford gave a performance at Spring Gardens in 1761, "English airs". accompanying herself on the musical glasses. She also wrote a published work, "Instructions for Playing on the Musical Glasses". The instrument was comparable to the glass harp of Richard Pockrich consisting of individual glass goblets tuned with water, and preceded the 1761 mechanized armonica (Glass harmonica) invention of Benjamin Franklin and played by Marianne Davies. Ford's accomplishments risked being complicated by an infatuated lover, the
Glass harmonica be German, if not confined to Vienna. One example of alleged effects from playing the glass harmonica was noted by a German musicologist Johann Friedrich Rochlitz in the "Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung": Marianne Davies, who played flute and harpsichord – and was a young woman said to be related to Franklin – became proficient enough at playing the armonica to offer public performances. After touring for many years in duo performances with her celebrated vocalist sister, she was also said to have been afflicted with a melancholia attributed to the plaintive tones of the instrument. Marianne Kirchgessner was an armonica player;