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
Crystallophone his glass harmonica in 1763 after attending a recital performed on musical glasses in London in 1761. Crystallophone A crystallophone is a musical instrument that produces sound from glass. One of the best known crystallophones is the glass harmonica, a set of rotating glass bowls which produce eerie, clear tones when rubbed with a wet finger. Musical glasses, the glass harp, where documented in Persia in the 14th century. The "ethereal" quality of instruments such as the glass harmonica exemplified the "Empfindsamkeit" and for a while, "the instrument was extraordinarily popular...[but] About 1830 the instrument fell into oblivion." The glasschord