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Franklin's Glass Armonica
CoffeePlease writes "At the time of his death in 1790, when more than 5,000 of his glass armonicas had been built, Ben Franklin had collected no money from his glass armonica. He refused to patent any of his inventions, saying: 'As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.' Read more here and here. A historical/sci-fi novel by Louise Marley has come out on the subject also. It would be interesting to find out if any other early inventors shared Franklin's generous views on patents." There's even a FAQ.
Franklin suffered severe nerve damage in his hands playing this. The vibrations cause the neveres to goes nuts in his hand, and he basically told everyoe to stop playing these things. It wasn't until late 1790s when someone developed a piano like interface that these started bein used again...
Man, gotta love those 8th grade reports I did 8 years ago.
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
It's worth pointing out that Franklin was also publisher and owner of the Pennsylvania Gazette (which I believe he eventually sold), as well as the publisher of Poor Richard Almanack, so he did have other sources of income to rely on. That's not to say it wasn't generous of him to refuse to patent his inventions, but I can understand why a person whose income depended on their inventions would want to patent things.
... that Franklin didn't patent his techniques involving lightning. Without a doubt, this would have greatly distressed Doctor Emmet Brown.
"Derp de derp."
Franklin also invented a more efficient fireplace, which he also built and sold. He was offered a patent on this by the Governor of Pennsylvania but refused.
That as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.
-BF
He thought the idea of intellectual property to be a bit kooky.
If you're curious, read more about Franklin in the excellent biography The First American
Of course, if you know your history you know that these things stopped being used because it was thoutght that the sound made the players go insane. This was actually somewhat true because many players did go insane. It was only later that it was figured out that it was the lead in the things that caused this. I don't know if anyone has ever heard one of these, but they sould really cool and kinda haunting.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The glass armonica was one of the most celebrated instruments of the 18th century. Franklin began to take his beloved armonica with him when he traveled and played popular Scottish tunes or original compositions for his audiences. Later, composers such as Beethoven, Mozart, and Donizetti would write music for the armonica. Because of its almost immediate popularity, the glass armonica seemed destined for permanence. But by the 1820s, it was nearly a forgotten instrument.
I pride myself in being rather well versed in classical music, but have never once heard of this instrument. If gods like Mozart or Beethoven composed for this instrument, where are these compisitions now? Have they, blasphemously, been transcribed for other instruments, or are the compositions today as forgotten as the glass armonicas themselves?
Weird story, and it gets worse:
Over the years, some disturbing events began to be associated with the glass armonica. Some armonica players became ill and had to stop playing the instrument. They complained of muscle spasms, nervousness, cramps, and dizziness. A few listeners were also subject to ill effects; after an incident in Germany where a child died during a performance, the armonica was actually banned in a few towns.
Could it that I've never heard one of these instruments played because performers insist on falling ill or dying while trying to record them? Maybe this was also why Ben would not patent his instrument - anyone who played it without knowing the secret method of avoiding the wrath of the evil spirits of the glass got into trouble soon enough anyway? (The secret method of course being available after a small submission fee.)
Ah, theories.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
I just can't possibly understand the logic behind it.
Which simply means you are a capitalist and that you are not benevolent!
Of course, refusing to patent something does not mean that you can't be capitalistic about it. You can still make money off it by manufacturing it and selling it. But without a patent, you don't have exclusive rights, so unless yours is much better than the "socialists" who are making them and giving them away for free, then you are not going to make money.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Actually, I found it fascinating that people can and will find any means to musically express themselves. Enya has transformed her vocal cords into an instrument, Blue Man Group has turned PVC pipe into tunes, and Franklin used a combination of science and artistry to transform glass into music.
What next? "Tubular Waterfalls?"
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
But, contrary to belief, not everything I do is for profit, or if so, very indirectly.
You see, I place value of the general welfare of my fellow person. I contribute to charties, and donate things I no longer need that are in good repair, so that they can either be given to the poor, or sold, and the proceeds used to help them. I've gone so far as to donate running cars.
Yes, either I benefit, or my descendents will benefit, in some small way, from these acts, so a Randian might consider them quite rational. But, and this is the important thing, the general welfare of "clan Hollan" was not in my mind when I undertook these acts.
While it is all fine and good to be able to participate in a free market, we are not without compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves, whatever the reason. I, for example, had the good fortune to study a field (Computer Science) that has blossemed to fill an as unquenched thirst for skill in the market place. However, to argue that this was a calculated optimal decision on my part, as opposed to a calculated risk would be arrogance. In fact, I chose it becase I liked it and was good at it.
So, I can certainly empathize with those who's fortunes have not been as good as mine, though I do not feel a particular obligation to help the less fortunate.
Nevertheless, parting with that for which one feels no desire to exploit, so that the lives of others can be, in some small way, enriched, is no great misery, and in the minds of the recipients, might translate into the most wonderful gift of all.
You could've hired me.
With the virtual armonica on the website, you can pretty much reproduce every cheap sci-fi "ethereal space" them ever created.
;)
I expect the MPAA and RIAA would be pissed about that fact.
Funny to see this on slashdot, I'm about 1/3 the way through Carl Van Doren's biography on Franklin. Right away I see the correlations between the armonica and his experiments with electricity, namely rubbing spinning glass (Leyden) jars with cloth. This is really a fabulous book, btw. It's amazing how active his mind was, and how un-pretentious he was, even after achieving fame. The fact that he didn't patent his inventions is, really stunning, especially given his thrift. This was not a man who cared nothing for wealth. He was just incredible well-scrupled, and early on devised a very involved person code which he lived by very well (although as I said I'm only 1/3 through the book). If you want to read about a truly great thinker, check out more on Benny.
You drank my drink, you drunk!
An mp3 of the Adagio in C for Glass Armonica can be found here. It is apparently being played by Klingons... :^)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The armonica is still being made and played today- many modern artists make music with this instrument. Here's a few sound samples.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
I don't remember any Beethoven compositions for glass harmonica but am not at all sure there weren't any. Glass Harmonica was very popular for a while. More recently composers including possibly Stravinsky and Hindemith (from vague memory, don't hold me to that) have composed for it as well.
Charles Babbage never patented any of his inventions either. There's a short essay on it here.
The meaning of life is not to rack up as many points on some financial scorechart as possible. After all, why do you spend your life making money anyway? Just so you can spend it to be happy and secure, and to provide for your dependants. Yet I'm not approving Communism. Individual achievements must be recognized, how can we do this? Patents and fame. Unfortunately, fame often goes to the wrong people, so patents are necessary.
Instead of being happy little campers like Franklin who do things to help others, we rush after money and desperately try to hoard our own little pile of it. Why?
Because no matter what you've got, someone else will always try to take a piece of it. Whether it's the government with their taxes, or even 'competitors' who want to steal all of your business or your inventions.. someone wants to steal from you.
That's why we have patents. Patents go a long way to stopping others from stealing what took you so long to create.
Sure, patents aren't all that great, but for a capitalist nation to work without them, we'd need to become 100% Libertarian and idealistic, and that isn't going to happen. As soon as it does, some rotten apple will steal to increase his slice of the pie, and so it goes again.
So, that's how we life. We don't all just get our acre of land, stay self sufficient, and enjoy our days out in the sun.. Instead we slave away in offices, coming up with ideas, and trying to make a million dollars, so that we get a bigger share of the pie. It's not a great system, but what viable alternatives are there? Communism? Yeah, right.
mogorific carpentry experiments
There is an instrument used in Indian music called the "Jaltarang" which uses many similar porcelein cups filled with different levels of lukewarm water. The musical effect is really good.
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From the bottom of "Read more here": "Note: The objects pictured above are part of The Franklin Institute's protected collection of objects. The images are © The Franklin Institute. All rights are reserved." Franklin didn't patent his invention, but his heirs don't appear to share that sentiment.
I remember, between the nights of partying, strolling around one of the squares in New Orleans, and there's this street performer who played wine glasses he had setup on a table. I just stood there and enjoyed it for a while, such a pure sound. I'm sure others who have been there can give more details as I believe the guy is still there and has been for years.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Here in Waltham, Massachusetts, there's a glass harmonica manufacturer. There are also a number of people in the Boston area who play it.
If you ask google about "glass harmonica player" you'll get info on a lot of them.
You might also note that the Finkenbeiner page claims that their instruments contain no lead. However, this may not be the explanation for the apparent insanity of a lot of the early players. The few people I've know who play glass harmonica have all replied to this idea with the claim that you have to be crazy to take up the instrument in the first place.
It does have a rather marvelous "new age" sound. But probably the reason it never really caught on is that it has no attack at all, and can't really be played rapidly. It's ideal for slow, dreamy music; it's not so good for fast, bouncy music.
The modern instruments are better in this regard than Franklin's originals. You can get them with an electric motor with speed control, dampers, etc. This expands their sound quite a bit. But they are still a stubtle, ethereal instrument, with very little attack.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
"As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously."
They should make this the first line of The General Public License.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Money was so scarce that George Washington
had to pose separately for each dollar bill
That was nothing! The reason he wore wooden teeth was because his real ones got knocked out when they stamped his head to make all the quarters!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Inventors contemporary to Franklin may have had similar feelings about patents for a variety of reasons. First, the patent process that they knew of in England may have been unfair and/or corrupt (sound familiar?). From what I've heard, English IP laws of that era bore little resemblance to the IP law envisioned by the founders. They were more about aristocratic control. Many argue that our IP laws have been corrupted in a similar fashion; just substitute "aristocrats" with "corporations".
Secondly, it was easier to dismiss the value of IP in Franklin's time because mass production and interchangeable parts were not generally available. Post-revolution, Eli Whitney and others developed the mass production techniques. As the industrial revolution progressed, the quantity and quality of labor required to make physical copies of a device shrank dramaticly in proportion to the labor required to invent a device.
Thus, it seemed a folly to Franklin to patent his stove when the idea took 1 man-week to sketch, and perhaps 2 man-weeks *per unit* to produce.
On the other hand, Edison's lightbulb and the ribbon machines used to manufacture them took years to develop. Once this was done, each lightbulb took only a fraction of a second to produce. Therefore, it now makes perfect sense that the knowledge of how to make the bulbs is far more valuable than even a truckload of the bulbs themselves.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Good luck stealing from Benjamin Franklin. You can't steal an idea if the originator is giving it away for free.
Untrue. Just because someone doesn't have a patent doesn't mean they have put the idea in the public domain.
Someone else could have taken Ben's invention and really had a hit with it, and then THEY would have been remembered as the inventor.. even though they weren't!
Ben, and Richard Stallman, have relied on the fame of being the originators of what they have produced. They might not have got rich from their inventions (Stallman still being alive, and with a chance, of course) but they still got the credit.
If everyone gave their ideas away for free these days, they'd be stolen and exploited, and the inventors' names would quickly be forgotten.
mogorific carpentry experiments
There's a brief but well-informed reference to the glass harmonica in a short SF story by Bruce Sterling, We See Things Differently". Strange little story, about rock'n'roll and Islam, or something.
Here's the passage:
Boston played a glass harmonica: an instrument invented by the early American genius Benjamin Franklin. The harmonica was made of carefully tuned glass disks, rotating on a spindle, and played by streaking a wet fingertip across each moving edge.
It was the sound of pure crystal, seemingly sourceless, of tooth-aching purity.
The famous Western musician, Wolfgang Mozart, had composed for the Franklin harmonica in the days of its novelty. But legend said that its players went mad, their nerves shredded by its clarity of sound. It was a legend Boston was careful to exploit. He played the machine sparingly, with the air of a magician, of a Solomon unbottling demons. I was glad of his spare use, for its sound was so beautiful that it stung the brain.
I think Benjamin Franklin just had an inventive mind, and the excitement was in the creation, rather than the profit, or even the credit, although these are both possibly bonuses. And of course, now we're just talking about my opinions, which almost has to be the case, barring any psychological studies that I would have to look up and cite just to make any conclusive points.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security
I've written this before but it's worth repeating.
Intellectual property laws exist only because we have a slavery system. Our livelihood depends on working for others so we can pay our taxes. The reason that we have to work for others is that 99% of people have been deprived of an inheritance in the wealth of the land. Income property is owned by a few and the state. The others are slaves. Artists, programmers and inventors depend on their work to make a living. Can we blame them? We all depend on our labor because we are all slaves. So now we are swimming in a ocean of laws and rules that take away our remaining liberties, one by one.
Let's face it, if you cannot put a fence around it or put chains on it, it does not belong to you. Makes no difference whether it is ideas, writings, software, music or what have you. Once you've released it, like the air, it belongs to nobody and everybody.
Intellectual property owners (such as Microsoft, Adobe, the music industry, and yes, even that Segway inventor Karmen) will fight freedom with everything they've got. They have to because it's the system. Right now they have two formidable weapons: IP laws and powerful police states to enforce them. But those who yearn to be free also have a formidable weapon, the internet.
The internet and other communication technologies (e.g., file sharing systems) are the first major kinks in the armor of a sick system. As technology progresses, the system will eventually collapse. What will happen to a slave-based economy when robots and advanced artificial intelligences replace everybody, i. e., when human labor, knowledge and expertise become worthless?
And don't think for a minute this won't happen in your lifetime. The internet is the latest giant leap in human communication. Before that came mass telecommunication technologies and before that was the movable press. If history is any indication, we can expect a giant leap in technological progress and scientific knowledge. In fact, it is happening before our very eyes.
We should all demand a system where everybody is guaranteed income property, a piece of the pie, an estate if you will. There is plenty for everybody.
Communism confiscates all property and enslaves everybody. Capitalism gives property to a few and enslaves the rest. It's sad. The land should not be divided for a price. It should be an inheritance for us and our children and their children. It's the only way to guarantee freedom and a truly free market in a world where human labor is about to go the way of the dinosaurs.
If you don't own income property. You are a slave. If you have to work for someone else for a living, you are a slave. And don't think that just because you can quit and go to work for someone else, that this makes you free. It does not matter where you go or who you work for. Wherever you go, you are a slave. They know the fear of hunger will keep you working.
Demand liberty! Nothing less.
Ben Franklin, truly enough, didn't see the merit in patents, but this doesn't mean that we need to follow his logic. He was one of the founding fathers of America, but his beliefs are not canonical for the foundation of American Constitutional republic government.
Michael and other Libertarians can claim that because Franklin said it, it must somehow be true of the way this government "ought to work," but unfortunately there are no provisions in The Constitution or general law that make patents illegal. Therefore, people who claim this are necessarily taking a revisionist read of history (and a poor one at that).
One can ignore the facts all one wants, but patents are as real to America as apple pie and baseball.
There was a performance venue at the Fremont Fair in Seattle this year with a man that played one of these. It was beautifully played, with a haunting sound that made me think of bygone eras. At the end, the guy played a sort of tongue in cheek version of "Stairway to Heaven". I had no idea that this was invented by Benjamin Franklin until now.
You had me at "dicks fuck assholes".
I never even heard of an armonica before now. Can somebody please post a link to some MP3's, Vorbis or even some WMA files so I can hear for myself.
Even the names of Mozarts works written with the armonica in mind would be helpful.
>
Is it just me, or does the quote sound more like a BSD license model? There is clearly no mention of requiring others to give derivative work away for free.
Of course, ethical considerations suggest that they do that, but these do not need to be codified in the license. In that way, Franklin's appears to be more in the BSD direction.
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
Read Atlas Shrugged, and vote Libertarian. You'll be glad you did.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
--Franklin suffered severe nerve damage in his --hands playing this. Not according to the Franklin Museum here in Philadelphia which has a working armonica on display. It is played daily by staff who also give a detailed history of Franklin and the armonica. What they do state is consideratation was given to the lead based components used in early armonicas coming into contact with the players fingers (and possibly entering thus slowly poisoning the individual). Museum is located behind the Franklin Post Office (between 3rd and 4th streets on Market) and is downstairs. It is required viewing for everyone that has come to visit my family in Philadelphia. Especially if you can find the staff member that can play "America the Beautiful".
10 MD
A few years ago I came across a fellow named Harry Christian on the street in Haight Asbury, right across from the used book store.
Harry had about twenty glasses of various sizes, partially filled with water, sitting on a card table, along with copies of his new CD. I spent quite a bit of time talking to him - there are apparently about a dozen players worldwide that are active at the moment and he is the only one recording.
Sorry no web site that I can mention, but I did purchase his disk - shall I contact him and see if he wouldn't mind my putting up an MP3 of his stuff?
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
The inventor of the bicycle (a blacksmith who made one with iron wheels) refused to patent it, and seemed to have been pleased that other people copied (and later improved on) his design.
There was a story about him a month or so ago in The Georgia Straight a month, or so ago, but I don't have the time to hunt it down (got a class to get off to).
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Not in the direct sense, of course, but the issue is that Franklin did not exploit it via a patent, excluding others from making them. Taken in that light, Franklin was generous to "allow" others to benefit from his ideas, without having to pay tribute.
Of course, if you reject the legitimacy of state-enforced patent protection, then Franklin had no right to restrict production by others in the first place. Still, refusing to exploit a law for one's exclusive benefit, so that others might share in the wealth of one's ideas strikes me as generous, nevertheless.
The connection with charity is weak, but the common point is that not everything people with a capitalist mindset do is necessarily for their own benefit.
However, even though I have disagreed with you on some points, I must commend you on your charitable nature, you are truely a giving person and the world can always use more of that. Kudos to you my freind.
Gee, shucks. I am by no means a phlanthropist, and I do enjoy various luxeries in life (I live in a nice house, have decent A/V equipment, and like to eat and drink well), that many might find decadent. But, damn, I work hard to earn the money to pay for it all, and the funds I spend continue to make the wheels of the economy turn. I support charities to the extent that it doesn't cramp my lifestyle, and try to not indulge my vices too excessively. In other words, I am hardly a saint, looking out for the poor. I think I'm pretty much like most decent people, selfish in my desire of creature comforts, but not cruel to the point of depriving the unfortunate of things I no longer need or want, but that they might find useful.
One of the best ways to help others, I've found, is donation of outgrown children's clothes, toys, and furniture to organizations that can put them to good use.
You could've hired me.
The point I saw was that capitalists exploit social conventions to permit the leverage of their capital. Taking advantage of a patent system is one way of doing this, but, would not be something a libertarian would do -- not all capitalists are libertarians.
However, capitalists, whether libertarian or not, do not do everything with the thought of personal benefit in mind.
You could've hired me.
As far as I can tell, there's absolutely no glass armonicas or glass harmonicas that have ever sold on EBay. Some music has though.
What do these things cost?
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.