The glasschord was invented circa 1785[2] by physicist[3] M. Beyer of Paris.[4][5] It creates sound by using cloth covered wooden hammers to strike glass tubes laid on a cloth strip, with no dampeners. The instrument has a range of three octaves, in various models from c' to c'', f' to f'', and g' to g''.[1] The instrument was largely inspired by the glass harmonica created by Benjamin Franklin,[6] and was given the name glasschord by him.[7] On 6 July 1785, Thomas Jefferson that Franklin carried a version of the instrument with him, describing it as a sticcado.[8]
Beyer originally presented the instrument on 19 January 1785, in a presentation at the French Academy of Sciences, while the instrument still was nameless,[9] with the instrument being publicised in the Journal de Paris multiple times through the same year.[10]
^Beyer, M. (1806). Notice sur le glace-chord de mon invention, et sur quelques autre instruments en verre, ainsi que sur divers objets de mécanique, que j'ai imaginé ou perfectionnés (in French). Paris. pp. 1–12.