Is the glass armonica actually dangerous?
Are glass instruments dangerous to the audience?
Currently, the main explanation for the many deaths linked to the glass armonica is mass hysteria. But I want to look into this more and figure out if it is a psychological issue or something different.
Living up to its present-day nickname, “the world’s deadliest instrument,” Franklin’s glass armonica allegedly began killing people. The complexity of the armonica overstimulated the brain, which ultimately caused dizziness, nervousness, hallucinations, and cramps amongst performers.
Sam McCormack, August 12, 2021
Another explanation for all the deaths linked to this instrument is that it was too complex for the time. Looking at the instruments in the 18th century, it was dominated by string instruments, woodwind and the harpsichord as this was when the baroque period ended and transitioned into the classical era. While weird instruments existed at the time, nothing had a similar sound to glass instruments. Nowadays with electronic instruments, our brains are used to weirder sounds, which would explain why nobody has died in the modern glass revival.
But this has little to no evidence and doesn’t make sense. If this was true then there would be more deaths linked to all kinds of new instruments, especially ones with weird sounds and effects but there are no links to people dying from listening to the first string instrument, or brass, woodwind, or synthesiser and not every guitar pedal out there. If it was the sound that killed the audience then it would have to be the resonance of the glass instruments. This opens a question, can resonance kill a person?
The only form of sound that could kill you is infrasound, which is any sound below 20Hz (a tuba can go to 29hz) which is imperceptible to humans. While instruments do not go to this frequency, infrasound can be heard in many sounds such as; motors moving, construction site noise, traffic and others which require physical objects to move. Infrasound has been proven to affect the body, for example; at Walt Disney, They slowed down a 60-cycle tone in a short cartoon to 12 Hz; they became sick for days afterwards. Along with this, long periods of time listening to an organ can cause sorrow, coldness, anxiety and shivers down the spine. The human eye has a resonance of around 19Hz (according to the Coventry Telegraph newspaper), but going down to 7Hz is our main brain and organ resonance. at a high enough volume, this infrasound can affect the central nervous system and with prolonged exposure, can kill the victim.
The first documented attempt to reproduce the infrasound effects was by Vladimir Gavreau in 1957. After he was requested to find a cure for “Sick Building Syndrome,” Where the staff at a research plant were falling ill. Looking into it, chemicals or diseases were not the cause but instead were caused by air conditioning fans generating infrasound. After this, Gavreau became fascinated by this topic and started researching and experimenting with infrasound. Eventually designing the “canon sonique” for the French military. When testing the prototype, one of the team members died instantly when “his internal organs mashed into an amorphous jelly by the vibrations.” Fortunately, they turned it off quickly. But even for this short period of use, others in nearby laboratories were sick for hours.
This is definite proof that at a certain volume and frequency, resonance can be lethal. While it’s hard for certain to pinpoint the glass armonicas killings to its resonance frequencies perfectly matching an audience member which killed them, there is a possibility it’s true. But there is not enough evidence or investigations into this claim to consider it a fact. This is just another theory I wanted to discuss as I find it extremely fascinating.
Are glass instruments dangerous to the performers?
The glass armonica was also renowned for killing its players. Far more glass players have died than audience members, and the reason is simple. Lead poisoning. When playing this instrument, you had to know which key is which. What they did, was line the bowls with lead which matched a keyboard layout. Unfortunately at the time, they didn’t know about lead poisoning, which turned all-glass performers insane before their deaths.
Modern players do not use lead, either using a different coat or using a rod to show each note.
But, despite lead poison being a major factor, most armonicas were painted on the inside and not the edge where you cannot touch it. For the deaths of players using an instrument like this, the best explanation is that they died of normal causes and the armonica had no hand in killing them. In conclusion, the modern theory for all these deaths is linked to lead poisoning, but mostly natural causes with the glass instruments they were playing contributing nothing towards this. While this answer isn’t particularly interesting, it’s important to remember that there’s not a conspiracy behind every tragic event, and sometimes it’s as simple as the easiest answer.