Hi, I'm Ben, and this page is for my musical accomplishments. You already know that I am recognized as an American statesman, printer, journalist, scientist, author, publisher, philanthropist, abolitionist, public servant, librarian, diplomat, inventor, philosopher, economist and thinker. I was also a musican & songwriter. Here's a brief history: The Musician & songwriter. 1713, I took money he had received for Christmas and bought a penny whistle. I was 7 years old at the time, and music would become one of my many lifelong interests; with typical eclecticism, I enjoyed opera and folk ballads, refined chamber music and not-so-refined drinking songs. I wrote songs myself, was the subject of songs, and invented a musical instrument he called the "glass armonica." My musical trail is pretty full. I was a musician myself, and music theorist, and philosopher. I wrote a lot about why opera, for example, doesn't connect with the common people. I was a firm believer in ballads and familiar tunes as the most moving sort of music. Wherever I went, in every phase of my life, I left evidence of doing music. My musical invention, the glass armonica, made use of a parlor trick: running a moistened finger around the lip of a wine glass to make it resonate. For my instrument, I attached a row of glass bowls of various sizes to a long crank and mounted the crank on a wooden stand. One played the instrument by turning the crank and touching fingers to the spinning bowls. I wrote in a letter to Italian scientist Giambatista Beccaria in 1762, "The advantage of this instrument is that its tones are incomparably sweet beyond those of any other." Mozart composed at least two pieces for it.There was a fad for this instrument in the courts of Europe, and Mozart jumped right on it.
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