A musical instrument that produces sound by the virtue of air
flowing past a vibrating reed, is called a “free-reed” instrument.
The air pressure is generated either by breath or through the use
of bellows. The pump organ or harmonium is a free-reed musical
instrument built with bellows to pump the air into the reeds.
A professor of psychology at Copenhagen by the name of
Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein is credited for building the first
free-reed instrument in the Western world. This was in 1780.
Later, a harmonium like instrument called the “orgue expressif”
was demonstrated by Gabriel Joseph Grenié in 1810. However, it
was the French inventor Alexandre Debain who improved Grenié’s
design of the instrument and gave it the name ‘harmonium’ that
he patented in 1840. Strangely enough, a French mechanic who
immigrated to America during these years conceived the idea of
a similar instrument but based on suction of air through the
reeds. It is also interesting to note that an instrument called the
‘harmoniflute’ was designed between 1850-1860 in France that
had hand bellows, unlike previous models that had foot pedals for
the bellows.
Grenié’s Orgue Expressif
Victorian Pump Organ
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