The Pyrophone

The pyrophone or "flame organ" is a musical instrument "in which musical sounds are produced by the vibration of flames of hydrogen gas with glass or other tubes." It was invented in 1871 by Frederic Kastner, who was only nineteen at the time.

One of these would look way cooler than a piano in the living room.

More info: Nature's 1882 obit of Kastner, his 1875 patent for the pyrophone

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Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 01, 2021
Category: Music | Patents | Nineteenth Century

Comments

A performer today would really be heckled by smoke alarms.

Posted by Phred22 on 02/01/21 at 12:31 PM

Kids, this is what people did before mass media or the Internet: they played with fire.

I'm not impressed.

Posted by KDP on 02/01/21 at 12:37 PM

Reminds me of a clock I always wanted to build -- 16 glass tubes with balls of flames inside rising to form a dot-matrix display of the time. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford the number of large sheets of graph paper I needed to properly draw the design, and since my 'workshop' was my bedroom, building anything was out of the question. I've always wondered if it was possible.

Posted by Phideaux on 02/01/21 at 05:05 PM

This guy just happened to have a bunch of hydrogen lying around for 2 years? He would have to restrict the oxygen so the mix was lean; a hydrogen flame is invisible when there is a large excess of air. The tubes probably did that. The Utube video uses LPG.

Posted by Virtual in Carnate on 02/02/21 at 11:24 AM

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