The instrument’s popularity did not last far beyond the 18th century. Some claim this was due to strange rumors that using the instrument caused both musicians and their listeners to go mad. It is a matter of conjecture how pervasive that belief was; all the commonly cited examples of this rumor are German, if not confined to Vienna.

One example of fear from playing the glass harmonica was noted by a German musicologist Friedrich Rochlitz in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung:

“The harmonica excessively stimulates the nerves, plunges the player into a nagging depression and hence into a dark and melancholy mood that is apt method for slow self-annihilation. If you are suffering from any nervous disorder, you should not play it; if you are not yet ill you should not play it; if you are feeling melancholy you should not play it.”^[14]

The somewhat disorienting quality of the ethereal sound is due in part to the way that humans perceive and locate ranges of sounds. Above 4,000 Hertz we primarily use the volume of the sound to differentiate between each ear (left and right) and thus triangulate, or locate, the source. Below 1,000 Hertz we use the ‘phase differences’ of sound waves arriving at our ears to identify left and right for location. The predominant timbre of the armonica is in the range of 1,000–4,000 hertz, which coincides with the sound range where the brain is ‘not quite sure’ and thus we have difficulty locating it in space (where it comes from), and referencing the source of the sound (the materials and techniques used to produce it).^[18]

LISTEN XX:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Stars-GlassArmonica.ogg

It was a beautiful sunny autumn day in a glade surrounded by moderately high rusty coloured trees; in this dream that I just woke from, I was teaching myself how to levitate.

I have had many dreams about flying, but not one for a long while. 

My body recognizes the physics of it.  It feels slightly wobbly, the way magnets of the same polarity react against each other.  It requires a great amount of relaxed focus.  Try too hard and you fall.  No focus at all, nothing happens.

My body gradually goes from dense normality to a floating light-ness.  I do not feel as though I am exerting force, but instead that I am becoming less dense.  Eventually, I become light enough to be blown with the wind and react to the directional shears.

I practice raising myself into the air vertically, using the branches of the tree as a brace in case I become dense again and fall.  I do this a few times, and begin to flow with the gentle blowing winds, then allow myself to land again shortly after, before going a bit higher the next time.

To control the direction I move in, there seems to be a degree of magnetism involved.  I cannot explain this with any scientific reasoning, but it does resemble the idea of reversing the polarity of the body to match that of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Firstly, adjusting the polarity of the body on a gradient based on the degree of height desired.   Secondly, using the winds or adjusting the physics of the body to glide in a direction desired. 

With a great enough understanding of every molecule in ones body, a deep inner awareness and disciplined control of every cell and process — this seems to be the pathway to human flight.