Part 2.  The Barber Of Alexandria and the power of Air.

We had a bit of difficulty trying to decide just how far back to go..
Do we start our story with the invention of electricity?
Do we start our story with the invention of the first musical instrument?
And then during our research we decided to take a beginning cue from Dr. Kristine H. Burns who has a great guide called;

“HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC AND COMPUTER MUSIC INCLUDING AUTOMATIC INSTRUMENTS AND COMPOSITION MACHINES”

So Part 2 is all about the father of church organ!

We start our journey a little while ago – 270 B.C. In a barbers shop in Aspondia in Alexandra. In this barbers shop worked a son of a barber named Ktesilbios (Ctesibius or Tesibius).

Being a bright spark and barber himself, Ktesilbios created as the first of his many inventions, a counter-weighted mirror. This consisted of a hollow pole that had a mirror on one side and lead weight weighing the same as the mirror on the other, thus acting as a counter balance, enabling Ktesilbios to adjust it to the various heights of his customers.

The lead counterbalance was inside a tube, and Ktesilbios noticed that when he moved the weight the tube whistled as the air escaped the tube. Thus began his curiosity on the powers of air and musical instruments.

In another experiment of his he dropped a lead ball down a tube and noticed that the air escaped with a loud sound as the ball compressed the air. This made Ktesilbios realize that air must also be a substance.. .. Ktesilbios the barber became Ktesilbios the inventor.

He became known as the Father of pneumatics for being the first to write a treatises on the science of compressed air and it’s elasticity , including it’s uses in pumps and believe it or not a canon!

But his is not why we feature him in a our series, you can find out why in the next installment by clicking here for part 3

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CLICK HERE for the INDEX of The History Of Electronic Music