Reed organ (harmonium)
Armonio
- Date
- 1780-1840 · confidence medium
- Place
- Paris, France
- Credited to
- Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein (precursor, 1780); Gabriel-Joseph Grenié (orgue expressif, 1810); Alexandre Debain (harmonium patent, 1840)
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Building on Kratzenstein's studies of the free reed and Grenié's 'orgue expressif', Alexandre Debain patented the harmonium in Paris in 1840, a wind keyboard instrument with free reeds driven by a pedal-operated bellows, popularized as a domestic and church instrument.
Credit for the instrument is disputed among several inventors (Kratzenstein, Grenié, Debain and others) who successively refined the free-reed mechanism over six decades.
What it led to
- spread of the instrument as a domestic and small-church organ
- development of variants such as the American melodeon
- influence on other free-reed instruments, such as the accordion