View source for Pyrophone

{{Short description|Musical instrument}}
[[File:Pyrophone (2v).jpg|thumb|One of the pyrophones constructed by Kastner, as seen in 2013 in the [[Musée historique de Strasbourg]]]]
[[File:PSM V07 D463 The pyrophone.jpg|upright|thumb|Durant's diagram of the sound-creating [[gas burner]]s,<ref name="Dunant">{{cite wikisource |chapter=The Pyrophone |title=Popular Science Monthly |wslink=Popular Science Monthly/Volume 7/August 1875 |last=Dunant |first=Henri |authorlink=Henri Dunant |date=August 1875 |volume=7 |page=447}} Also published with a following discussion in (February 19, 1875). "Description of M. Kastner's New Musical Instrument, the Pyrophone", ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=W1omAQAAIAAJ&dq=pyrophone+Kastner&pg=PA294 Journal of the Society of Arts, Volume 23]'', p.293-7. The Society of Arts. {{pre-ISBN}}.</ref> the, "mechanisms that allowed two flames to unite or diverge to produce a musical note"<ref name="Wade">Wade, John (2016). ''The Ingenious Victorians: Weird and Wonderful Ideas from the Age of Innovation'', p.136. Pen and Sword. {{ISBN|9781473849044}}.</ref>]]
[[File:Frédéric-Kastner-2.jpg|thumb|Kastner]]

A '''pyrophone''', also known as a "fire/explosion organ" or "fire/explosion calliope" is a [[musical instrument]] in which [[note (music)|notes]] are sounded by [[explosion]]s, or similar forms of rapid [[combustion]], rapid heating, or the like, such as burners in [[cylinder|cylindrical]] [[glass tube]]s, creating light and sound. It was invented by physicist and musician '''Georges Frédéric Eugène Kastner''' (born 1852 in [[Strasbourg]], France – died 1882 in [[Bonn]], Germany), son of composer [[Jean-Georges Kastner]], around 1870.

==Design==
{{Quote|It is well known that if a flame of hydrogen gas be introduced within a glass or other tube, and if it be so placed as to be capable of vibrating, there is formed around this flame—that is to say, upon the whole of its enveloping surface—an atmosphere of hydrogen gas, which, in uniting with the oxygen in the air of the tube, burns in small portions, each composed of two parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen, the combustion of this mixture of gases producing a series of slight explosions or detonations.<br/>
If such a gaseous mixture, exploding in small portions at a time, be introduced at a point about one-third of the length of the tube from the bottom, and if the number of these detonations be equal to the number of vibrations necessary to produce a sound in the tube, all the acoustic conditions requisite to produce a musical tone are fulfilled.<br/>
This sound may be caused to cease either, first, by increasing or reducing the height of the flame, and consequently increasing or diminishing its enveloping surface, so as to make the number of detonations no longer correspond with the number of vibrations necessary to produce a musical sound in the tube, or, secondly, by placing the flame at such a height in the tube as to prevent the vibration of the enveloping film.|Kastner's patent<ref name="Wade"/>}}

==Related musical instruments==
The pyrophone is similar to the [[Calliope (music)|steam calliope]], but the difference is that in the calliope the combustion is external to the resonant cavity, whereas the pyrophone is an internal combustion instrument.  The difference initially seems insignificant, but external combustion is what gives the calliope its [[staccato]].  Operating under the constant pressures of an external combustion chamber, the calliope merely directs exhaust ([[Hornbostel–Sachs|HB# 421.22]]: internal [[fipple]] flutes).   By controlling the combustion specific to each resonant chamber, the pyrophone has, for better or worse, a greater range of variables in play when producing tones.  In a purely mechanical (non-[[electromagnet|solenoid]]) calliope, the resulting pressures of external combustion result in between {{Convert|1|and|5|lbf|0|spell=in}} of trigger pressure.  In a mechanical pyrophone, trigger weight per key is related to comparatively lower backpressure of combustible gas.  Again, the force of combustion happens in the resonance chamber; rather than controlling the exhaust of an explosion that has already happened in order to produce tones, the pyrophone controls the explosion to produce the tone.

==History==
[[File:Weissheimer an der Flammenorgel.jpg|thumb|The German composer [[Wendelin Weißheimer]] playing a pyrophone]]

Pyrophones originated in the 19th century. Byron Higgins, using hydrogen burning within the bottom of an open glass tube,<ref name="Nature">"[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v26/n665/abs/026304a0.html Frederic Kastner obituary]", ''Nature Volume 26'', 27 July 1882.</ref> first pointed out that if flame is placed in a glass tube sound may be produced in 1777 and in 1818 [[Michael Faraday]] attributed the tones to very rapid explosions.<ref>(November 4, 1882). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=N-48AQAAIAAJ&dq=pyrophone+Kastner&pg=PA5687 Scientific American: Supplement, Vol. 14, No. 357]'', p.5687. New York. {{pre-ISBN}}.</ref> Physicist [[John Tyndall]] demonstrated that flame(s) in a tube may be made to sound if they are placed close to one third the length of the tube, the explosion occurs at a rate which matches the [[fundamental frequency|fundamental]] or one of the [[harmonic series (music)|harmonic]]s of the tube, and the volume of the flame is not too great.<ref name="Dunant"/> [[E. Cobham Brewer|Brewer]], [[François-Napoléon-Marie Moigno|Moigno]], and de Parville describe Kastner as having invented the instrument about twenty years before 1890,<ref>{{Runeberg|filename=huru|htmlno=0102|name=Hvarför? och Huru? Nyckel till naturvetenskaperna {{bracket}}{{langx|sv|Why? and How?: Key to the natural sciences}}]|chapter=Pyrophone|author=[[E. Cobham Brewer]], [[François-Napoléon-Marie Moigno]], and [[Henri de Parville]]|year=1890}} {{pre-ISBN}}. Trans. from French {{in lang|sv}}</ref> and he filed a patent on Christmas Eve of 1874.<ref name="Wade"/><ref>G.E.F. Kastner, Improvement in Pyrophones, {{US Patent|164458}}, granted June 15, 1875</ref> [[Charles Gounod]] attempted to include the organ in his opera ''Jeanne d'Arc'' (1873) and the instrument was shown in the [[Exposition Universelle (1878)|Paris Exhibition]] (1878).<ref name="Nature"/> [[Henry Dunant]] was a proponent, and [[Wendelin Weißheimer]] composed ''Five Sacred Sonnets for Voice, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Pyrophone and Piano'' (1880).<ref name="Summer">Grunenberg, Christoph and Harris, Jonathan; eds. (2005). ''Summer of Love: Psychedelic Art, Social Crisis and Counterculture in the 1960s'', p.186. Liverpool University. {{ISBN|9780853239291}}.</ref>

==Fuel sources==
Pyrophones are usually powered by [[propane]], but [[gasoline]] powered mobile units have been built, to connect to automobile fuel intake manifolds and use the [[spark plug]]s and wiring, etc., to detonate one or more of the chambers. [[Hydrogen]] pyrophones are often made using upside-down glass [[test tube]]s as the [[combustion chamber]]s. Different colors were probably not achieved in Kastner's time, but would be possible with the addition of salts to the flames.<ref name="Summer"/>

==See also==
* [[Pulsation reactor]]
* [[Rijke tube]]
* [[Thermoacoustics]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Kastner, Georges Frédéric Eugène (1875/1876). {{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/lesflammeschant00librgoog |<!-- date scanned --> date=2008-01-14|title=''Les Flammes Chantantes''|publisher=E. Dentu, éditeur... [et] Eug. Lacroix, éditeur ... }}. 3rd edition. Paris: [[:fr:Édouard Dentu|E. Dentu]]. {{in lang|fr}} Publication date 1876

==External links==
===Audio===
* {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120131171921/http://www.liyanage.ch/lorraine/html/audio.html |date=31 January 2012 |title=Audio samples from Experiment1 Arts Collective}}

===Video===
* {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120131171921/http://www.liyanage.ch/lorraine/flv/promo.html |date=31 January 2012 |title=Pyrophone video from Experiment1 Arts Collective}}

===Cinema===
* {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120131171921/http://www.offthegridproductions.com/NothingLikeDreaming/pages/film/index.html |date=31 January 2012 |title=Movie "Nothing Like Dreaming" Directed by Nora Jacobson}}

{{Crystallophones}}
{{Experimental musical instruments}}
{{Traditional French musical instruments}}

[[Category:Aerophones]]
[[Category:Crystallophones]]
[[Category:Plasmaphones]]
[[Category:French musical instruments]]
[[Category:French inventions]]