The seraphine is an early keyed wind instrument, something of a cross between a

reed organ The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. T ...

and an

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

, being more similar to the former. It makes its sound via the action of air being blown across metallic reeds.

Bibliography

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"It has been of considerable interest to the writer to find that the immediate precursor of the harmonium, the seraphine or Royal Seraphine, as it was sometimes desceribed, patented in 1833 by John Green of Soho Square, London, was introduced into the island of Jersey early in the following year by Mr H. Hutton, a musical instrument dealer of Charles Street, St Helier. This fact is revealed in an advertisement appearing in the ''Chronique de Jersey'' of April 26, 1834, which state: ... / Further reference to the seraphine in Jersey occurs in ''The Jersey Argus'' of May 5, 1835, when Mr T. O. Lyte, cabinet maker and musical instrument dealer of 37 Hill Street, St Helier, advertised thus: ..." *
"SERAPHINE A reed organ (Also called the Royal Seraphine) invented by the Englishman John Green, a former traveling representative for the Clementi pianomaking firm. Green, who had a shop in Soho Square ... / The Seraphine is mentioned in patents taken out in 1839, 1846, 1850 (...), and 1852 (...). By this last date, the instrument had been superseded by the true harmonium. Later in England the term Seraphine was applied to any free-reed organ operating on the suction principle." *

External links

* *{{citation , title = Local History (Hammondsport & Steuben County) , url = http://www.glennhcurtissmuseum.org/museum/collections/local_history.html , archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110410112406/https://glennhcurtissmuseum.org/museum/collections/local_history.html , archive-date=2011-04-10 , location = Hammondsport, NY , website = Glenn H. Curtis Museum Keyboard instruments