Does the European free reed really originate from Asia?
Jonas Braasch, Christian Ahrens · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2002
Free reeds can be found in European instruments like the accordion and reed organ. Christian Gottlob [Theophil] Kratzenstein was the first scientist in Europe to use a free reed when he built his speech-imitating machine, and it is believed throughout literature that he copied the mechanism of a free reed from the Asian mouth organ. However, after analyzing Kratzenstein’s original work (Tentamen Resolvendi Problema ab Akademia Scientiarum Imperiali Petropolitana ad Annum 1780 Publicae Propositum) it was rather concluded that his free-reed design was modified from a striking reed pipe of an organ because he recorded that he wanted to reduce the rattle of his speech-imitating machine by modifying the reed. Furthermore, he did not mention the mouth organ at all in his work. An additional evidence for this hypothesis is his detailed figures of his speech imitating machine. They show clearly that the only difference between his free reed and the striking reed pipe of an organ is the smaller size of the reed in order to fit through the shallot. In contrast, Asian free reeds are flat, have no tuning wire, and the reed and reed opening are made from the same piece of metal.