Part 23.  In The Beginning there was soot…

The History of the Phonograph. Chapter 1.

In 2008 something incredible happened in the history of sound.

It was rewritten.

Up until 2 years ago, it was common belief that Thomas Edison was the first person to record sound that was capable of play back.

That was until modern technology “caught up” to the world’s first sound recorder.

The Phonoautograph, you speak in that thingy there and turn that whatsit over there, and then call for help because you ruined it. -image courtesy of firstsounds.org-

In 1855 Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville ,a French printer and bookseller from Paris created the device he called the Phonoautograph. It Consisted of a mouthpiece horn and membrane that was attached to a stylus which recorded the fluctuations of sound on a rotating cylinder that was wrapped in smoke blackened paper. (phew that sentence was almost as long as Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville’s name!)

Unfortunately he wasn’t able to devise a way to play back the sound recorded, (which to my way of thinking is the equivalent of eating some funny mushrooms and then writing down the secret to the universe then afterward not being able to read what what you wrote.)
As a result the phonoautograph was manufactured and sold as a laboratory instrument for analyzing sound. (and the secret to the universe will stay in my 2nd drawer neatly folded until the chosen one with magical reading skills come along).

Just over 150 years later Scientists at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in California analyzed a cylinder that Martinville recorded back in 1860. Incredibly, they managing to playback a ten second recording of the French folksong Au Clair de la Lune.

To hear the earliest known recorded sound that was trapped in charcoal for 148 years watch the above youtube clip, or  click here. This is will take you to the home site of the firstsounds.org project.
NOTE: for those wondering. It categorically does not say “Help me! The evil Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville has trapped me in soot for nearly 150 years!”
Because that would just be silly.

Another Frenchman, scientist Charles Cros, conceptualised the phonograph, but was unable to create a working model.
By the time Cros’ theory was made public, Thomas Edison had created a working phonograph.
Thus both Edison and Charles Cross are recognized with independent discoveries of the phonograph. ( A good fact to remember for the pub trivia).

This phonograph was made a long time ago but photographed recently, we know this because it's in c-o-l-o-u-r!

In 1877 Thomas Edison was working on 2 other inventions, the telephone and the telegraph.
While trying to create a machine that would write telegraphic messages,  a “telegraph repeater,” which would “record Morse code signals by indenting dots and dashes on a paper tape,” , he noticed that the tape of  the machine gave off a noise similar to words. Speculating on this, Edison designed a device with the intention to be able to record a telephone message.

At first he used a stretched taught diaphragm attached to an embossing needle that was passed rapidly against paraffin paper, later he refined his design by swapping the paper for a tinfoil wrapped cylinder. It had 2 needles, 1 for writing on to the cylinder and 1 for playing it back, which was achieved by swapping the mouthpiece for a “reproducer” which had a more sensitive diaphragm.

Edison gave this design to his head lab mechanic, John Kreusi, legend has it that Kreusi built it in 30 hours!
On getting his hands on the machine, Edison tested it out immediately by reciting the nursery rhyme “mary had a little lamb”.
Despite expecting some success, he was amazed when the machine spoke his words back to him in a small tinny voice.

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Edison organized a presentation with his good friend, the editor of the Scientific America

Need less to say the folks witnessing were impressed, the following quote is from the same article as quoted above found in the Scientific American Nov.17, 1877.

My favorite of all the recordings can be found in the creative commons it’s of an after dinner Speech at the “Little Menlo” in London.
George Gouraud had come to London to demonstrate Edison’s “Perfected” Phonograph. Gouraud demonstrated the phonograph to various celebrities in a series of Phonograph Parties in the autumn of 1888 and made recordings of their reactions as messages for delivery to Thomas Edison. Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) was one of these guests, and it is his speech to Edison that appears here.

Transcription:

I just love the line that Edmund Yates has his lucid intervals..

You can listen for yourself by clicking on this link Arthur_Sullivan_-_wax_cylinder_recording

Edison may have been the bad boy of the inventer gang, but his 3 legged chair sucked.

Even though interest was great, it would be another 20 years before the world would really take to this world changing invention.

And it truly was, Edison had discovered the fundamental nature of sound.

Sound at it’s simplest description are fluctuations in air pressure.
The effect of vibration (waves) as they are reflected and captured by the minute diaphragm that vibrates in our ear in response.

This means that every sound has it’s own vibrational signature, by speaking into Edison’s Phonograph, the diaphragm vibrates in response to the vibrations of your voice, which is then embossed on the tin foil, playback was basically achieved by reversing the process.

This remains the fundamental method of all analog recording and playback we use today.
(which to me is the equivalant of eating normal mushrooms and writing down the secret to the universe and then everyone being able to read and understand it!)

What happens next? Does Edison’s Phonograph fall into the wrong hands? Does Edouard-of-the-long-french-name succeed in capturing anyone else using just tinfoil and a rubber band?

CLICK HERE FOR PART 24 THE NEXT EXCITING INSTALLMENT INTO THE HISTORY OF THE PHONOGRAPH.

CLICK HERE for the INDEX of History Of Electronic Music