Phonograph

Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING] [CLAPPING]

Magnificent.

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Drawing its name from the Greek terms phonê (“voice” or “sound”) and graphein (“to write”), the phonograph was the first device that could practically store and reproduce sound. Often referred to as the “speaking” or “talking machine,” it played what was known in the early days of the recording industry as cylinder records, as opposed to the disc records that would eventually become the norm. Despite its mass production coming to an end during the 1910s, its long-lasting influence is attested by the term phonography, which has now become a scholarly term for “sound recording.”

The invention of the phonograph was the logical outcome of a series of experiments and innovations in the field of communication that transformed the world during the 19th century. First came the electric telegraph that allowed, by the 1830s, the transmission of messages (albeit in a coded form) over long distances. Then, in March 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone, which made it possible to transmit the sound of voices over similar distances. Finally, by July of that same year, Thomas Alva Edison set himself to the task of finding a way to save telephone messages. He began sketching out ideas based on a rotating cylinder turned by a hand crank that was directly inspired by Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville's 1857 phonautograph. While de Martinville's apparatus relied on a pig bristle attached to a thin membrane to draw graphic records of sound waves on smoked paper covering the cylinder, Edison went one step further by considering sound reproduction from the outset.

Remembering the Morse code marks on the paper tapes that he used during his earlier experiments with the telegraph, he figured that if he opted for a steel stylus and replaced the smoked paper with a sheet of tinfoil, then sound waves might be stored as a series of indentations which might, in turn, move another stylus connected to another membrane that would convert them back into sound on playback. In the weeks that followed its demonstration at the beginning of December 1877, the phonograph aroused much interest. Still, it suffered many drawbacks that made it inadequate for commercial exploitation on an industrial scale, which is why, after a few months spent demonstrating it on both sides of the Atlantic, Edison turned his back on it to focus on more lucrative projects such as the incandescent light bulb.