Frances Maciver
Media archaeology of the phonograph - the ideas behind the phonograph that remain relevant today.
Thesis: The invention of the phonograph occured when and where it did as a result of of the
social context of the late 1800s in North America and Western Europe. The ideas that influenced and were expressed in the creation of the phonograph are ones that are still used and are often
unresolved today.
Master of Heritage Studies: Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image University of Amsterdam
3rd September 2018
1st Reader : Bas Agterberg 2nd Reader : Giovanna Fossati
Contents Contents - 2
Introduction - 4
Chapter One - Pre-phonograph culture Introduction - 11
1.1 History of acoustics - 13
1.1.1. Acoustics in Europe and North America -13 1.1.2 Acoustics in China - 16
1.2 Putting the graph in phonograph - 18
1.2.1 Natural Alphabets - 22
1.3 Reproducing the voice - 23
1.3.1 Talking machines, automatons, and the euphonia - 23 1.3.2 Introducing the phonograph talking machine! - 24
1.4 Reproducing vibrations - 25
1.4.1 From the voice to the ear - 29
1.5 Introducing Noise to the Western World - 29 Chapter Two - the invention of the phonograph Introduction - 31
2.1 The availability of materials - 33 2.2 Serendipity - 33
2.3 Intent behind the invention of the phonograph - 36
2.3.2 Ethnography - 37
2.4 Social Uptake - delayed utilisation of the phonograph - 38
2.4.1 Music and the phonograph - 40
2.4.2 Development of a music industry - sheet music and travelling musicians - 41
Chapter Three - The luminescence of the phonograph Introduction - 44
3.1 Phonograph and Film 45
3.2 Modern ideas and contemporary ideas of the phonograph - 47 3.3 Phonograph and immortalising - 50
3.4 Spectograph and natural alphabet - 52
3.4.1 Natural Alphabet -52 3.4.2 Spectograph in the past - 53
3.4.2 Spectograph in modern times - Academia - 54
3.5 Decolonisation of the phonograph - 55
3.5.2 Engagement with oral traditions - 56
Conclusion - 58 Works Cited - 64
Introduction
The phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison in 1877. A mechanical instrument that records and plays back sound, recording was achieved by entering sound into a horn that concentrated it, causing vibrations to move a stylus that engraved the sound onto a rotating cylinder, or later, a disc (Almquist 3-4). The engraved cylinder from the phonograph was called a phonogram. The playback was essentially a reverse process of recording, with the engraved cylinder or disc moving the stylus, causing vibrations to move back up through the horn and emerge as sounds. Recordings were first reproduced on a cylinder formats. The original cylinders had a layer of tin foil that could be easily carved into with the stylus, but this material was easily damaged after only a few playbacks. This was later changed to a slightly more durable wax-coated cardboard cylinder, which was refined over time to the Edison Blue Amberol which, according to
phonograph specialist Roland Gelatt, had some of the highest quality sound reproduction from the early 1900s (Gelatt 166). The disc format came after the cylinder. While the cylinder had better sound fidelity and maintained a consistent speed, as opposed to the disc format that lost speed as the stylus made its way to the center, the disc format was more easily duplicated, easier to store and cheaper than the cylinder. After much effort from Edison to keep the cylinder format going he stopped its production in 1929, officially admitting defeat (Almquist 8–9).
Thomas Alva Edison was a famous and prolific scientist, inventor and businessman who is often credited with many significant inventions like the lightbulb. Often he was not the originator of these ideas but instead worked at improving existing machines and expanding their functions. He was born in 1847, in Ontario but would move around much of the United States working odd
jobs, until he ended up in Boston working as a telegrapher which had a significant impact on his eventual inventing (Beyer 119-120). By the end of his life, Edison accumulated 1093 US patents (Swanson 519). He achieved most of these inventions with his team of scientists at his industrial research and development lab at Menlo Park in New Jersey which is argued to be the first of its like in the world and is where he got his moniker The Wizard of Menlo Park (Hounshell 116). He also maintained these patents and accrued much of his wealth through extensive litigation. He got into patent wars with many of his contemporaries such as the Scottish Alexander Graham Bell and Emile Berliner who were originally from Scotland and Germany respectively but were later based in the USA. This often limited or eliminated his competitors, so much so that his lawyers laid the groundwork for how the patent lawyer is defined today (Swanson 537-547). Where his French contemporaries Charles Cros was a poet with seemingly boundless ideas for new and improved machines and Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville was a bookseller by day and scientist by evening, Edison was a businessman inventor who was an eternal pragmatist vowing to only pursue inventions that he saw as having a demand in the market (Beyer 120).
Along with his team of scientists in Menlo Park, which had only been established the previous year, Edison invented the phonograph when he was 31. His invention of the phonograph came out of his desire to improve upon the telegraph that he knew so well by trying to create a kind of ‘automated inscription service’ that out of the morse code would come a spoken message and save on the need for telegraph operators (Lacey 31). In order to create a kind of text-to-voice machine he needed to create a library of sounds. Morse code, which is used in telegraphy,
development process of this idea he realised that there are many different sounds that correspond to just one of the letters in the basic Latin alphabet, in English language alone. To recreate speech from a telegram into something recognisable was not possible at this time due to how complex this issue is (Feaster Perfectly Reproduced… 7). As a result he gave up on this idea of a talking telegraphy but through this process had found a way to capture and playback human speech and sound in what came to be dubbed the phonograph.
In the 1800s there were many different machines created and theorised with the intended aim of reproducing sound, recording sound, and playing back sound. Three that were created prior to the phonograph were Joseph Faber’s euphonia from 1845, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s
phonoautograph (1857) and Charles Cros’ paleophone (1877), mere months before Edison
conceptualised the phonograph. The euphonia focussed on reproducing sound through bellows that would direct air through the sophisticated mechanical tongue and mouth which was
manipulated through a keyboard, to then come out as human speech from a mask of a woman’s face, affixed to the structure (Lastra 25). Martinville’s phonoautograph placed an emphasis on recording sound. Sound filtered through a horn to a stylus which would vibrate in response to the sound and scratch onto smoke-blackened paper which was affixed to a rotating barrel and the now-etched paper was a phonoautogram (Lacey 53). The paleophone was theorised by Cros to inscribe in a similar way to Martinville’s invention except onto a lampblacked glass cylinder or disc, lampblacked meaning it had been lightly scorched so there was a light coating of soot to scratch into. This light engraving would be etched deeper with the glass then being submerged in
an acid bath. Unlike the phonoautogram the paleophone record was invented with playback in mind (Almquist 3).
After Edison’s tin-foil phonograph was invented there was gramophone in 1887 by Emil
Berliner and the graphophone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1886. By and large these machines functioned much as the phonograph did except Bell and Berliner’s machines used wax-coated discs and cylinders respectively and the engravings were made with the stylus moving laterally instead of the vertical movements of the phonograph (Newville 77). These names were more a matter of branding rather than being completely different apparatuses. Since their invention, both phonograph and gramophone became generically used terms for the machine in the USA, and in the UK and Commonwealth countries respectively, irrespective of the company that produced the specific machine (Gelatt 60). However, over time, the term phonograph has come to refer to cylinder-based machines, with gramophone generally referring to disc based machines. While people, academics included, conflate the terms across geographical rather than technical
boundaries, I will be using the term phonograph to refer specifically to Edison’s machine. A term that was historically used to describe a lot of the inventions mentioned above was a talking
machine, although only the euphonia was a talking machine in the strictest sense as it did
recreate the act of physiologically creating human speech. While a lot of the inventors of the other machines placed an emphasis on recording human speech, it would be more accurate to call them sound machines as they record any sound that finds its way into the horn, indiscriminately.
In this dissertation I will be using two main theories which are technological determinism, social determinism and media archaeology to create a media archaeology of the phonograph. In the course of my analysis of the phonograph I will in turn interrogate these theories in the ways in which they apply to this technology. Technological determinism posits that when a technology is invented, the impact of this technology and its subsequent use in society and culture is dictated by the technology itself and its very invention (Baú 245). According to this theory, technology has a revolutionary effect on a society rather than being a complementary tool for change that was already occurring. New technology is something that creates a need, rather than fulfilling an already existing one; upon the introduction of a new machine, a society reorganises itself around it. As Sally Wyatt points out, there are two parts to technological determinism. The first is that technological inventions occur in a vacuum, not being affected by any outside influences, such as society. The second part is that ‘technological change causes or determines social change’
(Wyatt 168). Not only this, but any technology irreversibly sets historical events into motion. Common applications of this theory are the printing press resulting in the reformation and the resulting industrial era. So ingrained is technological determinism that historical epochs are framed by the technology of the time, the stone age, bronze age and now the digital age (Saussy 83). Whether or not technology has had such a prominent effect on society without society having had any on technology, the idea of technological determinism has had a significant impact on society and how it views history: as that of a world before and after a new technology. In opposition to technological determinism is social determinism.
Social determinism is where social and political factors shape technology, and its use and implementation in a culture, rather than technology affecting society, with the technology reflexively determining how it will be used (Green xxiv). A simple definition of media archaeology is as a field of study in which to examine technology of the present and future through examination of technology from the past. Forgotten or abandoned technologies are particularly useful as they can often contain forgotten ideas that can be useful in better
understanding and examining current technologies that contain similar ideas, or in understanding ideas that have been preserved or have evolved, even if the earlier technology has not. In this field of study it is also important to use the examination of old technologies to debunk pervasive notions that can hinder our understanding of technology and how it came to be created. It is for this reason that the phonograph is the subject of this dissertation.
The invention of the phonograph occured when and where it did as a result of of the social context of the late 1800s in North America and Western Europe. The ideas that influenced and were expressed in the creation of the phonograph are ones that are still used and are often unresolved today.
I will examine this in three parts and mainly in the context of North America and Western Europe. So it is here that I acknowledge that there are these many often-neglected areas of study and geographies but that apart from this slight deviation to China my thesis must more or less remain in Europe and America during the late 1800s and early 1900s more or less in order to retain a focus on attending to the central thesis. In chapter one I will establish the social and
scientific environment in Europe and North America in pre-dating the phonograph. In chapter two I will investigate the reasons why the phonograph was invented when it was and why there was an almost two decade gap between its invention and use by wider society. In the third, and final, chapter I will examine the ongoing relevance of the ideas embodied by the phonograph.
Chapter One - pre-phonograph Introduction
The 19th century, which the phonograph was born into, is widely considered to be a time of great change. The 1800s seem to have set the tone for modernity in the workplace, science and
technology among others. According to Roe Smith and Marx, technological determinism requires one to start the story at the end of a machine’s invention, with it emerging fully formed, and ready to change a culture. The authors note that with a hard determinist point of view there is the world before the technology is invented and the world after the technology is invented, in which society has been irrevocably changed and events irreversibly set into motion (xi–xii). Technological determinism has been widely maligned by many media archaeologists in the last 15 years so as not to warrant its further discussion. This said, there are prominent writings on media archaeology that, intentionally or not, still have elements of technological determinism enter into their media histories of the phonograph. This is evident in the highly influential work of Friedrich Kittler, in particular Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, which specifically relates to the phonograph (although in this case Kittler chooses to use the term gramophone instead). The work revolves around these three media, as he sees technologies as being the sole force behind major social changes. In the case of the gramophone/phonograph, he sees this invention as having brought about a change in society’s relationship with and ideas about the voice. His theory is that the phonograph captured sound, but in particular the voice, and therefore no longer allowed it to disappear into memory. He claims that this made people less active listeners and
literary creators, as sound would not disappear forever, but could be captured instantly and replayed (79–80). 1
Academic Leila Green is a strong proponent of social determinism. In her book Communication,
Technology and Society, she demythologises great inventors and their ingenious inventions,
inventors who were put on that pedestal through technological deterministic thinking. Green rails against this crude narrativisation. ‘What is rarely included in these myths of scientific and
technological advancement is a sense of social environment in which the discoveries are made. It is as if the advances happen in a vacuum…’ (Green 2).She perceives technological determinism to be the old mode of thinking and social determinism to be the new mode of thinking (Green 2-3).
To interrogate the idea of technological determinism and the popular idea of the phonograph bringing about a great change in society’s relationship to sound I will look at key changes in technologies, science and society in the 19th century up to and around the invention of the phonograph. By doing this I will establish whether these changes helped to create the right environment for the phonograph to be invented. As I examine these scientific and social changes I will also examine if they came as a direct result of certain technologies existing or whether it was because of wider cultural, political and economic conditions.
1.1 History of acoustics
1.1.1. Acoustics in Europe and North America
Acoustics is the study of mechanical waves, that is waves that move through vibrating matter, in solids gases and liquids. A branch of physics, this field of study is most often related to sound and in particular music. The beginnings of acoustics as a field of study is often attributed to Pythagoras in
6 BC when he applied mathematics to music in order to determine what made certain sounds more pleasing resulting in what is now called a harmonic series. (Maor 19) Over time various scientists were able to describe sound vibrations as having a waveform and the early principles were applied in architectural acoustics as evinced in amphitheatres and places of worship throughout Europe. There was even more progress made in the 1700s with the application of modern calculus, giving way to even more complex understandings of sound (Cahan 261). Where modern acoustics is concerned there is an emphasis on the period during the 19th century. This is seen in Robert T. Beyer’s Sounds of Our Times: Two Hundred Years of Acoustics. Beyer makes the decision to cover developments and study from 1800 onwards in Europe and North America as Frederick Vinton Hunt’s seminal Origins in Acoustics that covers much of the period that came before. As well as this he cites this time as one of great upheaval with many old regimes of power being overthrown with the disintegration of feudalism, the American and French revolutions along with the Industrial Revolution which for the author is a significant historical break to start his history (Beyer 1). Building on scientific and mathematical studies in the previous century there was a general trend towards the study of the natural sciences, or physics, that grew in the 1800s. Physics is a science of quantifying natural phenomena. It is
significant that it was between the late 1700s to the early 1900s that this field of science took hold at this particular time in Europe and emerged as a major field by the end of the century. As pointed out by Iwan Morus, for the first time in the English language the very term physicist began to be used in the 1830s because now there was a need for such a word to distinguish the profession from the more generic terms like scientist or philosopher (Morus 5-6). In the wake of the great changes experienced at the end of the 1700s there was a greater desire for natural phenomena to be explained as well as the application of maths and science in a more material way. Industrialisation and the natural sciences worked hand-in-hand. There was a greater demand for newer and better inventions and by extension applied sciences like physics (Morus 89). Acoustics, being a branch of physics, benefitted from this demand with Beyer saying that ‘acoustics lives by its interaction with other sciences and engineering, as well as with society in general…’ (Beyer 2). With the sounds of progress growing since the turn of the 19th century there was a greater social need and desire to have control over the noise that came with
modernity. The moment that is most often given as a major defining point of modern acoustics is with the work of Lord Rayleigh later in the 19th century, particularly in his publication in 1877
The Theory of Sound.
In Lord Rayleigh’s book as the title suggests his focus is specifically on sound rather than any and all waves which acoustics could theoretically encompass. One of the main ideas that he covers is that sound as a phenomena works through vibrations and having a medium to carry those vibrations such as the earth’s atmosphere. (Rayleigh Vol. 1 vi, 1) Of course, a lot of this idea, along with others covered in this book, is not the first time that they’ve been studied. Lord
Rayleigh builds off the work of many other mathematicians and physicists for this book with the express aim of bringing the many theories on sound propagated during the 18th century and reaching a fever pitch in the 19th century. He even states that had Professor Donkin, a professor of astronomy who also wrote about sound and colleague of Rayleigh, not had an untimely passing he would have filled this need for a comprehensive work on the subject (Rayleigh, vol. 1 vi). Among some of the key influences were Leonhard Euler, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Jean Le Rond d’Alembert and the Bernoulli’s and in particular Hermann von Helmholtz, a significant influence on much of Rayleigh’s work on sound especially on the second volume of this work (Lindsay 17, Campbell 215, Rayleigh Vol 2. viii). However this is considered to be one of the first times that a writing of great breadth and depth had not been done before in regards to applying mathematics to sound rigorously within the field of acoustics. This indicates a fervent interest in this area throughout the scientific community that culminated at this time in this writing that defined the modern concept of acoustics of which much is still used and actively studied by acousticians to this day (Campbell 215). Scientific theories, just like technological innovation, are an accumulation of ideas which are then harnessed by someone with the right resources at the right time to bring them together into something that is later determined to be of historical significance or to be forgotten. As acknowledged by Rayleigh himself when he pointed out Donkin was on his way to writing something much like The Theory of Sound, the culture of ideas and accumulation of knowledge up to that point made such writing inevitable rather than the existence of a specific person, Rayleigh, making such a book inevitable (Rayleigh Vol 2. viii). This flies in the face of the great man theory, that also took hold in amongst the growing trend of inventing in the 19th century. (Morus 89)
The great man theory is when momentus historical change is attributed to a singular, brilliant-minded person, usually a man. In the context of this dissertation and technological determinism it comes to mean that there is a sole creator or inventor who had a significant historical impact with their ingenious inventions. Rather than being an intersection point of an accumulation of ideas throughout society and over time, it is often intertwined with technological determinism (Allen and Gomery 111–112). Edison is often conceived of as one of these great men and Rayleigh could be too with such a landmark publication. Rayleigh and Edison did make significant contributions to science as a whole, however as demonstrated above, there are many ideas and components behind theories as well as inventions and it would be an oversimplification to attribute all of modern acoustics to Rayleigh as it would be to attribute the whole idea of recording and playing back sound to Edison. An entire culture made these discoveries possible. It is for this reason that I will now take the time to examine the study of acoustics in another
culture which had quite different results.
1.1.2 Acoustics in China
In ancient China there was a great interest in the natural sciences and mathematics from many Chinese philosophers from this era. As described by Chen Cheng-Yih in his book about the exploration of natural sciences in ancient China he discusses how many acoustical phenomena were described and analysed. While this phenomena is not something that was described by Ancient Greek philosophers it was by Ancient Chinese philosophers. Resonance proved to be a source of interest in 19th century North America and Europe, particularly for German scientist
Helmholtz. (Vogel 281) The first known instance of this was described by Lŭ Jù in the Zhuāng
Zhĭ or The Book of Master Zhuāng written between 4th-2nd centuries BC, which is an essential
text for Daoism. The basic concept of resonance using Lŭ Jù’s example is when the jué note or the e string on one zither is plucked the e string on another zither vibrates. This is because these strings have ‘the same natural frequencies’ which are carried through the air from one object to another through ‘sympathetic vibrations’. (Chen 33) Chen goes on to show the influence of the concept of resonance in other ancient Chinese writings with others refining the technical language around this phenomena and also replicating and even debunking some of the other experiments and claims originally described by Lŭ Jù (Chen 34-35). This shows how an interest in a certain field can sometimes render different results in a different culture even on the same subject. There was an interest in acoustics in Ancient China, but expressed in a different way than in Ancient Greece. This is an indication of how culture can determine a different course for academic pursuit, thought and conceptions of sound overall.
In modern China, around the 19th century, there was a mixture of resistance and acceptance of European modes of science and mathematics through the push and pull created through war and colonialism with various European powers. According to Elman it was found that there was no precedent for calculus in Ancient Chinese philosophies as there were in European cultures which is interesting as the application of calculus was key to the 19th century European scientific theories on acoustics. (Elman 16) In Qing China there was more of a deference to Japanese scientific terms and most translated textbooks went through Japan before they came to China. After the initial resistance in Qing China to use European sciences as well as Chinese sciences,
the way it was introduced by Europeans meant that it was more difficult for Chinese to engage with the new European theories. Either by design or carelessness the various subcategories under physics like acoustics were introduced in textbooks as entirely separate subjects which limited Chinese engagement and application of these theories in their own way for most of the 19th century. (Elman 28-29) This shows that while change in society and therefore in academia and science can be slowed, change cannot be entirely stopped. It also shows that if certain scientific, social and cultural conditions do not exist even if the right physical materials are available there will be a different result of invention. Therefore the idea of modern acoustics in Europe came about due to specific cultural conditions that were not present in China at the same time. Just as there was a lot of cultural support for these particular ideas about physics, acoustics and shift in attitudes towards sound to occur in Europe, there was also a lot of similar groundwork made for the invention of the phonograph. One such popular element in the 1800s was the concept of graph theory.
1.2 Putting the graph in phonograph
The graph has become ubiquitous in the worlds of modern mathematics and science. So much so it seems strange that it was not so long ago that they did not exist as such. According to Biggs, Lloyd and Wilson in Graph Theory, 1736-1936 the first graph, as we know them today, was created in 1736 by Leonard Euler as part of a thought experiment involving crossing the seven bridges of Königsberg without ever having to double back over a bridge. Euler solved this puzzle by making a kind of graph over the top of the map of Königsberg. This was used as a tool in solving this banal conundrum as a mathematical problem. (Biggs, Lloyd and Wilson 1-2, 9)
Once again we see how a method, just like a new technology, did not come from nowhere but built on previous methods and study. The graph coming from the map is interesting as, just like the graph, it too is a representation of information from the natural world. A map can range from the traditional geographical kind to the ones of the human body, seen in such things as brain mapping. Just like a graphn a map summarises and describes information that normally would be too difficult to comprehend without focussing on representing specific data points in an overview of information. That said the map has a symbolic relationship with what it is representing. On the other hand graphs can have both symbolic, as seen in the example above, and an indexical
relationship to the natural world and the information it provides through the utilisation of recording instruments. (MacEachren 28, 194)
It was around the beginning of the 1800s that attitudes towards recording instruments changed in a way that they were more valued for their ability to collect data. (Hankins, Silverman 128) A recording instrument, a technological concept that had already existed long before the turn of the 19th century, refers to any instrument that responds to the certain phenomena it was made to measure. This can be a pressure gauge on a steam engine or even a phonoautograph as it
responds to sound. A graph can then be constructed from the data points collected from reading the instrument and then plotted onto a graph, or the machine may function in a way in which the information is already presented as a graph, like what is seen on a phonoautogram. This is data that often could not be collected through human observance alone. These machines collect data from nature that can then be analysed after the fact to reveal secrets of nature that would otherwise be obscured by omission in the human senses. ‘Automatic recording instruments
appeared in two renovated sciences at the beginning of the nineteenth century and, to a large extent, created them. These were acoustics and experimental psychology.’ (Hankins, Silverman 128) The way that this is phrased by the authors suggests a technological determinist point of view. This seems to be at odds with what the authors write before about the progression of the graph over the 18th century and into the 19th. That is how recording instruments that already existed before this time were starting to be used more and more. The increased interest at the time in the natural sciences along with the employment of graphs in this area of study seems to have created the environment in which a device that captures raw data as a direct response to natural events seems to have provided fertile ground for such machines to become a fixture in natural sciences. By extension these machines helped fields like acoustics to proliferate through providing the information that was unattainable without these recording machines. Recording instruments did not create these sciences but were a key part of their development much like the developments in mathematics and physics overall were. (Hiebert 169) The relationship is not an entirely causal one with the study of acoustics coming from the technology. Instead it has more of a symbiotic relationship. The introduction of technology, like recording instruments, does have an impact on society, but not as great an impact as such outside forces have on technology. Ultimately society has a more significant impact on the technology, and shapes potential for what kind of effect it can have. As Judy Wajcman, professor of sociology, says ‘Revolutions in technology do not create new societies, but they do change the terms in which social, political and economic relations are played out’ (Wajcman 113). According to most theories of
technological determinism, influence to a large degree can only be seen to flow one way, from technology to society. In reality society and technology change over time due to a complex and
constant exchange of influence with each other, as well as other forces such as politics and economic climate. Technological determinism is in essence a reductionist theory. It does not take into account the influence that flows between society and technologies, the influence, of which, has a more considerable impact on the evolution of technology; more so than technologies have on social and political evolution. Only through considering this multidirectional influence does it explain why there was a delay in the widespread use and popularity of recording instruments. If recording instruments really were the driving force in modernising and popularising acoustics, as Hankins and Silverman claim, then acoustics would have undergone this change sooner as the idea of recording instruments was not new with there being weather stations recording
meteorological happenings since the seventeenth century (128). As I outlined earlier in this chapter, modern acoustics was a product of the culture in Europe and North America in the 19th century. The popularity of acoustics and the natural sciences in general resulted in a need for different and better recording instruments to measure the minutia of the natural world. Therefore fields like acoustics were able to improve as a result of there being a wider range of more
accurate information to dissect. As these authors acknowledge themselves it was a combination of greater interest in the natural sciences and graph theory that illuminated new uses and
applications of recording instruments. This lead to new kinds of recording instruments being invented to measure different natural phenomena (Hankins and Silverman 128). Here there is a give and take between technology and culture as expressed through the prism of science. The idea of recording instrument having an indexical relationship with natural phenomena seems to have served as partial inspiration in the work of Scott and Edison.
1.2.1 Natural Alphabets
In the 19th century graphs were considered to be a language in their own right (Hankins and Silverman 128). The phonoautograph and phonograph can be said to have an indexical
relationship to sound because the markings that each respective technology makes are a direct response to the sound that has been input. Kate Lacey argues that the relationship is not always strictly indexical on a phonograph because it can read any indentations carved onto a cylinder, not just those that are ‘sounded out’. (Lacey 62) However a normal inscription on a phonogram is indexical to sound and it is this idea encapsulated in recording instruments that had a role in the invention of the phonograph and the phonoautograph. As said by Sterne ‘Scott sought to produce a “natural stenography” that would smash the distinction between orality and literacy because sound could literally write itself – hearing and speaking would become equivalent to reading and writing.’ (Sterne Audible Past 45) Upon inventing the phonoautograph, Scott
realised that while it had the potential to be used in analysis of sound, in particular timbre, it was simply too difficult to interpret a full sound by regarding or reading the recorded line (Hankins, Silverman 135). Similar to Scott’s pursuit of a natural alphabet, Edison was trying to develop a phonographic alphabet in the lead-up to his invention of the phonograph but with the opposite or perhaps complementary goal to Scott; the intention of eliminating the need for literacy when receiving a telegram and so that telegrams did not have to be interpreted by an operator. However, as I indicated in the introduction, Edison encountered a similar issue to Scott. The various aspects that constitute a sound, specifically human speech, were too numerous. (Feaster
Perfectly Reproduced… 7) The fact that any and all sounds can be represented in an inscription
but such a dream was not to be realised in Edison and Scott’s work although reproducing the voice was another matter.
1.3 Reproducing the voice
1.3.1 Talking machines, automatons, and the euphonia
Producing sound and, more specifically, the human voice, seemed to be largely understood as something that was only created by the human body up into the 19th century. There are many instances of various automatons like the euphonia being created to mimic the function of the human mouth and voice box, such as ones that played the flute (Sterne Machine to hear for them 276). These automatons were remarkable contraptions, marking early efforts in speech
reproduction. This shows a strong desire to reproduce human speech but being tackled from a different conception of sound to that which resulted in machines like the phonograph. Many inventions and experiments in reproducing and recording sound were based around this notion of speech being inextricably linked to the human body as it was generally thought that only through the physiological process of the diaphragm working in tandem with the voice box, mouth and tongue that human speech could be reproduced. The eerie contraption of the euphonia, described in the introduction, had all such elements with the bellows serving as the diaphragm, the keys as the voice box and the artificial tongue and mouth as more obvious stand-ins for a human tongue and mouth (Lastra 25). When operated successfully, this machine could be made to speak in full words and sentences, albeit in a monotone fashion. (Riskin 143) While recognisable human speech could be produced the idea of copying the physiological creation of the human voice had its limitations.Creating a machine around the idea of reproducing human speech-making could
only go as far as the euphonia did in creating a more faithful reproduction of the human voice. As Sterne says automatons, like the euphonia, were a representation of how sounds were modelled after the voice and how sound machines that used a membrane, like the phonograph, were modelled after the ear. (Sterne Machine to hear for them 272-273) According to Jessica Riskin these automatons recreating human speech reached the height of their popularity towards the end of the 18th century and euphonia, while being incredibly sophisticated, had a luke-warm public reception indicating how society along with sciences were moving away from such a conception of sound (Riskin 144). Both ideas are represented in the phonograph, the latter in its mechanism, the former in how it was first unveiled to audiences. Both ideas of vibration and the body are represented in the phonograph, the former in its construction and the latter in its
presentation and some initial understanding.
1.3.2 Introducing the phonograph talking machine!
Despite the fact that the phonograph recorded and played back all sounds and not just the human voice, it was presented as a talking machine. Placing human characteristics onto the phonograph as a “talking machine” seemed to ease its introduction to the public. ‘Before the 1890s it would have been inconceivable to hear music without seeing it in the process of being produced. One way of comprehending what happened with recording is to posit that the scopic drive was displaced from the body of the singer, the musician and the instrument onto a new physical object, the phonograph or gramophone itself’ (Laing 8). Other inventions, like the euphonia mentioned above along with other automatons, could more accurately be described as talking machines. This same public that had early access to demonstrations of the phonograph would
potentially have been previously or even simultaneously exposed to such machines. While such contraptions did not help the invention of the phonograph directly in terms of technological function, they do offer invaluable insight into how sound was perceived in the 1800s and is a physical expressions of these perceptions, and how this idea was capitalised on in the hopes of recreating the physiological functioning of human speech. That said, it was not a significant portion of the population that would have had such an experience to impact the reception of the phonograph. Instead it was the idea of the voice being linked to the body, represented in these automatons, that had existed for a while in North American and European culture, although this was changing.
1.4 Creating waveforms and reproducing vibrations
The studies of phenomena that had commonalities with the behaviour of sound, such as
electricity and waveforms, became more popular in the 19th century through areas of the applied sciences, such as acoustics. The application of ideas like waveforms helped separate the idea of the process of producing human speech and sound from the human body, animals and other objects that make them (Philips 11). Sound was now an object in its own right. Thus this shift in thought enabled the invention of the phonograph along with the phonoautograph and other sound machines. Martinville’s phonoautograph is one of the earliest known examples of a technology that utilised the idea of sound as a waveform (Gelatt 59). When discussing the invention of the phonograph by Edison, the phonoautograph is often mentioned as a harbinger to this technology. There does not seem to be any known causal link between the basis of, or even inspiration for Edison’s work from the work of de Martinville (Gelatt 59). Instead, what does link the two, and
what is arguably more interesting and significant, was the ideas about sound that these inventions both represented. They are a physical embodiment of the changes in attitude towards sound, at least in the academic arena. ‘Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville was the inventor of the idea of recording sounds from the air using a membrane. So the basic idea is that covers all
microphones, all sound recording devices that we have today.” (Giovannoni and Feaster). These inventions are linked in as much as they are physical embodiments of this gradual change in attitude towards approaching audio.
The phonograph, technologically speaking, was a departure from an effort to recreate human functions and recreate vibrations. The idea of sound existing as vibrations and wave forms and as an object rather than as an elusive, intangible voice resulted in more effective instruments that not only played-back or captured human speech, but all sound. In a Popular Science Monthly article written by Alfred M. Mayer in 1878, he determined that there were two main kinds of talking machine, each coming from a different starting point in sound reproduction.
‘Faber attacked the problem on its physiological side. Quite differently works Mr. Edison: he attacks the problem, not at the source of origin of the vibrations which make articulate speech, but, considering these vibrations as already made, it matters not how, he makes these vibrations impress themselves on a sheet of metallic foil, and then reproduces from these impressions the sonorous vibrations which made them…Faber solved the problem by reproducing the mechanical causes
of the vibrations making voice and speech; Edison solved it by obtaining the mechanical effects of these vibrations.’ (Mayer 719)
While the phonograph and euphonium have many differences and this is somewhat true, to say that there is such a clear distinction between these two machines conceptually, Faber coming at the problem from the body and Edison coming at the problem from sound as a vibration, is not entirely accurate. The body did play a part in the invention of the phonograph, it was just a different body part - the ear.
The implication in Mayer’s article is that there is a parting of ways in how sound is studied, approached and understood, however these ideas overlapped and intertwined with each other. This is seen in other experiments and inventions around sound capture and playback. One of the most obvious instances where the body is involved in the invention process was when body parts - human or other - were used in the creation of various sound machine prototypes. One instance of this was the ear phonautograph, created by Alexander Graham Bell and modelled after Scott’s phonoautograph. A distinct difference in Bell’s machine was that the bones that make up the cochlea found inside the human ear were taken from a cadaver and used to aid sound 2
inscription. (Sterne Machine to Hear for them 260) This was not the first time that Bell had used body parts to recreate the inventions of others; he used the larynx of his neighbour’s cat to make his own Euphonia. (Lastra 35) In Bell’s inventions and experimentation there is a crossover of two strong ideas about sound at the same time - sound existing as vibrations but also sound being
a physiological process inextricably linked to the human body; these ideas are also expressed in the phonograph.
The first phonograph prototypes were created mostly using parts from electrical telegraphs, however the phonograph itself was a purely mechanical instrument (Wurtzler 136). While not being an electrical instrument, the ideas behind the study of electricity could be said to have contributed to what ultimately made the phonograph’s invention possible. The first known published mention of using electricity in order to have long distance communication was in 1753 (Marland 17). The ideas being explored through the study of electricity, which have a
commonality with sound, were those of waveforms. As Jonanthan Sterne points out, waveforms or vibrations exist with or without humans, however, for particular vibrations that exist within human hearing range to be understood as sound, there needs to be human input. He states, ‘[A]s part of a larger physical phenomenon of vibration, sound is a product of the human senses and not a thing in the world apart from humans. Sound is a little piece of the vibrating world’
(Audible Past 11). However, largely up until this point of study, the understanding and therefore playback or re-creation of sound seems to have been approached from the view of this “little piece”, the human perception of sound. This kind of thinking is reflected in the other inventions that attempted to recreate sounds, and more specifically human sounds through recreating a human’s physiological process of creating sound.
1.4.1 From the voice to the ear
As Sterne argues in Machine to Hear for Them sounds machines, or as Sterne calls them diaphragm machines, like the phonoautograph indicates a change in approach towards
reproducing sound (Sterne 277). Where automatons sought to recreate the process of producing the human voice, sound machines recreated the process of hearing by reconstructing a diaphragm like the one found in the ear. There was a gradual shift towards diaphragm machines in response to the refinement of ontology - the study of the ear. This occurred with the influence of
Helmholtz and his study of acoustics, among others, along with the refinement of dissection as the ear is one of the more challenging body parts linked to the senses to dissect. This is due to parts of the ear like the cochlea being deep within the skull and entwined with hard bone (Sterne
Machine to Hear for Them 272-273). There was a way in which these two types of machines
came together as well in the form of Edison’s phonograph dolls which could state various phrases recorded onto a small phonographic mechanism inside the doll. (Read and Welch 55) Even as new ideas take prevalence it does not mean an immediate death of the one that held more popularity before. They overlap, inform and influence each other. Whereas this is an example of ideas towards sound changing expressed chiefly in the scientific culture of 19th century North America and Europe there was also such a change expressed in wider society.
1.1.2 Introducing Noise to the Western World
From the industrial era there was more noise as a result of loud machines and more people in closer spaces in bigger cities. The increased noise meant an increase in machines utilised and therefore a perceived march towards progress and therefore modernity. Later in the 19th century
control over noise and more specifically noise reduction in the personal space was a signifier of class and wealth. (Lacey 77) The more sophisticated the machinery or architectural acoustics, the more noise is controlled or contained but at a greater monetary cost. In this period society also expressed the desire of freedom from the constraints of the written word and the issue of
interpretation through reading. Machines like the phonograph and phonoautograph responded to such a desire for control and means of expression as these technologies offered the chance to capture and therefore control the previously intangible sound (Lacey 33, 78). At the same time as these machines were being invented and before them, the study of acoustics offered the chance to know and understand sound so that it could be better controlled.
The appeal of technological determinism is perhaps how it lends itself to narrativisation; a simple separation of incidences organised into a story, normally surrounding an object, event or person, which has a logical and consistent order, usually with causal links between points in the story. This is what is called narrative theory, which is defined by academic Leila Green as; ‘Readers bring to an event or experience a sense of before and after required to understand the story or myth’ (Green, xxii). This makes for a clear but ultimately misleading story, as moments in time are forced into narrative causality. Paddy Scannel writes that this example shows ‘a common sense view’, with a narrative structure being an easy and familiar way to understand significant world changes; however, ultimately this theory ignores the social changes that foster historical shifts (140). Edison is often framed in this manner but in reality was working in a context that made the invention of the phonograph possible.
Chapter Two - the invention of the phonograph Introduction
‘At the opening of the box, I found in it a sort of metal thing almost resembling our clocks, full of an infinite number of small springs and imperceptible machines. It truly is a book, but it is a miraculous book which has neither leaflets nor
characters; finally, it is a book where, to learn, the eyes are useless; we only need ears. When someone so wishes to read, he strips, with a large quantity of all kinds of keys, this machine, then he turns the needle on the chapter he wants to listen to, and at the same time he comes out of this nut as the mouth of a man, or of a musical instrument, all the distinct and different sounds which serve, between the great lunar ones, to the expression of language.’ (Cyrano 97) 3
In 1650 French writer Cyrano de Bergerac was writing in Histoire comique des États et Empires
de la Lune about a kind of audio book that he observes the population on the moon using. An
early example of the concept of speech being captured by a machine and played back over two centuries before it was fully achieved in Edison’s phonograph, this shows how an inventive idea can be had but not made a reality. In this chapter I will be looking more specifically at why this invention was made when and where it was. Ultimately, the view I am taking is that of the
3 As translated by Frances Maciver; ‘À l’ouverture de la boîte, je trouvai dedans un je ne sais quoi de
métal quasi tout semblable à nos horloges, plein d’un nombre infini de petits ressorts et de machines imperceptibles. C’est un livre à la vérité, mais c’est un livre miraculeux qui n’a ni feuillets ni caractères ; enfin c’est un livre où, pour apprendre, les yeux sont inutiles ; on n’a besoin que d’oreilles. Quand
symptomatic view. The symptomatic view as defined by Paddy Scannell ‘regards technological
innovation as the product of already existing processes’ (140). To establish this I will be using Brian Winston’s theory on the requirements for an invention to come into fruition and become successful.
Brian Winston, a media scholar, has written at length about the invention of media technology is concerned. His stance is that when such a technology is created, its advancement is subdued by existing social structures, ideas and institutions. He sums up his theory as “the suppression of radical potential”;
‘New technologies are constrained and different only insofar as their potential for radical disruption is contained or suppressed. That is the brake. The technologies are made to ‘fit’ into society by this last transformation.’ (Winston Technologies of Seeing 7) According to Winston’s theory, inventions are can be made when there are three key factors at play: the technology necessary to create the invention being available; the desire of an inventor to create them; and for social demand for applications of this technology in day-to-day life, which also ultimately shapes the eventual use of the invention (Winston Technologies of Seeing 3-6). By covering these three aspects I will show why Edison made the first prototype for the phonograph and explain the gap between phonograph being invented in 1887 and it finally being used by wider society around mid 1895, almost 20 years later.
2.1 The availability of materials
A simple and, perhaps, obvious truth is that In order to create a technology the materials required to make it must exist. The mechanisms required to create the phonograph are considered to be relatively simple and were available several decades, if not centuries, prior to its invention (Kahn 83). The initial prototypes were created using parts from electrical telegraphs, and other
additions, such as tin foil as the recording medium. By the time the phonograph had been invented both tin foil and telegraphy had been commercially available for about 40 years.
Michael Chanan addresses this further, showing that other parts of the phonograph can be traced back to Leonardo da Vinci and even further with the speaking trumpet, and that the ‘stylus had been in use since ancient times’ (2). This raises the question as to why the phonograph had not been created earlier than 1877, when the materials that comprise the phonograph had already existed for so long.
2.2 Serendipity
The most notable distinction between the phonograph and the phonoautograph is that the phonoautograph does not inherently afford playback. Many things could be attributed to this difference in functionality. It was only because of the recent work of Giovannoni and Feaster that we are now able to hear the earliest-known recorded sounds. At the time of the phonoautograph’s invention, to play sound playback was not even a goal, let alone considered as a possibility by Scott (Sterne Audible Past 45). It was the gap in time between Scott and Edison’s respective inventions which made the difference that meant that Edison ended up with the phonograph
instead of the phonoautograph; over time some different ideas had come forward made for a different cultural context.
As shown in the previous chapter in the 1800s there was a considerable interest in graphs as visual representations of happenings in nature that were difficult to quantify. Hankins and Silverman point out that graphs made a strong appearance beginning in the final quarter of the 1700s, and that this corresponded with ‘the new enthusiasms for quantitative measure and universal language schemes’ (118). The phonoautograph was an instrument that instantaneously created a visual representation of sound. This machine serves as a technological representation for this particular fixation on capturing and quantifying the natural world at the time. In contrast, Edison’s invention used the inscriptions on the phonograph to play sound back, rather than to be analysed off the cylinder. ‘To this extent, the phonograph was just a material incarnation of a more widespread desire during this period to transcend the limitations of print and to make the experience of reading more immediate, primarily by attempts to capture, graphically and stylistically, the characteristics of an individual’s speech (Camlot 2003: 148-9), to recognize reading, in other words, as a form of mediated listening.’ (Lacey 33) The materials, the ideas and the cultural groundwork was there to support the invention of the phonograph.
Another indication that the invention of the phonograph-type machine was almost inevitable at this time due to a culmination in ideas rather than it being up to individual inventor’s inspiration was the paleophone. The paleophone, meaning ancient sound, was invented by French poet Charles Cros and was in fact a phonograph conceptualised slightly earlier in 1877 than Edison’s
invention. (Harrison and Schuursma, 9) This version used some slightly different execution but used ostensibly the same principle of function, engraving sound vibrations onto a disc or cylinder with a stylus to be read back with the stylus and the sound finally emitting from a horn. There is no indication that Edison took his ideas or inspiration from Cros. In fact Cros did not have the money to create a prototype and his design remained in a sealed envelope with the French Academy of Sciences until after the phonograph was announced. (Almquist 3) According to William F. Ogburn and Dorothy Thomas this phenomenon of serendipity, two very similar inventions or scientific discoveries being made unknowingly at the same time as each other, is common. Other cases of this occuring are Newton and Leibnitz both inventing calculus theory, Wallace and Darwin developing natural selection independently as well as both Langley and Wright inventing the airplane (Ogburn and Thomas 83). Mental ability of the inventors is given as a necessary prerequisite so that there are enough people capable of creating an invention at any one time and the second prerequisite for serendipity, and the most relevant to this discussion, is having the right cultural preparation. As covered in the the previous chapter, attitudes in science and society changed in a way that would support the development of phonographs and paleophones; the cultural preparation was there. The authors note that after the invention of the telegraph many other kinds of electrical machines were made straight after. ‘...the fact that most of the major electrical inventions were made by two or more inventors leads one to think that electrical development was more dependent on cultural preparation than on genius’ (Ogburn and Thomas 88). Of course, these inventions were not electrical, they were entirely mechanical. However as I showed in the previous chapter the study of electricity had a significant influence on the concepts about sound that made these machines possible. Also, that Edison made the
phonograph with the telegraph as his starting point; for Cros, he worked off the model of the phonoautograph. These two inventors inventing the same machine almost simultaneously speaks to the strength and ubiquitousness of the certain ideas about sound that these machines embody. This once again takes away from the notion of the idea that the phonograph could have only been invented by a great man. Instead it shows that the ideas and resources themselves are more necessary and that it needs just one person to realise these ideas but it can be any person primed with the knowledge to conceptualise the invention and in this case it was two.
2.3 Intent behind the invention of the phonograph
2.3.1 Telegraphy
Edison’s work was inspired by telegraphy. ‘In fact it was the desire for a more accessible voice telegraphy that inspired the invention of the telephone, and the search for an automated
transcription service for the telegraph that inspired the phonograph.’ (Lacey 31) The rise in interest in the study of sound through waveforms and study of language, as discussed in Chapter One, through more comprehensive, academically constructed alphabets can be seen to have had an effect on telegraphy and by extension the phonograph. Edison recognised that there were many uses for the phonograph but still he limited these with his vision for what the phonograph could or should be used for. He explicitly states these in a list within an article in The North
American Review announcing the phonograph officially to the world. (Edison 531-536) This list
mostly pertains to its use in a professional setting, that of academia, like ethnography, and in the office. This specific use is exemplified in the establishment of the first audiovisual archives,
which were specifically associated with ethnology and linguistics, and were created specifically for the care of such recordings.
2.3.2 Ethnography
Despite the languishing of the phonograph after the initial fervour when it was first presented to the world there was one sector that appeared to maintain interest in the phonograph -
ethnologists. ‘The great advantage of social scientists interested in language was the
technological ability to reproduce the glossolalia erased in written transcriptions.’ (Lacey 58) Of course, the tin foil model of the phonograph was not durable and could barely survive even one playback. It was reported that German explorer Eugen Zintgraff tried to adapt it to use while exploring Africa (Feaster Origins of Ethnographic Sound Recording... 3). This was why it was not taken up straight away by ethnologists, one of the same reasons as the general public not using it for musical recordings in a widespread manner. However, there was a sustained interest in its application to the field of ethnography with Mary Hemenway, philanthropist and sponsor of the Hemenway Southwestern Archaeological Expedition, investing in shares for Edison’s phonograph in 1888 and perhaps being the ‘person responsible for initiating the first
unambiguously ethnographic sound recording’ (Feaster Origins of Ethnographic Sound
Recording... 3). Despite this early ongoing interest in the tin-foil phonograph, due to its
technological limitations it was not used by ethnographers until the wax cylinder model was developed. This is why the phonograph was not adopted by ethnographers until the 1890s. Before this there were some experiments using the tin-foil phonograph in the field but were not being applied to a full study or expedition in a formal ethnographic study (Brady 25). Even
though the demand came from ethnographers to improve the instrument so they could use it, that alone was perhaps not a significant amount of demand to satisfy Edison that it was a sound investment to keep putting development into. This is perhaps for Edison’s guiding principle mentioned in the introduction - to only develop inventions that he saw a demand in the market for. ((Beyer 120)
To Edison the phonograph was a talking machine, not a musical instrument. If Edison had his way, the phonoautograph would have been used for office dictation and would not have gained popularity, as it did with musical recordings (Gelatt 45). Not only was Edison not interested in the phonograph as a new medium for music distribution other than sheet music, once again the tin-foil phonograph could not accommodate multiple replays. As the phonograph was not ready to meet the needs of the public, they then largely abandoned the phonograph after the initial fanfare, and Edison abandoned developing it further. His interest was only revived when Berliner invented the gramophone, which was being used and marketed as a musical instrument. At this point Edison did the same after Berliner’s success using this tactic. (Gelatt 63; Laing 5) Rather than society being unprepared for or ultimately being changed by the phonograph, it was the phonograph that had to be changed and improved upon in order to be accepted by society.
2.4 Social Uptake - delayed utilisation of the phonograph
If one were to hold the technological determinist view, it could seem like society is assailed with technology and that upon its presentation to the public it is going to be accepted and will change society forever. This theory also implies that it is ‘the technologist/inventor [who] decides and
creates how a technology develops’ (Winston Technologies of Seeing 1–2). By this logic it is therefore the technologists and inventors who wield power over world change, intentionally or not. However, just because the inventor sees a use for a certain technology does not mean that the public will make use of this technology in the way its inventor applies it, and the phonograph is a testament to this (Winston Technologies of Seeing 5). Also, just because something is
invented, doesn’t mean that it will be put into use by wider society as soon as it is invented, if at all (Zielinski iv). I would argue that this is the case for the phonograph. Until society saw a use for it, this innovation did not have a role to fulfil within wider society beyond novelty, and was not what changed the public’s relationship to sound.
The delay in the phonograph being integrated into and used by the wider society is more akin to Winston’s assertion that a technology can often have an extended incubation between it first being invented and it finally being accepted and utilised broadly. ‘They languish, as it were, in the prototype phase, conceived and produced because the technologists as a social being, sees a possibility of a use but the rest of society does not.’ (Winston Technologies of Seeing 5) In the case of the phonograph, wider society was not shown the use they most wanted - the recording and dissemination of music. In Edison’s aforementioned list of uses for the phonograph, he did entertain the notion of using the phonograph to record music but this was framed as being limited to the context of the home (Edison 533). It could be speculated that had Edison been more
inclined towards using the phonograph as a musical instrument, there may have been a more sustained social interest and therefore more impetus to develop it, perhaps creating a better sound recording and playback device for music earlier. (Winston Technologies of Seeing 7) This
supports Winston’s ideas that a technology can already be invented, but until it is taken up by society its development will be stymied. The technology needs to exist in the first place to be used, but the desire to use it must also exist.
To further explain the delay between invention and uptake was the initial quality of the
instrument. The invention and delayed proliferation of the phonograph illustrates the need for a wider social demand for an invention in order for it to succeed on a larger scale. While it was wildly popular at its initial presentations as an instrument for mimicry, not just of the human voice but of all sounds, this popularity was not sustained due to Edison’s presentation of the machine’s functionality for serious office use. ‘He [Edison] could not or would not countenance the potentialities of the phonograph as a medium of entertainment. He insisted that it was not a toy. He resented its use for amusement, and for years he deliberately discouraged the
development of the phonograph as a musical instrument.’ (Gelatt 44) As well as this, the phonograph was not developed with this kind of use in mind, so even if people wanted musical recordings, they would be incredibly short at originally only two minutes long, and could only capture a narrow range of tone (Lacey 31). Because Edison had such a staunch
anti-entertainment stance with his invention, this likely dampened the excitement and therefore development in these areas that would later prove the making of the phonograph.
2.4.1 Music and the phonograph
One of the most extensive and seminal texts on the phonograph is Roland Gelatt’s Fabulous
music claims that the narrow range of tone that could be captured lead to the favouring of genres like jazz which inherently had timbres suitable to be recorded by the phonograph. Due to the size and capabilities of the cylinder its original running time was two minutes which was later pushed out to three, then four minute durations. Voices and instruments that had a certain timbre such as brass instruments were more popular with these recordings as the contraption recorded these more faithfully. (Gelatt 46-48) It is in these discussions around the phonograph and music that one could lean towards a technological determinist viewpoint.
While the limitations of the phonograph, such as the range of tone and recording time of the cylinder placed restrictions on the music, the music was then adapted to suit the recording medium better, which in turn affected how the music was played live. However, the phonograph itself did not result in a new style of music overall. (Hennessey 32-33) This highlights the
importance of this technology and shows that it was not without its impact, but even in recording music, it did not drive the social change in music; it was a tool used in this change.
2.4.2 Development of a music industry - sheet music to phonographs
A misconception about the music industry is that it began with the advent of recorded sound and therefore the phonograph, however the music industry existed before the phonograph did
(Tshmuck 9). Previous to the phonograph the music industry largely consisted of a mix of music publishing and concert promotion. One major difference prior to the phonograph was the
medium of music publishing being sheet music rather than records or phonograms and was aligned with advancements in the general publishing industry. While the publishing of sheet
