Phonograph record

“ One must have, indeed, a regular phonograph voice in order to make a good record. Some people can sing well into a phonograph who could not get up before an audience to save their lives; and again, as I have said, some people can sing before persons, but they can not perform before a phonograph. ”

“ The next step in the line of development was to form the necessary undulations on the strip, and it was then reasoned that original sounds themselves might be utilized to form a graphic record by actuating a diaphragm and causing a cutting or indenting point carried thereby to vibrate in contact with a moving surface, so as to cut or indent the record therein. Strange as it may seem, therefore, and contrary to the general belief, the phonograph was developed backward, the production of the sounds being of prior development to the idea of actually recording them. ”

“ The next step, after making the negative band, is to form a positive or finished series of reproductions from the negative, which is passed through a machine for the purpose, in conjunction with a blank strip of film, which, after development and general treatment, is replaced in the kinetoscope or phono-kinetoscope, as the case may be. When a phonograph record has been taken simultaneously with such a strip, the two are started together by the use of a simple but effective device, and kept so all through, the phonographic record being in perfect accord with the strip. ”

“ I asked, remembering our use of that instrument in other cases.
"It would record," he replied, "but I want a phonograph record. Nothing else will do in this case. You'll see why, before I get through. Besides, this apparatus isn't complicated. ”

“ We composers of America take the other view. We are very anxious as to who makes the laws of this land. We are in a very bad way. I think when the old copyright law was made, the various perforated rolls and phonograph records were not known, and there was no provision made to protect us in that direction. Since then, the talking machines have come out, and the claim is made that the record of sound is not a notation.
There are three ways for the composer to make a living by his music: By sight or by sound or by touch. ”

“ When we come to phonograph records, however, we encounter something different. So far as these are purely musical, what has been said of the music rolls applies to them also, but many of them are vocal, and the words are often far below library stand{338}ard. When a record is rejected for its words, the music, of course, must go with it, although as music it may be quite unexceptionable.
The location of the music collection is affected by the purpose for which it is maintained. A collection for scholars alone should certainly be in a separate room, with an expert custodian. ”

“ Therefore one grows after a while to long for a few of those deviations from mathematical precision [208] which imply human frailty and lovableness. One reason why the future is veiled from us is that it is so painful to be certain that one's every prediction is coming true.
A worse trouble with the phonograph is that it seems to leave out of account that essential part of every true musical performance, the creative listener. A great many phonograph records sound as though the recorder had been performing to an audience no more spiritually resonant than the four walls of a factory. ”

“ Shall a visitor have to be careful what he says in a neighbour's house, in case his words are stored up in some concealed phonograph, just as his appearance may be registered by a detective camera? In ordinary life—no; for the phonograph has its limitations, like every other machine, and it is not sufficiently sensitive to record a conversation unless it is spoken close at hand. ”

“ The Phonograph cylinder E, was rotated while words and sounds were shouted to the support to which the water jet was attached, and a record that was quite visible to the unaided eye was the result.
The tape recorder, an unusual instrument which recorded mechanically on a 3⁄16-inch strip of wax-covered paper, is one of the machines described and illustrated in U. S. patent 341214, dated May 4, 1886 (see fig. 4) . ”

“ In this manner a phonogram is produced on the wax cylinder in the house or office of the person addressed, and it may be read off at leisure. A very sensitive transmitter is employed, and if desired the apparatus can be so arranged that by means of a double-channel tube the words spoken are simultaneously conveyed to the telephone and to an ordinary phonograph, which insures that a record shall be kept of any message sent. ”

“ Even phonetic writing, so called, is not sound record but a record of sounds translated into gestures; writing is a gesture sign which stands for a sound, not a record of sound. It is only within our own generation that, through the invention of the phonograph, oral or other sound utterance has been recorded in permanent material and libraries of sound records made possible.
The written recording of even signs for sounds did, however, in the evolution of record keeping mark a very decided advance over all previous methods. ”

“ On an upright near the cylinder is mounted a sort of drum. The membrane of the drum carries a needle, which, when the membrane is agitated by the air-waves set up by human speech, digs into a sheet of tinfoil wrapped round the cylinder, pressing it into a helical groove turned on the cylinder from end to end. This construction is the first phonograph ever made. Thomas Edison, the "wizard of the West," devised it in 1876; and from this rude parent have descended [Pg 311] the beautiful machines which record and reproduce human speech and musical sounds with startling accuracy. ”

“ The Youth's Companion says that Mr. Edison in his new biography—his "Life and Inventions"—describes the accidental method by which he discovered the principle of the phonograph. There is a kind of accident that happens only to a certain kind of man.
"I was singing to the mouthpiece of a telephone," Mr. Edison says, "when the vibrations of the voice sent the fine steel point into my finger. That set me to thinking. If I could record the actions of the point, and send the point over the same surface afterward, I saw no reason why the thing would not talk. ”

“ Tell me, Phony, what is this record like, which you say you have on tap?"
"It's a popular song, sir. In all civilized lands the common people have gone wild over it."
"Makes civilized folks wild folks, eh? Then it's dangerous."
"Wild with joy, I mean," explained the phonograph. "Listen. This song will prove a rare treat to you, I know. It made the author rich—for an author. It is called 'My Lulu.'"
Then the phonograph began to play. A strain of odd, jerky sounds was followed by these words, sung by a man through his nose with great vigor of expression ”

“ The phonograph companies seldom give out a record which is not practically perfect in technic and intonation. As for the mechanical piano, there is no escape from the certainty of just what notes are coming next—that is, if little Johnnie has not been editing the paper record with his father's leather-punch. ”

“ In class-work it is hardly possible to get ten pupils with equal powers of picking up tunes and correct fingering. The ear may be compared to a machine which records musical compositions and sounds. In this respect the perfect machine has already been found. The phonograph will record and reproduce a tune in perfect form, but then it is only a reproduction, whereas the musician has life and power to create new and original tunes. ”

“ We shall begin by connecting the vibrating contrivance with some mechanism to register the vibrations, just as the ‘record’ of a phonograph registers speech in the form of minute indentations or lines. The next step—and this is the difficult one—will be to turn this inexpressive record back into the thoughts which it represents, as a phonograph turns the lines and indentations back into speech. ”

“ By a combination of the phonograph and the moving picture machine working in perfect synchronism the result is obtained. Wires are attached to the mechanism of both the machines, the one behind the screen and the one in front, in such a way that the two are operated simultaneously so that when a film is projected a corresponding record on the phonograph acts in perfect unison supplying the voice suitable to the moving action. Men and women pass along the canvas, act, talk, laugh, cry and "have their being" just as in real life. ”

“ And I only give them good music—the best songs, both classical and modern. Nothing but the best would interest me. In my recent trip, down in Mexico and Oklahoma, there are everywhere large halls, and people come from all the country round to attend a concert. Men who look as though they had driven a grocery wagon, or like occupation, sit and listen so attentively and with such evident enjoyment. I am sure the circulation of the phonograph records has much to do with America's present wonderful advancement in musical understanding. ”

“ We ask in vain for an answer to the question which is upon the lips of every one-What next? The microphone has proved itself highly useful in strengthening the sounds given out by the telephone, and it is probable that we shall soon see those three inventions working unitedly; for the microphone might make the telephone sounds so powerful as to enable them to be printed by phonograph as they are received, and thus a durable record of telephonic messages would be obtained. We can now transmit sound by wire, but it may yet be possible to transmit light, and see by telegraph. ”

“ An interesting exception has a horizontal 7-inch turntable (see figs. 7 and 8) . This machine, although made in 1886, is a duplicate of one made earlier but taken to Europe by Chichester Bell. Tainter was granted U. S. patent 385886 for it on July 10, 1888.
The playing arm is rigid, except for a pivoted vertical motion of 90 degrees to allow removal of the record or a return to starting position. While recording or playing, the record not only rotated, but moved laterally under the stylus, which thus described a spiral, recording 150 grooves to the inch. ”

“ For these and other [207] reasons, there is less of the true spirit of music to be heard from vocal cords than from the cords and reeds and brazen tubes of piano, organ, string quartet, and orchestra. Thus, when the phonograph threatened to identify song with music in general, it threatened to give the art a setback and make the singer the arch-enemy of the wider musical culture. Fortunately the phonograph now gives promise of averting this peril by bringing up its reproduction of absolute music near to its vocal standard.
Another charge against most machine-made music is its unhuman accuracy. ”

“ The invention of the phonograph by Edison in 1878 marked a new era in the popularity and dissemination of music. Up to that time, household music was limited to those who were rich enough to possess a real musical instrument, and who in addition had the understanding and the skill to use the instrument. The invention of the phonograph has brought music to thousands of homes [304] possessed of neither wealth nor skill. That the music reproduced by a phonograph is not always of the highest order does not, in the least, detract from the interest and wonder of the instrument. ”

“ The phonograph will register notes as low as ten vibrations a second, whereas it is well known the lowest note audible to the human ear is sixteen vibrations a second. The instrument is equally capable of service and entertainment. It can be used as a stenograph, or shorthand-writer. A business man, for instance, can dictate his letters or instructions into it, and they can be copied out by his secretary. Callers can leave a verbal message in the phonograph instead of a note. ”

“ It cannot be claimed that the performance of the phonograph in its existing state leaves nothing to be desired. A harsh, scraping noise, very perceptible, although not loud enough to obscure the inscribed sound, is, as far as my experience goes, the constant accompaniment of a phonographic reproduction; and noises of other kinds occasionally make themselves heard. ”

“ I have always believed in the phonograph as an instrument destined to play228 some day an important part among the blessings that ingenuity has given to man. There are still obstacles in the way of its practical success, but that the missing screw or spring—perhaps no more than that—will be found in the near future, is not doubted by any competent observer. ”

“ But a song was never sung long in its original version alone. The half-dozen stanzas of the original often grew to a hundred or more, for many singers took pride in creating new stanzas or adapting parts of other songs to the new one. Sometimes publishers would issue second and third editions, incorporating in them the best of the stanzas which had sprung up since the preceding edition. Thus, even before the phonograph became the popular instrument that it is today, the interplay between folk creations and formal compositions had become extremely complex. ”

“ Thomas A. Edison had invented the phonograph in 1877. But the fame bestowed on Edison for this startling invention (sometimes called his most original) was not due to its efficiency. Recording with the tinfoil phonograph is too difficult to be practical. The tinfoil tears easily, and even when the stylus is properly adjusted, the reproduction is distorted and squeaky, and good for only a few playbacks. Nevertheless young Edison, the "wizard" as he was called, had hit upon a secret of [Pg 71] which men had dreamed for centuries. ”

“ Edison made further and ingenious improvements upon his phonograph by attaching hearing tubes for the ear to the sound receiver, and by the employment of an electric motor to revolve the wax cylinder. By the attachment of enlarged trumpets and other devices, every form of modern phonograph has been rendered capable of reproducing in great perfection the various sounds of speech, song, and instrument, and has become a most interesting source of entertainment. ”