Phonograph

“ It may be mentioned that this Harmonical reproduction was hardly as loud and clear as those of most of the songs of our collection.
These tests of the phonograph and of the ear give a basis for considerable confidence in the novel method employed in this investigation of primitive musical performance. [22] The phonograph seems under favorable conditions to be able to reproduce a sequence of intervals with an accuracy which may be regarded as well-nigh perfect, and which one would call truly wonderful were not all wonder in connection with this instrument. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 more distinctively intellectual pleasures of the new age will be much subserved by one [58] class of invention, of which the rudiments already exist. By means of the phonograph we are able, not very perfectly, to reproduce as often as we desire sounds created in favourable circumstances. By various kinds of kinetoscope we can reproduce a rudimentary sort of picture of an event which has taken place in a good light. But when the phonograph has been developed, when moving pictures have been perfected, what a vast implement of amusement may be foreseen! ”

“ The cases are rare in which they come to the hearing of trained musicians; we can infer for the most part only their scale structure from instrumental forms: and their record in notation is in general both imperfect and scanty. The invention of the phonograph bids fair to render the practice of music among non-European peoples as accessible to study as their ideas about the act have hitherto been. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The phonograph idea was Henry's, but I took to it freely, being fond of machinery of all kinds.
"The Latin races," says Henry, explaining easy in his idioms he learned at college, "are peculiarly adapted to be victims of the phonograph. They possess the artistic temperament. They yearn for music and color and gaiety. They give up wampum to the hand organ man or the four-legged chicken when they're months behind with the grocery and the breadfruit-tree." ”

“ When the phonograph records the sound of an orchestra it does not record the tones of each instrument, but it imprints the form of impression corresponding to the very complex sound-wave formed by all the instruments combined. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The vowel "u," as sounded like "oo" in "shoot," seems to be the chief sound of their speech. One important point which I discovered from the phonograph is, that sounds or tones which are purely musical are reproduced alike with the cylinder turning either way, while all speech sounds are slightly changed when the cylinder is reversed, which shows the sounds to be compound. I find that "w" may be developed from any consonant by manipulating the cylinder of the phonograph, and it is a fact also that the initial consonant imparted [Pg 216] to any vowel does not continue through the vowel. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I had fixed my mind on a phonograph advertisement so successfully that I had quite forgotten the conductor's rude way of making change, when I remembered that my own phonograph would probably prove an annoyance, too. Sometimes it is simply impossible to find any object that is wholly free from annoyance, of one kind or another. I took Commodore Filber's letter out of my pocket and decided to think of that. ”

“ 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 distrust which has been justly cherished against the talking bird on account of his originality can never be reasonably directed against the phonograph!
The possibility of writing sound has been recognized for a century past. Since the discovery of the vibratory character of sound, the physicist has seen the feasibility of recording the vibration. Nature herself has given many hints along this line of experimentation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You have all heard a phonograph speak, or sing, or reproduce music. In its original form the Edison phonograph consisted of a cylinder covered with tinfoil, against which pressed lightly a steel point attached to the centre of a metal disc. In its modern form, as improved by Edison, Bell, Tainter, and others, it is a far more perfect instrument for recording and reproducing sound. It now consists of a cylinder covered with a composition similar to very hard soap. This cylinder is carried on a metal drum, and caused to [143] revolve by clockwork slowly and very uniformly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is a recording instrument which combines the phonograph and the dictagraph. One purpose—the most practical, is that a business man may dictate his letters and memoranda while sitting at his desk, in his office, instead of having a machine with a phonograph in his private office taking up space and requiring the changing of records by the dictator—which is necessary with the present business phonograph. All that will be necessary is for him to speak into a little disc. The sound waves are carried by a simple arrangement of wiring into his outer office, or wherever his stenographer works. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The sound vibrations had been indented in the wax which had been applied to the Edison phonograph. The following is the text of the recording: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I am a graphophone and my mother was a phonograph." Remarked Mrs. Gilbert Grosvenor, [8] Bell's daughter, [Pg 74] when the box was opened in 1937, "That is just the sort of thing father would have said. He was always quoting from the classics."
Figure 4.—Patent Drawings from U. S. patent 341214, granted May 4, 1886, to Chichester Bell and C. S. Tainter. ”

“ Indeed, 'tis a book which to enjoy the eyes are useless; only ears suffice. When a man desires to read, then, he surrounds this contrivance with many small tendons of every kind, then he places the needle on the chapter to be heard and, at the same time, there come, as from the mouth of a man or from an instrument of music, all those clear and separate sounds which make up the Lunarians' tongue.'" (See A. Coeuroy and G. Clarence, Le phonographe, Paris, 1929, p. 9, 10.) ”

“ If this instrument fulfils what is claimed for it, the anticipations once hoped for in the phonograph will be realised, and in the future we may expect to see business-men talking their correspondence into a box in which mechanism, by the aid of electricity, records the same on paper, which may be forwarded as a letter. Moreover, literary men will be saved the drudgery of the pen, and have their thoughts recorded as rapidly as they can convey them to the instrument. ”

“ Its daily use by some of the largest business establishments in the world testify to its value in commercial life. Many firms, especially American, have invested heavily in establishing phonograph establishments to save labour and final expense. The manager, on arriving at his office in the morning, reads his letters, and as the contents of each is mastered, dictates an answer to a phonograph cylinder which is presently removed to the typewriting room, where an assistant, placing it upon her phonograph and fixing the tubes to her ears, types what is required. ”

“ Invention of Phonograph by Edison—Scott’s Phonautograph—Improvements of Bell and Tainter—The Graphophone—Library of Wax Cylinders—The Gramophone.
Following closely upon the discovery of the telephone the phonograph came, literally speaking for itself, and adding another surprise to the wonderful inventions of that prolific period. It was in the latter part of 1877 that Thomas A. Edison showed to a few privileged friends a modest looking little machine. He turned the crank, and to the astonishment of those present it said. “Good morning! How do you do? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”