Read complete books and articles on: History of the Phonograph

Record Player - or phonograph, device for reproducing sound that has been recorded as a spiral, undulating groove on a disk. This disk is known as a phonograph record, or simply a record (see sound recording). In using a record player, a record is placed on the player's motor-driven turntable, which rotates the record at a constant speed. A tone arm, containing a pickup at one end, is placed on the record. The tone arm touches the groove of the record with its stylus, or needle. As the record revolves, the variations in its groove cause the stylus to vibrate. The stylus is part of the pickup, a device that also contains a transducer to convert these mechanical vibrations into corresponding electrical signals. These signals are then increased in size by an amplifier. After leaving the amplifier, they are passed to a loudspeaker that converts them into sound.

Although sound waves had been recorded in the middle of the 19th cent., the first machine to reproduce recorded sound, the phonograph, was built by Thomas A. Edison in 1877. Edison's records were made of tinfoil, upon which a groove of unvarying lateral direction but varying depth was cut; later this method became known as "hill-and-dale" recording. In 1887, Emile Berliner invented the disk record (patented 1896), which has grooves of unvarying depth but of varying lateral direction. His method, called lateral recording, superseded the earlier method. Berliner also invented the matrix record, from which unlimited duplicate recordings could be pressed. Early turntables were operated by a spring-driven motor that required rewinding for each record played; later the use of an electric motor made rewinding unnecessary.

The quality of reproduction was greatly improved by high-fidelity amplification (popularly called hi-fi) and by complex speaker systems. From 1948 records were made to be played at slower speeds, thus lengthening the amount of material that could be recorded on a single disk; such long-playing discs were known as LPs. Stereophonic reproduction was achieved by adapting the phonograph to reproduce two channels of sound (see stereophonic sound). The first commercially available stereo recordings were produced in 1957. In addition to musical performances, records were often used to reproduce sound effects for radio and the theater, transcriptions of radio broadcasts, "talking books" for the blind, and lessons for language study. Most recording companies stopped producing phonograph records by the early 1990s in favor of cassette tapes and compact discs.

See B. Steffens, Phonograph: Sound on Disk (1992); E. L. Reiss, The Complete Talking Machine: A Collector's Guide to Antique Phonographs (1998); T. C. Fabrizio and G. F. Paul, Antique Phonographs: Gadgets, Gizmos, & Gimmicks (1999).

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11 of the Best Books and Articles on: History of the Phonograph

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Recorded Music in American Life: The Phonograph and Popular Memory, 1890-1945 » Read Now
by William Howland Kenney. 260 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Have records, compact discs, and other sound reproduction equipment merely provided American listeners with pleasant diversions, or have more important historical and cultural influences flowed through them? Do recording machines simply capture what's already out there, or is the music somehow...
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Have records, compact discs, and other sound reproduction equipment merely provided American listeners with pleasant diversions, or have more important historical and cultural influences flowed through them? Do recording machines simply capture what's already out there, or is the music somehow transformed in the dual process of documentation and dissemination? How would our lives be different without these machines? Such are the questions that arise when we stop taking for granted the phenomenon of recorded music and the phonograph itself. Now comes an in-depth cultural history of the phonograph in the United States from 1890 to 1945. William Howland Kenney offers a full account of what he calls "the 78 r.p.m. era"--from the formative early decades in which the giants of the record industry reigned supreme in the absence of radio, to the postwar proliferation of independent labels, disk jockeys, and changes in popular taste and opinion. By examining the interplay between recorded music and the key social, political, and economic forces in America during the phonograph's rise and fall as the dominant medium of popular recorded sound, he addresses such vital issues as the place of multiculturalism in the phonograph's history, the roles of women as record-player listeners and performers, the belated commercial legitimacy of rhythm-and-blues recordings, the "hit record" phenomenon in the wake of the Great Depression, the origins of the rock-and-roll revolution, and the shifting place of popular recorded music in America's personal and cultural memories. Throughout the book, Kenney argues that the phonograph and the recording industry served neither to impose a preference for high culture nor a degraded popular taste, but rather expressed a diverse set of sensibilities in which various sorts of people found a new kind of pleasure. To this end, Recorded Music in American Life effectively illustrates how recorded music provided the focus for active recorded sound cultures, in which listeners shared what they heard, and expressed crucial dimensions of their private lives, by way of their involvement with records and record-players. Students and scholars of American music, culture, commerce, and history--as well as fans and collectors interested in this phase of our rich artistic past--will find a great deal of thorough research and fresh scholarship to enjoy in these pages.
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2.

Edison: His Life and Inventions, Vol. 1 (1910) (Chap. X "The Phonograph") » Read Now
by Frank Lewis Dyer, Thomas Commerford Martin. 474 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...LOOKING AT THE RECORDER OF A PHONOGRAPH " 232 MR. EDISON AND GROUP OF HIS ASSISTANTS IN LABORA TORY...PARK--1878 " 274 THE EDISON ELECTRIC RAILWAY AT MENLO...be a biography...
3.

American Popular Music and Its Business: The First Four Hundred Years, Vol. II: From 1790 to 1909 ("Mr. Edison's Wonderful Talking Machine" begins on p. 363) » Read Now
by Russell Sanjek. 484 pgs.

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This volume focuses on developments in the music business in the twentieth century, including vaudeville, music boxes, the relationship of Hollywood to the music business, the "fall and rise" of the record business in the 1930s, new technology (TV, FM, and the LP record) after World War II, the...
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This volume focuses on developments in the music business in the twentieth century, including vaudeville, music boxes, the relationship of Hollywood to the music business, the "fall and rise" of the record business in the 1930s, new technology (TV, FM, and the LP record) after World War II, the dominance of rock-and-roll and the huge increase in the music business during the 1950s and 1960s, and finally the changing music business scene from 1967 to the present, especially regarding government regulations, music licensing, and the record business.
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4.

A Spiral Way: How the Phonograph Changed Ethnography » Read Now
by Erika Brady. 156 pgs.

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The invention of the cylinder phonograph at the end of the nineteenth century opened up a new world for cultural research. Indeed, Edison's talking machine became one of the basic tools of anthropology. It not only equipped researchers with the means of preserving folk songs but it also enabled them...
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The invention of the cylinder phonograph at the end of the nineteenth century opened up a new world for cultural research. Indeed, Edison's talking machine became one of the basic tools of anthropology. It not only equipped researchers with the means of preserving folk songs but it also enabled them to investigate a wide spectrum of distinct vocal expressions in the emerging fields of anthropology and folklore. Ethnographers grasped its huge potential and fanned out through regional America to record rituals, stories, word lists, and songs in isolated cultures. From the outset the federal government helped fuel the momentum to record cultures that were at risk of being lost. Through the Bureau of American Ethnology, the Smithsonian Institution took an active role in preserving native heritage. It supported projects to make phonographic documentation of American Indian language, music, and rituals before developing technologies and national expression might further undermine them.
This study of the early phonograph's impact shows traditional ethnography being transformed, for attitudes of both ethnographers and performers were reshaped by this exciting technology. In the presence of the phonograph, both fieldwork and the materials collected were revolutionized. By radically altering the old research modes, the phonograph brought the disciplines of anthropology and folklore into the modern era.
At first the instrument was as strange and new to the fieldworkers as it was to their subjects. To some the first encounter with the phonograph was a deeply unsettling experience. When it was demonstrated in 1878 before members of the National Academy of Sciences, several members of theaudience fainted. Even its inventor was astonished. Of his first successful test of his tinfoil phonograph, Thomas A. Edison said, "I was never taken so aback in my life."
The cylinders that have survived from these times offer a
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5.

The Science of Musical Sounds (1916) » Read Now
by Dayton Clarence Miller. 287 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
6.

The Record Book: A Music Lover's Guide to the World of the Phonograph (1940) » Read Now
by David Hall. 886 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...the more technical aspects of phonographs and recording. Finally, the author wishes to express his...written and designed as a source of information for the...
7.

Sound Recording Practice » Read Now
by John Borwick. 616 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

In this invaluable book, a broad range of contributors--musicians, acousticians, electronic engineers, and broadcasters--share their specialized expertise on the equipment used to record, transmit, and reproduce speech and music and the operational techniques that have evolved over half a century in...
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In this invaluable book, a broad range of contributors--musicians, acousticians, electronic engineers, and broadcasters--share their specialized expertise on the equipment used to record, transmit, and reproduce speech and music and the operational techniques that have evolved over half a century in the sound recording industry. This fourth edition, newly revised and comprehensive, emphasizes the array of new technologies and techniques such as rapid advances in recording techniques, computer-controlled equipment, new digital recording formats, and the proliferation of consumer audio/video media. Addressing the user rather than the designer or manufacturer, Sound Recording Practice offers a stimulating, informative, and comprehensive guide to each aspect of recording.
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8.

Directory of American Disc Record Brands and Manufacturers, 1891-1943 » Read Now
by Allan Sutton. 284 pgs.

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The Directory provides an indepth examination of the growth of the American record industry from the introduction of Berliner's disc Gramophone through the Petrillo recording ban. It examines the histories of more than 330 labels and their manufacturers, chronicaling the growth of the disc record...
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The Directory provides an indepth examination of the growth of the American record industry from the introduction of Berliner's disc Gramophone through the Petrillo recording ban. It examines the histories of more than 330 labels and their manufacturers, chronicaling the growth of the disc record from a crude toy in the 1890s to a multi-million dollar industry in the early 1940s.
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9.

His Master's Voice: The German Catalogue: A Complete Numerical Catalogue of German Gramophone Recordings Made from 1898 to 1929 in Germany, Austria, and Elsewhere by the Gramophone Company Ltd. » Read Now
by Alan Kelly. 1325 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

The present volume is one of a series which will cover the output of the Gramophone Company from its beginning in 1898 to 1929, when recording methods had progressed from the primitive trumpet to the sophisticated microphone. The Company operated through ten branches, and the catalogues of two of...
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The present volume is one of a series which will cover the output of the Gramophone Company from its beginning in 1898 to 1929, when recording methods had progressed from the primitive trumpet to the sophisticated microphone. The Company operated through ten branches, and the catalogues of two of these (Italy and France) have already been published by Greenwood. This new volume adds Germany to the list, but the coverage extends to Austria, Switzerland, and Czechoslovakia and to any other country (including the United States) where there was interest in records whose source or language was German.
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10.

Berliner Gramophone Records: American Issues, 1892-1900 » Read Now
by Paul Charosh. 294 pgs.

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Just over 100 years ago, Emile Berliner invented the gramophone and disc record. This is the first discography assembled of the first disc recordings in the United States. It documents over 3,000 discs, which were sold to the American public from 1892 to 1900. Listings are arranged by catalogue...
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Just over 100 years ago, Emile Berliner invented the gramophone and disc record. This is the first discography assembled of the first disc recordings in the United States. It documents over 3,000 discs, which were sold to the American public from 1892 to 1900. Listings are arranged by catalogue number and cross-indexed by title, performer, and recording date. The gramophone discs are valuable research tools in the study of popular culture, providing objective data about what was offered to the public, and how it was performed. Since this information has never been published, scholars may well find new materials. Berliner's successor was the Victor Talking Machine Company (an ongoing Greenwood discography series).
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11.

88s on 78s: Pianists on Record from 1903 to 1925, in American Music Teacher » Read Now
by Rick Robertson. 3 pgs.

Collections: Education, Entire Library