Music, and recorded sound to be precise, can trace its origins back to 1877 when the gifted American inventor Thomas Edison came up with the phonograph (Beardsley & Wilkinson). This early invention consisted of a tinfoil cylinder that was turned using a handle. A metal stylus attached to a diaphragm was used to touch the moving cylinder and there was a small mouthpiece for the operator. The sound waves caused the diaphragm to vibrate which led to a variation of pressure in the tinfoil. The drum rotated and moved along the stylus causing the formation of a groove in the tinfoil. The embossed grooves had undulations which represented the pressure pattern of sound waves. As the stylus moved in and out along the undulations, the diaphragm vibrated moving the air inside the mouthpiece, and hence recreating the recorded sound.
The initial recording, ‘Mary had a little lamb’ was barely comprehensible but, nevertheless, it was a start. The dire need for improvements pushed other inventors to join the fray. Charles Tainter and Alexander Graham Bell singled out the impracticalities of Edison’s phonograph (Beardsley & Wilkinson). The recordings wore out in a very short time and there were abysmal sonic results. Their efforts led to the introduction of the wax cylinder phonograph. The fixed drum covered by tinfoil was replaced by a removable cylinder made of hard wax. The sound recorded on this device was markedly better than that of Edison’s machine.
Eric Berliner came up with a flat disc as a result of circumventing Edison’s patent on the use of cylinder technology in 1888. This gramophone recorded by forcing a stylus mounted on a vibrating diaphragm to cut a laterally oscillating groove instead of the undulating one by Edison (Beardsley & Wilkinson). The groove etched in the metallic discs could be traced by a turntable needle to listen to the recordings. Issues of mass exploitation via electroplating led Eric to introduce wax covered cylinders. Berliner’s wax discs were easily mass produced, which marked the birth of the music selling industry. The gramophone was largely manipulated by hand before an electric motor was popularized in the 30s.
These disc records continued in popularity until the 1950s. However, 1920s was the era of electrical amplification and people were keen on improving the quality of sound. Shellac was the material most commonly used in making the discs before vinyl initially came in circa 1930. The vinyl records played at a speed of 78 revolutions in each minute (Hilton). The 78RPM shellac discs led to the introduction of the long-player disc from Columbia. The 33.3 RPM and 12 inch disc was made of vinyl and it had grooves and it could record way longer than the conventional average of four minutes achieved by earlier recorders. RCA then introduced the 45RPM and 7 inch micro-groove vinyl recorders that played a song on either side (Hilton). Recording companies now realized that longer play times could only be realized if the recording media was tougher so as to accommodate smaller grooves. Vinyl resins were introduced in the 1930s and they made harder discs that accommodated more grooves per inch than shellac ones.
Vinyl continued on until the advent of the compact disc in 1988. Cassette and magnetic tapes entered the scene in the early fifties and were interspersed with the vinyl records. The development of CDs was a major technological milestone and music companies around the world were discarding the vinyl and cassettes in favor of CDs. Technological advancement into the field of lasers was the birth of the CD as a popular mode of storing recorded music. This new medium did not require needles nor fragile magnetic heads like its predecessors. The lasers are able to read the contents of the CD without touching it, resulting in superior audio (Recording Academy/GRAMMYs). The invention of the CD has also had far-reaching impacts in the field of computers.
WORKS CITED
Beardsley, Roger, and Daniel L. Wilkinson. “A Brief History of Recording To Ca. 1950.” Charm.Rhul.Ac.Uk, 2009, http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/history/p20_4_1.html.
Hilton, Stewart. “The History of Recorded Music.” Musical U, 2017, https://www.musical-u.com/learn/history-of-recorded-music/#.
Recording Academy/GRAMMYs. “Part 3: Evolution of Recorded Music – Digital | GRAMMYs.” YouTube, uploaded by Recording Academy,26 November 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sGYv2JLamg.
