History of the Phonograph

Music today can be accessed from the touch of a smartphone, watch, dashboard, and even by asking the AI who controls your speaker to play whatever you wish. There was no Siri in the 1800s, or any of the other technologies I mentioned above. People listened to music by going to live events or singing it themselves. That was soon to be changed in 1857, when Edouard Leon-Scott invented the phonautograph. 

The original development of the phonautograph was not what we know today as a record player. It was able to record sound waves on a glass plate, but was unable to play those sounds back. That wasn't very useful, as you could now capture music but not listen to what you had. This is because Leon-Scott did not intend for his invention to be used for listening, and rather analysis of the acoustic sound waves. The phonautograph would eventually inspire Thomas Edison to develop it further, leading to the modern day phonograph.

In 1877 Edison created the phonograph based on technologies of the phonautograph, while incorporating the telegraph and telephone. He was originally trying to create sound from inscriptions of the telegraph but realized the sounds of the telephone may work better to his advantage, and developed a needle to transcribe those sounds onto a tin foil cylinder. A second needle made it possible to replay these sounds on the phonograph. Edison's new invention was patented on February 19, 1878.

The public eventually lost interest in the new device and Edison stopped advancing it. Alexander Graham Bell made his own modifications to the phonograph following his invention of the telephone. He coined his updated phonograph as the graphophone. However, Bell's interest in developing the phonograph sparked Edison to continue on with his own adjustments. He eventually started a company to sell his phonographs.

At the time of 1901, wax cylinders were being mass produced so consumers could record their songs in bigger quantities. Eventually the cylinder was replaced with a disc, which is what we are now familiar with as the record player. The phonograph is a device that has been developed and advanced many times, but it has paved the way for how we save and record messages, music, and information.

As frenzy began and phonographs were installed in the streets to play music to passersby, there was question as to what to play. Comedy skits and military bands were of the first to be heard, then followed by Opera. Soon musicians and producers realized that music would have to change with the development of the phonograph, and as people liked certain types of songs, there was the emergence of music genres. Also, up until now music was hours long. Composers created symphonies that could not fit on phonograph disks. They started creating songs to fit the exact times the disk could hold, about 3 minutes. This is still how songs are today. One major implication of the phonograph is the development of the modern day length of song. Today, almost all songs are about 3 minutes in length.

The phonograph had many implications on music and society as a whole. For one thing, it inspired many people to learn new types of music. People could now listen and learn for as long as needed whereas they used to need to watch and learn from a live performance. On the flip side, the phonograph made it possible for musicians to be taken advantage  of by their record labels. This was worse for black musicians, who were paid a flat rate and didn't make any royalties. Record producers also took advantage of poor, white, southern singers, as he stated they'd be so excited to be recorded they wouldn't need any money. This situation only got worse with the development of radios, who could play anything and only had to pay composers and publishers.

With the invention of the radio, and later on cassette players and tapes, the phonograph and records went from the most used form of listening to music-- to the least. The phonograph simply couldn't keep up with recorded cassettes and compact discs. Phonographs are still around today, however they're mostly used for decoration or display.