American inventor who built the first machine that could play back sound
Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville
French inventor whose phonautograph recorded sound as lines in 1857, without playback
Emile Berliner
Introduced the flat disc record in the 1880s
Plate 070
1877
Menlo Park, New Jersey, United States
No photograph is shown for this exhibition. The museum displays an image only where it can show the object honestly.
About this date
Thomas Edison announced the phonograph in 1877. Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville made visual recordings of sound, the phonautograph, in 1857.
About credit
Scott de Martinville recorded sound first, but could not play it back; those recordings were only played in 2008 using digital methods. Edison’s device could reproduce it.
Chapter II
The world before
Life before the Phonograph
Music and speech existed only as they were performed. Sound vanished as it was made.
II
The human achievement
How it came about
Edison’s first machine recorded on tinfoil around a cylinder. He recited “Mary had a little lamb,” and the machine played it back. Berliner’s gramophone discs were easier to mass-produce, and a recording industry followed.
III
Understanding the invention
How it works
The Phonograph, explained in two steps.
01
Step 01 of 02
Sound is vibration
A diaphragm shakes with sound, and a stylus scratches a pattern into the surface.
Sound is vibration
Replay
IV
The transformation
What changed for humanity
Music
Songs and performers reached audiences everywhere.
Memory
Voices from the past could be heard.
Sound could be kept, copied and sold. Music, speeches and memories outlived the moment.
V
Before and after
Life before and after The Phonograph
Before
Be in the room.
After
Play a record at home.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
VI
Its legacy
What came after
MHI 070
The Phonograph
Beyond the collection
Radio and the music industry
Recorded music became the base of radio.
Beyond the collection
Digital audio
Streaming stores sound as numbers.
VII
Human stories
The people and the moments
The oldest recordings
Researchers used digital methods in 2008 to play back a phonautograph recording of the French folk song “Au clair de la lune” from 1860.
Where accounts differ, this museum follows the documented record and says so.
