Most of us are familiar with record players even though MP3 players, Compact Discs, and other digital media are the current popular technologies. Record players and their vinyl discs are making a comeback and is a nostalgic item for those of us old enough to remember when they were the best way to have music other than the radio. The phonograph is not a new technology but the history and development of it is fascinating. The first device built to record sound waves was invented in 1857 by Frenchman Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville. It could record the sound waves onto a medium but it had no way to play back the sound. It is known as a Phonautograph but was not a practical device since the sounds could not be reproduced. A French scientist, Charles Cros, developed a theory of phonograph operation but he never produced a functional device and his theory was published in December 1877 after Thomas Edison had a working model. It appears that both men developed their ideas independently.

Edison worked on his ideas between May and November of 1877 but he was not trying to create records, he was working on a way to “play back” recorded telegraph messages. In November 1877 he formally announced and demonstrated his phonograph which was a way to record and play back sounds. His initial recordings do not resemble anything we are familiar with as records. Edison used a cylinder covered in tinfoil and the motion of a stylus to make groves in the foil. Edison’s patents show understanding that a disc could be used to record the sounds but he concentrated on the cylinders since there speed was constant.

In 1886, Cichester Bell and Charles Tainter patented the Graphophone which used wax coated vertical cylinders to record and produce the sounds. These cylinders used a different way of recording and playback. Edison’s devices were patented specifying an embossed technique which produced a three dimensional image on the medium. The Bell and Tainter device was called the Graphophone and used engraving which cuts grooves into the surface. Then in 1887, Emile Berliner developed the Gramophone which used a wax and zinc coated disc that recorded the motion of the stylus. An acid bath firmed the groove the stylus had created and removed any excess material so the recording could be played back.

1889 saw the first Phonograph Parlor in San Francisco where patrons would request a musical selection for a nickel and it would be played through a tube that was connected to the music cylinders in a separate room. These salons became very popular and are an early form of what we know as a jukebox since the patrons paid money for a specific piece of music to play. Many cities in America had at least one of these music parlors and the manufacturers of the cylinders began attempting to mass produce their products in the 1890s. The live music would create the initial recording while a few cylinders were connected to other phonographs. This technology sped up the process of creating the recordings since they no longer had to be individually hand created. As the technology improved, so did the methods of recording and production since the demand for certain artists increased.

Record players are a nostalgic item of a bygone era for many but there are a lot of people who are devoted to the phonograph’s audio quality as superior to any of the current popular technology. Regardless of which technology we personally prefer the importance of the record player and its rich history cannot be stressed enough.

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