The New Gramophone

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by FoxyFlapper

Gallery

First in pool

Victorian and Edwardian Art

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A while back,I decided to do a series of paintings showing how we have listened to music in the last century or so. I started out in the early 1900's with the gramophone. The cat lady is enjoying the music, and the little girl is amazed by this wonderful machine!

Keywords

female 1,010,545, cat 200,399, music 8,483, history 583, edwardian 35, gramophone 5

Details

Type: Picture/Pinup

Published: 7 years, 6 months ago

Rating: General

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EmmetEarwax

7 years, 6 months ago

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A similar painting done by Mr.Otis showed a c.1900 father demanding his family like the new cylinder record player.

Mr.Otis actually did not exist. His publicist did all the paintings attributed to Mr.Otis, and how much of the "history" in the foreword (Press Club, etc.) was made up, is not known to me. Hal Holbrook never admitted to anything.

FoxyFlapper

7 years, 6 months ago

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@ EmmetEarwax

Thanks-that's an interesting history lesson!

EmmetEarwax

7 years, 6 months ago

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Edited 7 years, 6 months ago by Owner

More to the point, prior to the late 20's, recording & playback technology was acoustic, not using electricity at all. I have a good number of shellac 78rps ,mostly Victor & Columbia. Lo-fi, surface noise. A few hill&dale (Edison)rather than lateral cut. I don't have any cylinder records, let alone a machine to play such.

Phonographs were experimental in the 1870's, and Edison hurried with public production finally to protect his copyright. Berliner, at the same time, began with disk records, (with hand-cranked phonographs, fortunantly quickly replaced by motor-driven for reliable playback). Both disk and cylinders were cut individually, recorded afresh . By 1900, disk records were being pressed from masters, so constant re-recording from singers or from playing (dubbing) from a master on a phonograph, was no longer needed.

Cylinder records were announced at the start until 1908 or so. Cylinder records did not lend themselves to mass pressing, so they were dubbed from playing master disks, and became cylinder copies of disk records, until they became obsolete in the late 20's, about the time disk records became electric. Since then cylinder records were cut & played mainly for demos, at the Edison factory (now a museum) to entertain people.No demo was done when I & my folks visited, however...

I think the LPs began, when a man at a party was annoyed when a 78rp, playing a classic piece that he liked, stopped after only a few minutes and side 2 had to be put on. He felt that 78rp did NOT hold enough recording. He used plastic,as shellac tended to have constant hiss and scratching from start to finish.

I have 33rp LPs (up to 30 minutes), 45rp LPs,(up to 10 minutes *), and even 78rp LPs (up to 7-8 minutes, brought in near the end of 78rp's time, just to store more music. I have disks of all 3. I have also played 16rps,but no longer have a phonograph that has that speed. I have even seen an 8rp ,recording a magazine for the blind, but have never had a machine to play such back.

* These were called Extended Play, but I feel they used the full potential of 45rp. Conventional 45rps only had 3-4 minutes on a single, and were mainly to play popular singles.

I read that records were black, using carbon to make the disk tougher and wear-resistant. Even when vinyl replaced shellac, black was customary, tho I have some records that are red or even clear colorless or picture records.

EmmetEarwax

7 years, 6 months ago

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I forgot to mention that the earliest phonograph (1859) was so primitive that it could not play back the recording. The smudges were actually for analysis of sound waves. It was not until the late 20th century that technology enabled the playback of the phonaurograph records. They were NO-fidelity. One was "Claire de Lune" and another was the DO RE ME sequence. WAWAEWAWAWEAWWA .

A cylinder record from 1870's cut on a lead cylinder is known to exist. When played, you get at one point "Ten O'clock nine O'clock Eight O'clock..." and mostly noise elsewhere. The maker was experimenting.

First Edison cylinders were cut on tin foil ,but none are playable. They wore out after a few uses and had to be destroyed to get them off the machine. Edison experimented with waxes, blue amberol...

You can check all this on the wiki.

FoxyFlapper

7 years, 6 months ago

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Thank you for the information! I also collect records-I have several 33's and 45's,but I think my favorites are the 78's,which are rarer to find in good condition.