History in Pictures

 For a History in Pictures, I decided to go over the history of Music/Audio recording showing how it transformed over time from wax cylinders to digital streaming. 

Cylinder Phonographs

Gold Molded Wax Cylinder and Phonograph circa 1904 (via mymodernmet.com)

    Cylinder Phonographs were one of the first attempts to produce recorded sound, before that there were things such as piano rolls and sound drums that recorded the physical notes of the music but were not recordings of the music itself. Piano rolls and sound drums had either tabs or perforated holes to tell the music box or player piano what note to reproduce. Cylinder Phonographs, however, could engrave diction onto either a paraffin wax cylinder or a tin foil cylinder that could play back the diction or sound recording rather than simply reproducing the sounds, where this fell short was when it came to mass production of the cylinders when they first came out could only be played for a handful of times (the amount varied by the type of cylinder recorded) and the recordings had to be made while the band or recorder played or spoke live. Eventually, Edison came up with a way to make a cast of the original cylinder which allowed it to be mass-produced much easier and moved to a harder wax that could be played around a hundred times rather than the soft paraffin wax which wore out much sooner. The Cylinder Phonograph helped pave the way for recorded media such as radio dramas and music making it much more accessible to the masses.

Vinyl Records

A pile of records (via blogspot.com)

    Vinyl records were a natural progression from wax cylinders, the version of vinyl records we are most familiar with being invented in the 1948, they operated very similarly to the wax cylinders used on the phonograph. Unlike the phonographs they lasted much longer but could be prone to warping if stored in too hot of an environment or were stored flat rather than upright. Vinyl records operate very similar to the wax cylinders, with the sound being recorded on the grooves that are scratched into the disk. Vinyls were much easier to store compared to the wax cylinders by being flat and thin usually spanning no larger than the width of a milk crate. Vinyls are having a resurgence currently with bands coming out with limited prints and colorways that collectors will enjoy. 
 

Examples of limited edition vinyls, in colorways outside the standard black vinyl (via my own collection)

Cassettes

  Collection of Cassette Tapes (via culturedvultures.com)

    Cassette tapes made the sharing of music much easier, people could begin to burn mixtapes for other people allowing people to share the music they enjoyed with their friends. Cassette tapes were first invented in 1965. The fact that cassette tapes were so small made it possible to carry music in cars or from place toplace easily because there was no need for heavy record players. The tapes also made it possible for people to begin to record their own sounds and music giving rise to more home-grown musicians that were possible then in the time before cassette tapes. 

Compact Disks (CDs)

Collection of Music Compact Disks (via agentpalmer.com)

    Compact disks were first invented in 1979 but were released to the public in 1982. CDs made it even easier to store and trade music being much thinner than cassettes it allowed them to be stored in CD books allowing for easier carrying and storage. No longer having to be stuck in the hard plastic cases. CDs also were able to store more music than cassette tapes and vinyls, as technology improved burning music and sharing it got even easier. The decline of CDs came about as digital streaming became much more popular. 

Digital Streaming

Popular Streaming Apps via (stereonet.com)

    Digital streaming first started with Napster in 1999 as a way to share music between friends, the next leap in streaming music is when the iTunes music sore was released in 2003. Digital streaming has changed the way people consume music at an extreme level, with the popularity of streaming on the rise and the ability to curate and make playlists easily rather than having to burn CDs or cassette tapes. Digital streaming allowed for larger playlists not limited by how many bytes of data the medium could hold rather the person was limited by the amount of storage their device had. Digital streaming has done away with the need for CD books or cassette books to easily store albums in a compact way or in a way that is easily transportable. This has allowed people to own more music and easily consume different times of music, or music from artists that may be unable to have a large distribution. However, an issue that is coming up in the discussion of physical media is the fact that if you own the song through digital means, one doesn't own the song or album itself, it's a license that is owned, and when the streaming service is lost that means the license is lost as well. 


Resources used:

“The History of Music Streaming.” StereoNET Australia, https://www.stereonet.com/au/features/musicology-the-history-of-music-streaming. Accessed 1 Feb. 2024.

Muzdakis, Madeleine. “How To Listen to 10,000 of the First Phonograph Recordings Ever Made.” My Modern Met, 12 Mar. 2023, https://mymodernmet.com/wax-cylinder-recordings-phonographs/.

From Vinyl to MP3 and Back to Vinyl… A History of Music Mediums and a Question - Agent Palmer. https://agentpalmer.com/12214/media/from-vinyl-to-mp3-and-back-to-vinyl-a-history-of-music-mediums-and-a-question/. Accessed 1 Feb. 2024.

Jerry, Sailor. “The Independent Perspective of an Aging Pirate: In Praise of Vinyl Records (CDs Suck).” The Independent Perspective of an Aging Pirate, 13 Feb. 2012, https://jgallaghersblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/in-praise-of-vinyl-records-cds-suck.html.

“History of the Cylinder Phonograph | History of Edison Sound Recordings | Articles and Essays | Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies | Digital Collections | Library of Congress.” Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/articles-and-essays/history-of-edison-sound-recordings/history-of-the-cylinder-phonograph/. Accessed 1 Feb. 2024.

“History of the Cassette Tape.” Legacybox, https://legacybox.com/blogs/analog/history-of-the-cassette-tape. Accessed 1 Feb. 2024.

“History of the CD: 40 Years of the Compact Disc.” BBC Newsround, 9 Mar. 2019. www.bbc.co.uk, https://www.bbc.com/newsround/47441962.