MUSIC HISTORY LESSON
Each month, a mini lesson in music history.
WHO WERE THE FIRST RECORDING ARTISTS AND HOW WERE THOSE RECORDINGS MADE?
by Jinjer Hundley
We all know Edison invented sound recording, but after shouting "Eureka! I'm a music
producer!" who did this "Wizard of Menlo Park" grab by the starched collar
and throw into the recording booth?
First of all, there was no recording booth, per se. The performers had to stand in front
of the funnel-shaped horn attached to the top of a phonograph and literally belt out their
songs. It took a very high volume for the recording diaphragm to vibrate enough for the
cutting stylus to carve a groove into the wax cylinder. Horns made the best recordings, so
marching band numbers were prominent.
The recordings were mass-produced by setting up multiple phonographs and having the
artists perform the same number over and over. On average they would make 10-15
simultaneous recordings of each 10-minute take, resulting in 90 recordings per hour.
So who were the early recording artists? Two of "The Big Three"
recording companies, The Columbia Graphaphone Company and Edison's National Phonograph
Company, created their own "house bands" (The Columbia Quartet and The Edison
Concert Band, respectively), making their artists the music industry's first studio
musicians. The Victor Talking Machine Company recorded already-established live bands,
such as The Sousa Band and The Original Dixieland "Jass" Band, as well as famous
opera stars such as Enrico Caruso, Adelina Patti, and Francesco Tamagno.
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