The Significance of the Phonograph in the Development of Music Throughout History

In its present sense, music can take on a variety of forms and can be connotative with many different types of experiences. One can listen to music in their car, on their phone and in their house on a speaker system or they can listen to it among hundreds or thousands of people on massive stages and in concert halls.

This freedom to explore the different types of musical experiences has become such an instrumental aspect of modern culture that people often neglect to appreciate the origins of these devices and the progression that music has made over the years.

When Thomas Edison originally conceived the phonograph, it was meant as a means to simply convey and preserve music, but the invention of this machine revolutionized the approach to the storage and appreciation of music itself.

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The importance of this device is correlated with essentially every platform that music can be found on, as it helped catalyze the existence of both modern approaches to enjoying music and to those that have historically existed.

If you wanted to hear a song prior to the integration of the phonograph before 1877, the only option for doing so was in hearing the song performed live. There was no way to store the information from the audio itself and there was no system in place to play this audio back, outside of it actually being performed.

Originally, the phonograph was a massive success and found its way to many different parts of the nation. The system worked by recording the waveforms of the audio to corresponding physical manifestations such as etched or engraved spiral discs, which came to be known as records. (Rubery, 18)

When a stylus or needle was placed to the track, it reverberated the etchings in a way that allowed the sound to be audible to audiences. While it can be said that there had been other devices which had sought to record sounds, the phonograph was the first actual device that was able to reproduce and distribute the recorded sounds and finalized products.

The success of the invention itself can be directly correlated to the long-term applications of the device as essentially all forms of recorded music are in some way attributed to the advancements that Edison made with the phonograph. (Rubery, 19)

Edison realized primarily that this device was a source of entertainment and could be used to great extent to ensure that music was transmitted and shared by individuals across the world. Music was largely a social experience prior to this, as people had to congregate in one area to appreciate the sounds and to experience them with others.

As such, the experience associated with music before the phonograph was a communal one, which can be seen as largely different from the way that it is approached in the modern era.

Music was in turn shifted from the more overall social experience to one which was largely personal in nature. People could now freeze the performances that they wished to hear on records and bring them home to experience with their close friends and families, or alone.

This provided a platform for a new type of music appreciation, one which was able to utilize the sounds produced for more than just an experience or good time at dance halls and clubs.

Furthermore, because of the fact that these devices could freeze and recreate the sounds, there was a newfound emphasis on analyzing the music itself. Understanding the intricacies of many songs requires extensive, thorough listens, which can be hard to achieve whenever there is no platform to do so.

The phonograph expanded the capacities of listeners to analyze and interpret music, and allowed them the opportunity to do so repeatedly in different settings. (Rubery, 20) Because of this, musicians and fans were able to break down songs to better understand them and interpret their significance.

The lasting impact of the phonograph can be seen in the ability that it afforded individuals to interpret music from both a standpoint of pure enjoyment and overall analysis of the parts of the songs themselves. (Koenigsberg, 14)

By the 1930s, commercialized music began to develop and a plethora of genres such as big band, jazz and country began to take shape, largely due to the capacity of music to be reproduced. (Rubery, 19) As sounds could be reproduced and distributed, it forced musicians to continuously expand upon their sounds in order to reach more audiences or to continue differentiating themselves from others in the industry.

The growth of music was a means through which these artists could also develop their sounds as reflections of those that they had heard, as they were more readily able to reproduce the recordings based upon closer examination and a more in-depth appreciation of the music itself.

This in itself provided a large platform for the development of music as it is, in terms of it being a cultural phenomenon. This compounded upon itself with the integration of the flat record in 1881. (Koenigsberg, 22)

Edison's phonograph used cylindrical discs to recreate the sounds that were being produced, but the commercialization of music became more prominent as discs were integrated to allow users to more efficiently store the music itself.

The storage of large amounts of records and the emphasis that came from wanting to do so with the integration of flat, recorded discs became a prevalent theme in many peoples' attempts to acquire more music and their subsequent appreciation of it.

As a result, the storage and efficiency of stored records became a very crucial point of future endeavors into developing proper sounds and sound-based equipment. (Koenigsberg, 22)

Today, items such as phones and memory cards can store hundreds of thousands of songs and this is largely due to the integration of the phonograph and the subsequent advances that could be made given the versatility of the system that Edison had invented.

The storage of music also gave musicians a platform to begin expanding their work into new areas, and creating music that was geared towards the personalized setting, as opposed to simply the live experience. (Koenigsberg, 14)

Artists had to think differently about how they wished to write their songs because recordings gave them a more expansive and thorough platform for creating and producing their work. More emphasis was placed on the technical execution of recording a song and ensuring that it was the most efficient and thorough version possible to perpetuate repeated listens and experiences by audiences across the nation.

This also created a cycle of accountability and execution from the artists as fans who had exposure to the recorded versions often wished to listen to the exact same version that was featured in the recording, in each live setting in which the artist found themselves.

While this provided a platform for the growth and development of an artist, it could also subject them to the wishes of the audience that they had gained, in terms of what they wanted to hear and how they wanted to hear it performed live.

Tangible records provided a portable way to digest this music but it made it easier to digest it frequently, which in turn reverberated the way that the artists were forced to play and experience the music themselves.

The phonograph catalyzed a cultural revolution into the establishment of sounds and recording studios and radio stations began focusing on recreating the songs that artists had recorded live for the audiences that they had amassed throughout the country.

As Roland Gelatt recounts in The Fabulous Phonograph, "this placed the artist at the forefront of the musical sensation and people wanted to be able to attach a person to the sounds that they were hearing. As such, rotating images and photographs were developed as a way for people to better relate to these artists and to see who was producing this music that they heard." (Gelatt, 349)

The phonograph inadvertently helped to spring to life the culture surrounding musicians and the apparent need to market and advertise individuals who created music.

As it became a more personal experience, people wished to be able to relate the sounds that they heard to a face and a person and the experience of listening to music began to take a more developed and diversified shape, in accordance with these wishes of the public.

The musicians responsible for the music began to amass greater followings as a result, and an entire culture and economy sprung forth dedicated to focusing on the musicians as the artists and cultural icons.

Individuals such as Elvis Presley, Madonna, Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra can all attribute their success to the nature of the phonograph and how it placed emphasis on the artist as the chief producer of the sounds that the audiences across the world wished to hear. (Gelatt, 351)

This trend has continued today, with artists having easier platforms for their audiences to access their music and even more diverse channels to promote these sounds and engage these audiences. With the ability that people now have to recreate their favorite recordings seamlessly on platforms such as Youtube and Facebook, there is a central focus on the artist and their contributions and consistent development.

The phonograph was a cultural revolution, one which catalyzed a new wave of music appreciation and digestion. Thomas Edison's invention provided audiences with a platform for grow their interests and more thoughtfully appreciate music as a whole. It shifted the framework of music appreciation from simply being exposed to live experiences to having the capacity to listen to music on a personal, more analytical level.

This gave people who were listening the capacity to interpret the songs more and to engage them with repeated listens and deeper examinations. It also gave artists more tools to expand their own work and to examine and locate their contemporaries. This allowed an explosion of genres and sounds in the 1920s that has continued to grow exponentially to this day.

As a result, music has become a cultural phenomenon and the storage and retention of sounds has provided countless artists with a platform to continue growing their brands and sonic endeavors. The phonograph was not the first device of its kind, but it was the first device to allow listeners to store and continue listening to their favorite songs and sounds long after the initial consumption of the product and the audio itself.

Because of this, modern culture now has devices such as iPods and phones which can actively store and collect hundreds of thousands of songs, or play from an almost infinite library of music that's provided thanks to the Internet.

The phonograph's contributions to music are essentially boundless as almost every artist and producer associated with music has some level of thanks that should be given to the platform that has allowed generations to personally experience music in all of its wonders, whether it be in larger concert halls and shows or simply experiencing it on one's own personal accord.

Reference

1. Gelatt, Roland. (1977) "The Fabulous Phonograph, 1877-1977." Sounds of the Century. New York: Collier. pp. 349-351.
2. Koenigsberg, Allen. (1991) The History of the Phonograph, 1877-1912. Oxford University Press. pp. 14-22. Sound Studies. Routledge. pp. 1-21
3. Rubery, Matthew (2011). "The Importance of the Phonograph." Audiobooks, Literature, and

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