First Sound Recording

[napalmhavica]

He calls that intelligible?

[ferociousgumby]

When I first heard about this I was sure it was a hoax. Years ago a classical music magazine included with one issue a CD that they claimed was from the 1840s and had "Chopin playing the Minute Waltz", using the same technology, supposedly unearthed at a construction site. It was exposed as a fraud when someone noticed it came out April 1, but many musicologists were convinced it was authentic. We believe what we want to believe.

[MisEloise]

sounds weird not like a song really

[luvmyrecords]

I understand that Leon Scott did not intend for these to be heard - he invented this to study vocal patterns visually...in fact, I've read a quote from his writings that says he was against recording the voice for playback. If that's true, the statement that "he just didn't know how to play them" isn't really fair.

[mendali]

@luvmyrecords Yup. Stupid journalists. The phonautograph was used to study speech patterns, not as a method of sound recording. @DarkOneLives Edison actually did invent quite a bit. He had help of course. But who knows if Edison had ever even heard of Leon Scott. Just because this came first doesn't mean Edison ripped him off.

[Hippoclite]

I don't watch this video, because I'm French and that I won't understand everything, but the first sound ever recorded is AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville...

[IstvanN1961]

Secondly how can you possibly consider this an understandable recording? Mary had a Little Lamb can be undersood and was meant to be understood. Scott's "recording" can only be "played back" because of 150 years of technological progress. Just an attempt to rewrite history and down play Edison's contributions to early recording techonology.

[erik4727]

@IstvanN1961 Settle down for Christ's sake. Your faith was in a false God.

[stig781]

@IstvanN1961 Typical Edison, claiming the inventions of others as his own.

[IstvanN1961]

This was NOT a recording. This is a graphic representation of sound waves. There was never any intent to record audible sound for the purpose of listening to it. He was studying what sound waves LOOKED like. Edison did invent the first practical method of recording audible sound and playing it back for people to actually hear. Scott never intended for people to "hear" his "recording", Edison's invention was specifically intended as an audio playback, Scott's was not. MISREPRESENTATION.

[luvmyrecords]

@IstvanN1961 I didn't see your post, and you said it much better than I did.

[Sergionewyork]

he did not intent to do that ..... Think! I am from Mexico, and I am not have any kind of favoritism towards Thomas A Edison.... BUT HE DID INVENT THE FIRST RECORDING MACHINE..... IN PURPOSE!, i MEAN INTENTIONALLY.

[IlersichProductions]

@Sergionewyork then how do you explain this?

[IlersichProductions]

@Sergionewyork you you're saying that thomas edison should be credited with this because he made it on purpose, while the person who made it before him should be disregarded because he made it accidentally?

[MrManky77]

@Sergionewyork he did not some other person did in 1860

[sgribley]

This is truly a spectacular and meaningful development, but this program did not present the facts accurately. Eduard Scott was experimenting with sound waves, he never had any intention of recording sound, nor of playing it back - just of etching the soundwaves. The date of the unintentional recording is known because Scott documented it.

[sengelle]

How the heck did they know the exact date it was recorded on?

[ninjamaster97]

Sounds like something Justice would use in one of their songs.

[DIYPhonophile]

It sounds beautiful!!!

[willo9000]

IT'S A GUY SINGING!!!

[Horserider4561]

@willo9000 actully,no it's not,it's clearly a woman singing.

[kiettram4869]

How do they know its Au clair de la lune??? Sounded nothing like it

[jslasher1]

The female narrator could learn a thing or two about diction. Her American accent is a shocker!

[williestratton]

that's remarkable!

[greekdeva7]

pretty :)

i wonder who the singer was.

[robbo4life]

it sound like a ghost is singing

[rock4life119]

It sounds pretty scary to be honest

[Minecraft11]

@rock4life119 i agree

[thezaylady]

He said that Leon Scott recorded on several of those "spoked" papers. Are any more of those papers found? It would be fascinating to hear more of those if they are still intact.

[mcjuvey1]

play the recording slower apparently it is always played to fast and it is actually a male voice

[MegaDragon889]

what is this show?

[caesarcerf]

it is not Scott's daughter because it was played at twice the correct speed, we have subsequently learned. it was Scott himself! still - 18 frickin' 60! pretty amazing.

[musgrave68]

next stop: tutankhamun's royal rap on papyrus...

[johneymute]

wow that,s just incredible the first sound recording in 1860.

also fun is that fact that thomas edison dit know how to record sound but not know how to play it.

it becomes extreamly emotional that 150 years later they converted those scratches on paper into sound waves to recover what was recorded backthem.

[clapforcookies96]

Absolutely amazing! I wonder how and where they found the written recording...

[RollaArtis]

Maybe the first sound recording - but already in 1770's London a musician had recorded his performance on a roll of paper using a notating device made by the inventor Merlin. One of these can be seen in the Deutches Museum in Munich.

[silentmoviemusicfrk]

Sounds very interesting. Too bad it isn't available for others who can't travel to Germany to hear this.

[RollaArtis]

It's not something you can hear - it's a roll of paper mounted on a clock work motor mounted inside a piano. It has a row of pencils corresponding to the keys which marked each depressed note on the roll as the piano was played. Mozart should have had one. The only surviving example is probably illustrated in the Deutches Museum catalogue but also in the catalogue of the 1985 exhibition of Merlin's work at Kenwood House London.

[RedGreen7373]

Well I guess I'm the first to say, that recording creeps me the heck out!

[boyhey1]

thats great.

[cilnie]

The "Lyrics":

Au clair de la lune

Mon ami Pierrot

then should be:

Prete moi ta plume

Pour ecrire un mot

ma chandelle est morte

Je n'ai plus de feu

Ouvre moi ta porte

Pour l'amour de Dieu

[DoomLooms]

No need for improvement. I think it's great the way it is!

[ZatchBellFan123]

Just imagine how this will sound when it's been totally revised! We really don't give much credit to our ancestors, do we?

[crazypokemonkid1234]

thomas edison made the first recording device that you could here what was being said

[AndreFTG]

lol yeh man

[microbbo]

Darkonelives is right. Edison didn't "invent" the light bulb either. Look up Joseph Swan to see the real history of the incandescent light bulb.

[Maloross]

Even this may not be the first recording. Some of the technology developed by Greeks, Chinese, Babylonians, and Egyptians over 2,000 years ago surpassed what was developed by Europeans and Americans in the 19th century. There is evidence of ancient Egyptian lamps and Babylonian copper batteries, perhaps hidden in the ancient ruins are also ancient phonographs.

[jaysonvalentine]

Well said.

[calimar28]

Booo. Im so tired Maloross of this politicaly correct bullshit about how the Egyptians were the first to make recordings centuries before this in the pyramids. NO! The Egyptians did not have even close to European technology for such a thing.

All those who keep saying Africans and Egyptians did this and that...I say to them "what have they done latley"?

[doncirelli]

You need to crack a book, Sparkie. No, the ancient Egyptians did not invent sound recordings. But if you think the Europeans invented everything, you are obviously bereft of historical knowledge. Next time you look at a dollar bill, take note of the little symbols in each corner. Those are called NUMBERS. They were invented by ARABS, not Europeans. That ain't "political correctness, it's HISTORY.

[spokev]

DarkOneLives is mostly correct. He had an army of people (my great grandfather among them) working for him who discovered things that he, as their employer, took credit for. One of his employees was cutting filament off a tube for the light bulb when he noticed sounds coming off the cutting needle. Edison, who was partially deaf, took his ear trumpet and attached it to the needle to amplify the sound. Thus was born the phonograph.

[tkach21]

kind of sounds like the beginning of the Titanic theme song

[DarkOneLives]

Edison didn't invent squat. He just refined prior inventions and was a good self-promoter.

[jamesdt1980]

Not to mention rode on the backs of the genius of his proteges

[sk8erdude70]

@DarkOneLives  exatly

[yitrer]

@DarkOneLives tesla is the real inventor of most edison patents.

[brentsrx7]

@DarkOneLives I would strongly recommend you look more closely into what Edison accomplished. Just because he could organize a team, doesn't make his inventions any less groundbreaking. The phonograph was a massive step forward. People had studied sound waves long before Leon, and there is no way to play those "recordings" back. Big difference between studying vibrations and creating playable recordings.

[princesskaitlyn524]

wow that' is really interesting, I hope they find some more of those!

[sailorette1]

Wow. I thought the Lambert recordings were the oldest. How amazing. It is too bad the people then could not hear it. Thank you for posting this revelation.

[animekitten789]

i hope they find more!

[mikeferr107]

WOW. That was really something. I'd be interested to hear more about that. I hope that there really will be more sound recordings from that era to be heard. That was unbelievable.

[dinmagic]

amazing to hear someone sing more than a hundred years ago.