Friends of the Phonograph

Celebrating the Phonograph

 

Friends of the Phonograph™ have a common goal: Remember the Phonograph! Each year two red-letter days are celebrated as birthday parties. On April 9, Friends of the Phonograph celebrate the recording of Au clair de la lune made in 1860 by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville. On December 6, Friends of the Phonograph annually sing Happy Birthday to the Phonograph, blow out the candles, and listen to Edison's recitation of "Mary Had a Little Lamb", reportedly Edison's first words spoken into his Phonograph. But other events and phonograph memorabilia (which Friends call "Phonographia") also preserve its legacy. The following links illustrate how the phonograph is remembered, even in the post-phonograph era.

 

 

At Edison's laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, on December 6, 1877 Charles Batchelor, an Edison assistant wrote in his diary that Edison's machinist John Kruesi had completed his assignment: "Kruesi finished the phonograph" read Batchelor's entry.

Click on this Birthday of the Phonograph link or on the drawing of Edison's original tinfoil Phonograph for more information about the Phonograph's invention and the day, December 6, that has been selected by Friends of the Phonograph to celebrate as the birthday of the Phonograph and the beginning of the revolution of sound.

 

 

Leon Scott's Phonautograph produced what is now known as the first record, 'Au claire de la lune". Scott called his records 'phonautograms'. It took 150 years before it was possible to listen to this recording since it was not Scott's intention to reproduce sound but rather to capture the sound waves on the lamp-blackened paper and then see those tracks.

Click on this Phonautograph link to learn more about the 2008 event when Scott's recording was first heard by anyone, even its inventor.

 

Memories of the Phonograph - A variety of recollections, short stories and memories of the Phonograph by Friends of the Phonograph.

 

Favorite Movies - The favorite movies list allows friends to rate movies and share their movie reviews. In a round-about way the movie list also celebrates the close connections between the early phonograph and talking movies, beginning with W. K. L. Dickson's Kinetophonograph. Dickson was an assistant of Edison's and he produced the first known movie that was syncronized with sound using an Edison cylinder Phonograph. Of course, the favortie movies of FP members are ones that include scenes with a phonograph like Spencer Tracy and Rita Johnson in the 1940 classic "Edison, the Man."

Phonographia Lists, et al.

In the2000 movie "High Fidelity" a record store owner (John Cusack) creates many top five lists, raising list-making to an art form. Cusack's specialty was to choose songs for friends, then make a tape recording as a gift. Based on his love of phonograph records and his record store, and for his expertise in creating and sharing recordings, John Cusack is considered an honorary member of Friends of the Phonograph.

Another example of phonographia list-making is the 1977 compilation of what one might call Earth's Greatest Hits. In 1977 (100 years after the invention of the Phonograph), two Voyager spacecraft were launched, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. On the outside of each was attached a golden phonograph record protected by an aluminum cover. Etched on the cover were instructions for playing the record. On these phonograph video disks (not laser discs) were images, sounds, music and words from around the world (see Carl Sagan's "Murmurs of Earth," for additional details about the Voyager record project). It was an attempt to share with the universe, using multimedia, a sampling of what Sagan's team thought best defined the Earth. On these discs were sounds and images to describe to the universe who are humans and what have we created.

The mission of the Friends of the Phonograph is not as cosmic as the Voyager Interstellar Record project. But like the Voyager project, the Favorites Movie List gives each member an opportunity to make selections and share those choices with whomever visits this site, even if they aren't extraterrestial. Not as social, perhaps, as attending a Phonograph birthday party but nevertheless another example of how Friends of the Phonograph are always looking for any excuse to celebrate the Phonograph.

PhonoLinks™ are connections to 21st century phonographia.

PhonoLinks are sourced by contemporary phonograph related references found in newspapers, advertisements, the intranet, or perhaps simply by something seen while walking down the street. Click Here or on the PhonoLinks image to learn more.

PhonoArt™is a gallery of art that displays the phonograph as a cultural icon.

As depicted in greeting cards, computer clipart, cartoons, advertisements, periodicals, posters and in a variety of venues from museums to the internet, the phonograph can be seen as a richly connected symbol. Click Here or on the PhonoArt image to learn more.

 

The Phonograph began a revolution. The record revolved at many speeds that have come and gone. If there is a mission statement for Friends of the Phonograph it would simply be that the Phonograph is an invention worth remembering, celebrated as the beginning of the sound capturing and listening continuum. Hopefully, these pages will support that mission and help preserve the phonograph's legacy.

 

Thomas Edison (left) at the Brady Studio in April 1878 with his tin-foil Phonograph that would become known to later collectors as the Brady machine. On this trip to Washington, D.C., Edison would demonstrate this Phonograph to President Rutherford Hayes and his wife at the White House.

Want to Learn more about the Phonograph? Join Friends of the Phonograph today and support this unique Society that celebrates the Phonograph, only asking you to Remember the Phonograph!