Lecture Notes Review: History of Sound Recording

Flashcards providing key vocabulary and definitions from the lecture on the history of sound recording.

Phonograph

Thomas Edison's invention for sound recording, with the first captured sound being 'Mary had a little lamb.'

John Kruse

The machinist who worked with Thomas Edison to create the first model of the phonograph.

Charles Bachelor

Thomas Edison's assistant who helped demonstrate the phonograph.

Chychester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter

Competitors to Thomas Edison who also developed sound recording devices out of the Volta Laboratory.

Emile Berliner

Inventor of the 'flat disc solution' known as the Gramophone, which addressed issues with earlier recording systems.

Gramophone

Emile Berliner's black disc system, which allowed for cutting a master recording and making multiple copies, enabling mass production.

Analog Sound Recording

The era that began with Berliner's gramophone, involving capturing fluctuations in sound and storing those signals in record grooves.

Microphones

Devices whose use was prodded by the invention of radio and film, allowing for much more distinct and isolated sound capture.

78 revolutions per minute (78s)

The standardized record speed agreed upon by record companies in 1925, made from a substance called shellac.

Shellac

The brittle substance, primarily sourced from Southeast Asia, used to make 78 RPM records, and also used for nail varnish today.

Jukebox

Invented by Holm Capehart and developed by the Wurlitzer Corporation, it played a song for a penny and significantly boosted music industry sales during the Depression.

American Federation of Musicians

A union that went on strike in 1942, demanding that artists be paid every time their songs were played on the radio or in a jukebox.

Lieutenant George Robert Vincent

The individual who convinced musicians to record 'v-discs' exclusively for troops during World War II, helping to end the musician's strike.

V-discs

Specialized, unique recorded material made exclusively for troops during WW2 to boost morale, with a stipulation that they be destroyed after the war.

Long Player (LP)

A new vinyl record unveiled by CBS in 1948, 12 inches in diameter, rotating at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute, capable of holding about 30 minutes of material per side.

RCA's 45 RPM Disc

A 7-inch disc rotating at 45 revolutions per minute, developed by the Record Company of America, perfect for single song use (singles and B-sides).

Captain John Mullen

The American who, in 1945, discovered working tape recorders in Germany and attempted to market them in the States, though timing wasn't right.

Cassette Tape

Developed in Europe in the 1960s, these tapes were inexpensive, held a lot of music, and became a popular format for portable music.

Eight-Track

A bulky tape format popular in the 1970s, featuring four tracks played in stereo (eight-track), but lacking rewind functionality.

James T. Russell

The inventor of the very first compact disc (CD) in 1970, though CDs were not marketed until the early 1980s.

Dieter Seitzer

A university professor who devised a way to compress digital information into a usable size, leading to the MP3 format.

MP3s (Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3)

A compression format for digital information that made it possible to hold more music and put it into a computer file.

Sean Fanning

The creator of Napster, a file-sharing program that allowed users to trade music for free, leading to major lawsuits from musicians.

Napster

A website created by Sean Fanning that allowed users to upload and download music files for free, ultimately leading to significant legal action.

iPod

Apple's solution to legal music downloading, a portable hard drive disk that allowed users to buy songs legally, ensuring artists were paid.

Smart Speakers

Devices like Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePods that play music via voice command but raise concerns about privacy due to constant listening.

W.C. Handy

Known as the 'Father of the Blues,' famous for his 'Saint Louis Blues,' which is a standard in the blues field today.

Blues

A music genre with rhythms from African American slaves, mixed with traumatic lyrics reflecting the hardships of slavery and disappointments of reconstruction, originating in the Mississippi Delta.

Gospel

A music genre with origins similar to the blues, but focused on religious worship.

Thomas Dorsey

The first great recording artist to use the gospel music form.

Mahalia Jackson

The first hugely successful gospel artist, who started her career singing in church choirs.

White Gospel

A gospel-focused music form with an additional 'southern twang,' considered the origin point for country music.

Carter Family

A significant group in white gospel music, instrumental in the introduction of the banjo to the genre.

Folk music

A genre that grew popular during the Great Depression, with roots in poverty and struggles, primarily from Celtic traditions that filtered through Appalachia.

Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger

Prominent figures who made folk music popular during its peak.

Jazz

A music genre that combined unschooled musical talent with formal forms, characterized by improvisational musicianship, nurtured in New Orleans 'body houses.'

Scott Joplin

A pianist who created an early form of jazz known as ragtime.

Boogie Woogie

A form of jazz created by James 'Jimmy' Blythe.

Swing

A kind of jazz developed in the late 1920s that incorporated a large blend of orchestral arrangements with jazz improvisation.

Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller

Influential band leaders who were prominent figures in the swing jazz era.