It is almost unbelievable that a laser turntable exists, capable of playing the oldest recording of an American voice! Only a folded piece of tinfoil was used! Fox News shared the entire story, and I must say, I covet the rights to this amazing piece of equipment.
Experts say this is the oldest playable recording of an American voice. It is the first musical performance every captured, thanks to digital advances that allowed the sound to be transferred from flimsy tinfoil to computer.
The recording was originally made on a Thomas Edison-invented phonograph in St. Louis in 1878.
At a time when music lovers can carry thousands of digital songs on a player the size of a pack of gum, Edison’s tinfoil playback seems prehistoric. But that dinosaur opens a key window into the development of recorded sound.
The recording opens with a 23-second cornet solo of an unidentified song , followed by a man’s voice reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Old Mother Hubbard.”
When the recording is played using modern technology during a presentation Thursday at a nearby theater, it likely will be the first time it has been played at a public event since it was created during an Edison phonograph demonstration held June 22, 1878, in St. Louis, museum officials said.
“The recording was made on a sheet of tinfoil, 5 inches wide by 15 inches long, placed on the cylinder of the phonograph Edison invented in 1877 and began selling the following year.
A hand crank turned the cylinder under a stylus that would move up and down over the foil, recording the sound waves created by the operator’s voice. The stylus would eventually tear the foil after just a few playbacks, and the person demonstrating the technology would typically tear up the tinfoil and hand the pieces out as souvenirs.”
It is hard to believe that a laser turntable of today can share with us the miracle of tinfoil music. This is certainly on my Christmas wish list!
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