Centuries of Sound

MP3 direct download | Itunes | Mixcloud | Feedburner (RSS) | MP3 pack One of the least thought about, but perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the way we listen to music is its loudness – that is, the quantity rather than just the quality. Modern day audiophiles will be familiar with the … 1904 Read More »

MP3 direct download | Itunes | Mixcloud | Feedburner (RSS) | MP3 pack   “Under it all there’s a sort of strong, dark pulsing, the dimly recorded echo of the thundering rhythm: trombones, sousaphones (named after your man, of course), drums. The dynamics build to a controlled climax, the sound getting heavier and heavier as … 1903 Read More »

Here’s one of those stories you might reasonably consider to be an old shaggy dog tale, but which turns out to be the work of a single author, adapted ad infinitum since its publication in 1902. It has a novel concept, and a nice subtle extra twist, but having read a lot of Poe and … W. W. Jacobs – The Monkey’s Paw Read More »

MP3 direct download | Itunes | Mixcloud | Feedburner (RSS) | MP3 pack 1902 is the year everything started to explode. Not particularly in the world of music, not really in the world in general, but very much so in on my computer in 2018. Suddenly there is just so much out there to listen … 1902 Read More »

Psst – come and join my Patreon here – https://www.patreon.com/centuriesofsound – and get access to our radio podcasts in January! MP3 direct download | Itunes | Mixcloud | Feedburner (RSS) | MP3 pack   Escaping a blinkered view of early 20th century recorded music sometimes seems like an impossible task. If the Edwardian era is … 1901 Read More &#1...

MP3 direct download | Itunes | Mixcloud | Feedburner (RSS) | MP3 pack Is this a new century? Difficult to get agreement on this one, but it’s certainly a new decade, and changes are very much in the air; changes that haven’t quite filtered through entirely to the mix you’re about to hear, but which … 1900 Read More »

MP3 direct download | Itunes | Mixcloud | Feedburner (RSS) | MP3 pack “There probably has never been a sweeter, more naturally musical baritone voice than his… …Arthur Collins managed invariably to get into the wax the impression of a warm, lovable personality. The unctuous sound of his chuckles in dialect work is unfailingly charming. … 1899 Read More &...

MP3 direct download | Itunes | Mixcloud | Feedburner (RSS) | MP3 pack “The country is awakening to the real harm these “coon songs” and “rag-time” are doing… It is an evil music that has crept into the homes and hearts of our American people regardless of race, and must be wiped out as other … 1898 Read More »

MP3 direct download | Itunes | Mixcloud | Feedburner (RSS) | MP3 pack “He told them he wanted a certain cylinder containing a particularly obscene song. He claims in his affidavit, on which the warrant was issued, that Hunting sold this cylinder to him and then in his presence made him another equally objectionable record, … 1897 Read More »

MP3 direct download | Itunes | Mixcloud | Feedburner (RSS) | MP3 pack In a tiny, bare-walled back room a man sings into a huge metal horn. The sound causes vibrations in the air, which travel down the horn, compressing into a smaller point, causing a diaphragm to vibrate. The diaphragm pushes a metal stylus, … 1896 Read More »

“Music is so helpful to the human mind that it is naturally a source of satisfaction to me that I have helped in some way to make the very finest music available to millions who could not afford to pay the price and take the time necessary to hear the greatest artists sing and play.” … 1895 Read More »

The classic minstrel show is refracted through just about every aspect of American entertainment since. As a ritual, the minstrel show was as formalized as an exorcism. Each of its set parts has its own afterlife, appears peeking through a different window in American culture like a leering, priapic idiot glimpsed through a heavily barred … 1894 Read More »

  When looking back into the past, it’s important (but difficult) to remember that for everyone concerned it was just the present, especially at times like these when technology was making the world strikingly different. For Americans born into the civil war era, the gilded age of the 1880s and 1890s must have been a … 1893 Read More »

  What was recorded sound for; historical record? dictation of memos? the arts? At this point nobody is really making the case for any one purpose. The phonograph is out there in the homes of the wealthy trend-setters, recording studios are being set up in major cities, and popular entertainers are being sought out to … 1892 Read More »

  One of the main problems with making this Centuries of Sound thing is representation. The 1890s are the birthplace of ragtime and the blues, Buddy Bolden was playing proto-Jazz down in New Orleans, and over in Europe figures like Dvo?ák, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Puccini, Sibelius, Grieg, Saint-Saëns, and Rachmaninoff were leading classical music’s last … 1891 Read More »

    We’re a bit stuck in between ages here. The experiments are now fading into the background, phonographs are being introduced into the world, but the nascent music business still hasn’t really taken off. 1890 sees our last recordings from Edison’s British agent, Colonel Gouraud, and the first attempts, in Russia, to capture performances … 1890 Read More »

1889 is by no stretch of the imagination a golden year for recorded music. A blip on the otherwise upwards trajectory in terms of both sound quality and things being recorded, it is, frankly, the worst possible starting point for anyone dipping in. With little in the way of technical improvements, it’s notable only for … 1889 Read More »

MP3 download | Patreon | Apple | Mixcloud | Spotify | Castbox | Stitcher | RSS The gramophone and phonograph had been experimental toys for a decade, their inventors deciding to tinker with them from time to time in between other, more immediately lucrative projects. In 1887, aside from Edison’s occasional developments, Alexander Graham Bell’s …...

An alternative history podcast rundown of the second half of Victoria’s reign, if one isn’t enough.

A large part of this project involves immersing myself in the years I’m covering. Later on this will mean I’m able to include audio from films, radio, TV and eventually the internet. For now it means I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries and reading a fair few books. In order to fill some time … Rex Factor – Victoria (Part 2 – 1861-1901) Read More »

https://centuriesofsound.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/1878-1885.mp3 MP3 download | Apple | Spotify | Castbox | Stitcher | Radiopublic | RSS . Nearly two decades have passed, and Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville’s experiments with recording sound have so far not resulted in anything replayable. On the other side of the Atlantic, however, development are taking...

The story you may have heard about the birth of sound recording goes something like this; Thomas Edison, alone in the lab after a hard day’s work, manages to record a recital of “Mary Had A Little Lamb” onto a wax cylinder. You may have even think you have heard the recording, but you haven’t. … 1859-1860 Read More »