The History of Recording
Early sound recordings: In 1877, Thomas Edison made the first ever recording of sound onto a phonograph, playing Mary had a little lamb on a recorder. The phonograph was invented by Edison as a way to record sound using diaphragm-response vibrations. The phonograph was however, quickly replaced in 1885, by the graphophone, which used wax coated cylinders rather than just tin foil. This gave the graphophone a better quality of sound. The graphophone would be short lived though, as soon there would be an innovation that changed the way we listened to music, not just then, but still to this day.
The gramophone was invented in 1887, and instantly made music distribution easier. The gramophone’s selling point was that it used flat disks, which were easily mastered and mass produced. The records released on the gramophone where originally made from rubber Vulcanite, which is an extremely hard material. By 1910 the gramophone was in widespread use and the material used for cutting the records had changed to shellac. The shellac records only had two minutes of playing time on each surface of the record. The shellac was also a very bad material for giving out the high and low frequencies, so the records sounded (though they physically were) flat.
1917 saw the first jazz record to ever be released sell over a million copies. In 1925 microphone manufacturing became a more competitive job, as there was a much greater need for them, and for them to do more than the previous microphones available. Eventually microphones began to be produced that could pick up frequency’s close to that of the human hearing range. The capabilities of these mic’s ignited a singing style known as crooning. Crooning is used by artists such as Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.
1929 marks the beginning of the great depression after the wall street crash. This left people with near to no money, especially not for buying records, so radio took over. Radio stations where one of the few ways in that time that you could actually hear new records. Eventually duke boxes became common in places like hotels and bars. The duke box carried the record through these hard times financially.
Columbia Records came up with the 12″ record at 33 and a third rpm. They called it the LP, or the Long Play. It was the first record to use vinyl, and it was pressed using micro groove technology. RCA Victor also came up with a micro groove record format, and it was the 7″ 45rpm EP or Extended Play. Initially the LP was used for long pieces of classical music, whereas the EP was used for shorter popular music. The introduction of these two new playing formats that utilised the micro groove technology, killed of the gramophone records which despite being of similar size to the 12” 33rpm records, where spun at 78rpm, thus meaning that they had much less storage space on them. Because of the restricted play time, multiple disks had to be used to record a whole “album”, and that is where the term “album” originates from.
Tape at home:
In 1940, reel-to-reel recording was accessible to all markets. 1964 saw the release of the compact cassette tape, developed by Philips. The compact cassette tape, was initially developed for the use of diction purposes and its mass demand had not been anticipated. The competing product to the cassette was the circa 8 track cartridge. The 8-track cartridge was mostly used in cars, but its popularity never grew from the car systems, to a point of other markets investing in the format. This created a cartridge vs cassette war, and this invention of the noise reduction cassette in 1969 won the war for the cassette.
Music to go…in 1979, Sony released the TPS-L2 Walkman. 1983, pre-recorded cassette sales topped 236 million. Cassette tapes where still widely used in the 2000’s. Though they did have their problems. Piracy was on the rise, what wit h people copying LP’s to cassette, to then produce that cassette for resale. Bootleg recordings where also achieving infamy, what with people going to concerts, and catching iconic performances on tape for illegal resale. All of this cheating took its toll on the music industry.
The CD was released in 1982 and was immediately desirable. This was due to its robust structure and its ability to skip tracks quickly and navigate through an album as you may please. Companies capitalized on the CD format by re-releasing back catalogue material of desirable artist’s. 1988 saw vinyl sales bow to the CD.
The only potential competition for the CD came from other digital formats. Digital audio tape (DAT) was released in 1987. Sony manufactured CDR in 1992. 1991 was the year of the mini-disk’s release from Sony. The mini disk was great, as you couldn’t damage the disk, and it was re-writeable. However all of these formats where easy to pirate on, giving them no real edge on the CD in the average consumers eye.
Apple, ITunes and IPods: in the January of 2001, the ITunes software was release as a digital jukebox. In October of the same year they released the first ever IPod. By April in 2003, the ITunes store had opened. One million songs where downloaded in the first week. There had been twenty five million downloads by December 2003.
MIDI M8:
Midi is a communications protocol designed to allow musical instruments to talk to each other. It was released in 1982. It works by transmitting musical data as a series of messages, no sound is transmitted or stored, only data. Shortly after the release of midi, midi files where introduced. Midi files allow you to save and transfer your midi data.
Midi is now used on computers, phones and even karaoke machines. Before midi there was no way of interfacing instruments. Each manufacturer had their own unique way of doing things. Roland used a digital control bus, and Yamaha had a key code. There was no cross compatibility between manufacturers.
Dave smith of “sequential circuits Inc.” proposed midi to the audio engineering society in 1981. Midi was met with enthusiasm, and was developed and launched in 1983. Midi is now maintained by MMA (midi manufacturing association). The first synthesizer to be released with midi was the 1983 “sequential prophet 600”. At first midi was a very simple system and so there was a great demand for more control and functionality. Midi grew to encompass more technologies e.g. 5 pin din, usb, fire wire and now thunderbolt.
The Atari STE cemented midi popularity with its release in 1985. It allowed you to utilize midi on programs such as “Notater SL” and “Cubase”. Midi caused a musical revolution with its computing foundations. Midi aided dance music, allowed you to play with a pre-designed band, correct your performance, play any instrument and orchestrate/ compose with a digital score.
Musical Marxism! The ease of this technologies availability meant that there was no filter on what was being produced. Due to the lack of control on who used the product, there was a lot of terrible music being made. Midi auto-tune has led to disasters such as Brittany spears and Ke$ha.
Politics and Music
-Government aims in music-
From a governmental standpoint, music comes under ‘the department for culture, media and sports’. All of the department’s policies are overlooked by the department leader-Rt Hon John Whitingdale MP. Music also comes as a responsibility for ‘the department for education’. Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP leads this department. These two governmental branches came together in 2011 and made ‘the national plan for music’, which would last until 2020. The plan was put in place as an attempt to mend the apparent patches in music education, as reported by Darren Henley (music education in England, 2011).
Music hubs where created as a part of the national plan for music, to be used in local governments. Music hubs replaced the authority given to local music services. Torbay music education hub is an example of this, and they work with schools and local business to help facilitate the musical needs. The department for education and the arts council funds all of this. The arts council has many policies, including one for music. The arts policy for music is: “We will support the development of music in order to achieve our ambition of putting the arts at the heart of national life and people at the heart of the arts.” “All our arts policies prioritise strengthening and developing the infrastructure for the art form.” (Arts council, England, 2006).
‘UK MUSIC’ supports recording music industries and live industries. In 2015, MUSIC UK introduced their music manifesto. The manifesto was placed to make help music careers in the country and covered finance and copyright.
If you wish to play live or recorded music in an organisation or business, you must first haver the correct licencing. A licence can be got through the local council. These licenses affect pubs, clubs, local music venues, sporting facilities and more. The criteria for needing a licence are as follows: You provide entrainment between 11pm and 8am. You provide amplified live or recorded music to and audience of more than 500 people. You proved recorded music to anyone on a premise that is not licensed for the sale or supply of alcohol. You put on a performance of a play or dance to an audience of more than 500 people, or an indoor spor0ng event to more than 1000 spectators. You put on boxing or wrestling. You screen a film to an audience. (Gov.uk, 2016).
The copyright design and patent act gives the creator of any piece of work the right to use that material in any way they may chose. The works that come under such copyright laws are: literal, dramatic, typographical, artistic, sound recordings and broadcasting. Copyright it immediate, and is in place as of a creations conception. Copyright lasts for seventy years after the death of the last author of the work. sound recordings last fifty years as of the time of the recording, unless the work is released within that time, in which case; 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was first released.
The arts funding in the UK comes from the central governments ‘department for culture, media and sport’ which is distributed through the arts council of England. Other funding comes through the national lottery. TV licenses directly fund the BBC. Other arts funding is sometimes got from the ‘department for education’, ‘creative industry finance’ and ‘big lottery fund’.
-Patronage-
Patronage is aid given through support, privilege or financial means. It is usually given to a person by an organisation or other individual. Patronage in music could be found by way of wealthy people giving financial support to musicians. The donors include the church, royalty, the pope and wealthy lords. When you where under patronage to one of these, you where required to service the musical desires asked of you. Some musical styles and how music has developed, are as a direct effect of these ways. There was not much room for experimentation.
The middle ages) in this time, the church dominated music, making their compositions ‘sacred’ through the technique of chant. This technique of composing music has influenced western music’s development. The church was also a great educator of music, due to their adoption of poorer families children, and teaching them to be capable of a place in the choir.
Renaissance, 1400-1600) the Latin mass is still most significant at this time, holding the churches place as the main patron for music. However the church is beginning to lose some control over composers as they are beginning to experiment outside of chant based compositions. This is the longest time of dominance through the ages on patronage.
Baroque, 1600-1750) in this period, music is becoming secular and the introductions of ‘Cantatas’ and ‘Sonatas’ cause a shift in the musical direction of the time. Courts began adopting patronage responsibilities, as they desired these new types of compositions.
Classical, 1750-1800) at this time, noble men are the main patrons for music, and the most popular place to hear new compositions is in the courts rather than the church. What with noblemen owning their own orchestras and composers, they could control the music they wanted to hear. Alternatively, composers could be commissioned to a piece of work, or maybe even sponsored.
Romantic, 1830-1900) at the time of this musical music, the revolution(s) had passed, and the public in general where of a more positive mind. The post revolution atmosphere gave reason to composers to create the romantic music. At this time there was more power in the middle class, and the patrons of the past began to disappear with the introduction of ‘public’ work.
E.B 