Post by Stephen Byers on Jan 9, 2021 4:02:25 GMT
Centuries of Sound podcast is a museum piped straight into your ears
This fascinating series knits together archive recordings chronicling the evolution of recorded sound
www.ft.com/content/11e3b7a7-f6c5-47ba-8417-e95a77e1ca15?fbclid=IwAR1al8UsixGHBlSEdhXjENMi941VZsJOAsMQy1vPaiBpMo6rD9CAxUpcN1Y
Centuries of Sound podcast is a museum piped straight into your ears
This fascinating series knits together archive recordings chronicling
the evolution of recorded sound
In 1931, America was in the midst of the Great Depression but, in
cultural terms, it was booming. Hollywood was entering its golden age
and, while the music industry was struggling to turn a profit, a
handful of singers and musicians were riding high. Cab Calloway
released “Minnie the Moocher”, about a rough, tough woman with a heart
“as big as a whale”, which went on to sell a million copies; Bessie
Smith sang unequivocally about sex in “Need a Little Sugar in My
Bowl”; and the Duke Ellington Orchestra pushed at the boundaries of
popular jazz with “Creole Rhapsody”.
All these songs and more feature in the latest instalment of Centuries
of Sound, an audio treasure trove chronicling the evolution of
recorded sound through monthly mixes, each of them devoted to a single
year. Compiled with passion, care and a nerdy attention to detail by
the Cambridge-based sound artist and languages teacher James
Errington, the series is a magnificent audio collage, a museum piped
straight into your ears. Along with Calloway, Smith and Ellington, the
1931 episode includes excerpts of Louis Armstrong, Paul Robeson and
The Carter Family plus clips from Bela Lugosi in Dracula, Laurel and
Hardy and Groucho Marx.
One of the many joys of the series, which was launched in 2017, is
being able to dip in and out of different years at random. However,
the early episodes provide a special fascination — they are not
always easy on the ears but offer a remarkable glimpse into advancing
technology and the ways in which sound was preserved for the ages.
The first recording is not Thomas Edison’s much-documented wax
cylinder recording of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, but a ghostly voice
singing the folk song “Au clair de la lune”. The recording was made in
France in 1860 by the printer and bookseller Edouard-Léon Scott de
Martinville using a phonautograph, which translated soundwaves on to
sheets of parchment — this was 17 years before Edison patented the
phonograph. After that, the series jumps to 1878, and Charles
Batchelor’s recording of the rattle of a Manhattan railroad plus a
Hamlet soliloquy (actor unknown). 1888 yields a crackly phonographic
recording of a 4,000-voice choir singing Handel’s Israel in Egypt,
some whistling courtesy of a Mrs Shaw and, remarkably, the muffled
voice of the British prime minister William Gladstone.
As Centuries of Sound works its way towards the present day, the
volume of material available naturally expands, traversing styles,
characters and continents — Errington helpfully provides playlists and
expansive contextual information on each episode on the series
website. Education isn’t Centuries of Sound’s raison d’être; the
project is primarily a labour of love. But to work your way through
this fascinating aural library is to open yourself up to pivotal
cultural and historical moments and to lose yourself in the sounds of
the past.
====
This fascinating series knits together archive recordings chronicling the evolution of recorded sound
www.ft.com/content/11e3b7a7-f6c5-47ba-8417-e95a77e1ca15?fbclid=IwAR1al8UsixGHBlSEdhXjENMi941VZsJOAsMQy1vPaiBpMo6rD9CAxUpcN1Y
Centuries of Sound podcast is a museum piped straight into your ears
This fascinating series knits together archive recordings chronicling
the evolution of recorded sound
In 1931, America was in the midst of the Great Depression but, in
cultural terms, it was booming. Hollywood was entering its golden age
and, while the music industry was struggling to turn a profit, a
handful of singers and musicians were riding high. Cab Calloway
released “Minnie the Moocher”, about a rough, tough woman with a heart
“as big as a whale”, which went on to sell a million copies; Bessie
Smith sang unequivocally about sex in “Need a Little Sugar in My
Bowl”; and the Duke Ellington Orchestra pushed at the boundaries of
popular jazz with “Creole Rhapsody”.
All these songs and more feature in the latest instalment of Centuries
of Sound, an audio treasure trove chronicling the evolution of
recorded sound through monthly mixes, each of them devoted to a single
year. Compiled with passion, care and a nerdy attention to detail by
the Cambridge-based sound artist and languages teacher James
Errington, the series is a magnificent audio collage, a museum piped
straight into your ears. Along with Calloway, Smith and Ellington, the
1931 episode includes excerpts of Louis Armstrong, Paul Robeson and
The Carter Family plus clips from Bela Lugosi in Dracula, Laurel and
Hardy and Groucho Marx.
One of the many joys of the series, which was launched in 2017, is
being able to dip in and out of different years at random. However,
the early episodes provide a special fascination — they are not
always easy on the ears but offer a remarkable glimpse into advancing
technology and the ways in which sound was preserved for the ages.
The first recording is not Thomas Edison’s much-documented wax
cylinder recording of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, but a ghostly voice
singing the folk song “Au clair de la lune”. The recording was made in
France in 1860 by the printer and bookseller Edouard-Léon Scott de
Martinville using a phonautograph, which translated soundwaves on to
sheets of parchment — this was 17 years before Edison patented the
phonograph. After that, the series jumps to 1878, and Charles
Batchelor’s recording of the rattle of a Manhattan railroad plus a
Hamlet soliloquy (actor unknown). 1888 yields a crackly phonographic
recording of a 4,000-voice choir singing Handel’s Israel in Egypt,
some whistling courtesy of a Mrs Shaw and, remarkably, the muffled
voice of the British prime minister William Gladstone.
As Centuries of Sound works its way towards the present day, the
volume of material available naturally expands, traversing styles,
characters and continents — Errington helpfully provides playlists and
expansive contextual information on each episode on the series
website. Education isn’t Centuries of Sound’s raison d’être; the
project is primarily a labour of love. But to work your way through
this fascinating aural library is to open yourself up to pivotal
cultural and historical moments and to lose yourself in the sounds of
the past.
====