Did you know? 17 years before Edison, the first sound recording was French!
- Jo
- Mar 23, 2022
- 2 min read
Yes, the first trace of sound recording that we have dates back to 1859, more than 17 years before the famous Edison's recordings... And it is... a tuning fork (the little tool that gives the beat to musicians)! It was recorded by the inventor of the phonautograph Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Frenchman!
Registration of the tuning fork (public domain, 1859):
More interestingly, he did it again the following year, in 1860, to record a melody that is none other than the famous "Au clair de la lune"! A voice that seems feminine but which, restored by specialists and brought back to its real tempo, would in fact be that of the inventor himself!
Recording of the melody Au clair de la Lune (public domain, 1860):
The system, which was patented in 1857, worked thanks to a roll of paper coated with lampblack on which the sound waves were transcribed as a phonautogram. The phonautograph thus made it possible to record, but not to listen.
In 2008, a group of sound engineers and scientists, First Sounds, succeeded in playing back this recording using a virtual playback head.
As for the first field recording in history that is known today, it is the ringing of Big Ben in London, recorded on July 16, 1890 by Miss Ferguson and Graham Hope.
Recording of Big Ben, ringing then bells at 10:30, 10:45 and 11:00 (public domain, 1890):
These sounds that come from the distant past and make it almost tangible by allowing us to imagine the space and air in which they were captured... intriguing, right?
Sources :
Articles Wikipedia "Phonautograph", "Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville"
Le blog des bruitages, "Premier bruitage de l'histoire"
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