Exciting times: Ms M. right away brought the following New York Times article to my attention. Soon after, i found the acoustic ecology community is all abuzz about it:
I’ve often celebrated the achievement of Edison and Redpath in bringing sound recording into this world. To learn that Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville successfully recorded sound nearly two decades before Edison and Redpath is astonishing indeed.
However, what is even more astonishing is that Scott had the brilliance to accomplish such a feat but never the forethought of recording sound for sound reproduction. He has said so in his own self-published writings when reminding us of the true, literal meaning of the word phonograph: a visual representation of sound.
Impressive as the news of his invention is, i am reminded of the many music-makers and sound artists of today who attempt to conquer many if not most of the critical decisions in their work while looking at squiggly lines on a computer screen instead of closing their eyes and listening.
We do things a little more old school in the Red Sun Soundroom. We’ve got access to the visuals of the digital editing workstation interface, sure—and do use this tool from time to time. But you’ll find we make our decisions far more often with our eyes closed and our ears peeled. It’s like tasting a dish being cooked up in the kitchen to decide it needs more cumin, and not relying solely on what’s written in the recipe from a magazine. Physical response is a key component of how we operate.
That said, listening to those few seconds of “Au Clair de la Lune” sung by an unknown voice in 1860 and recorded by Monsieur Scott gives me goosebumps.
The excitement for me, though, is in the playback, in listening to those few seconds.
That’s where the magic lives.
