this might seem like a strange one, but here is my main obsession.
Not a lot of people realise that commercial recording actually started in the 1880s and some of these have survived. To me these are just about the most fascinating thing on this planet.. anything recorded pre 1925 fascinates me. I collect records and cylinders and have about 2 or 3 thousand pre 1925 records that i play on a 19227 gramophone and about 120 or so wax cylinders that i play on an edison phonograph from 1906.
a few of the sort of high lights that really get me going every time i play them are
a home recording, e.g recording made in somebody's house i think it looks to have been made some time between the late 1890s and about 1904 or 5, the blank cylinder they used was bought around that time anyway. The reason this particular recording fascinates me so much is that it is very, very indistinct and poorly recorded, almost ghostly and is very crackly due to the cylinder being so warn.
a berliner record. These were the first disc records ever, ever made. This one is from 1899 i think and while i have several of these, 4 or 5, this one is a whistling solo! these things were very popular back then and a lot of them were recorded as they were captured well by the technology of the time, and trust me, they are very interesting. Artistic whistling really is a lost art form! if you don't believe me try to look up joe belmonte, the most famous of these artistic whistlers, on youtube or something or gogle something like 1890s whistling solos.
anyway.. I could go on about this for hours.
While I collect records, it is mostly the music on them i collect rather than the record itself. I have a lot of digital music files but there is something about playing a record, knowing there is a lot of history behind it and I feel lucky and privilaged to even hold some of these early records.
If you are interested in any of this, the cylinder digitisation project is the best thing the internet has to offer or one of them, in my opinion. Also the 1920s radio network is a station that plays a lot of this stuff and if you want to know more abotu it, just ask :d
Not a lot of people realise that commercial recording actually started in the 1880s and some of these have survived. To me these are just about the most fascinating thing on this planet.. anything recorded pre 1925 fascinates me. I collect records and cylinders and have about 2 or 3 thousand pre 1925 records that i play on a 19227 gramophone and about 120 or so wax cylinders that i play on an edison phonograph from 1906.
a few of the sort of high lights that really get me going every time i play them are
a home recording, e.g recording made in somebody's house i think it looks to have been made some time between the late 1890s and about 1904 or 5, the blank cylinder they used was bought around that time anyway. The reason this particular recording fascinates me so much is that it is very, very indistinct and poorly recorded, almost ghostly and is very crackly due to the cylinder being so warn.
a berliner record. These were the first disc records ever, ever made. This one is from 1899 i think and while i have several of these, 4 or 5, this one is a whistling solo! these things were very popular back then and a lot of them were recorded as they were captured well by the technology of the time, and trust me, they are very interesting. Artistic whistling really is a lost art form! if you don't believe me try to look up joe belmonte, the most famous of these artistic whistlers, on youtube or something or gogle something like 1890s whistling solos.
anyway.. I could go on about this for hours.
While I collect records, it is mostly the music on them i collect rather than the record itself. I have a lot of digital music files but there is something about playing a record, knowing there is a lot of history behind it and I feel lucky and privilaged to even hold some of these early records.
If you are interested in any of this, the cylinder digitisation project is the best thing the internet has to offer or one of them, in my opinion. Also the 1920s radio network is a station that plays a lot of this stuff and if you want to know more abotu it, just ask :d
