About This Exhibit
This exhibit walks viewers through a historical timeline of audio recording technology, focusing on the perspective of everyday consumers of music media. It covers early recordings from the 1800s through the present day. Almost all audio recordings at the Music and Performing Arts Library are housed in the Media Collection and Special Collections, both of which are closed stacks that patrons cannot browse themselves. In light of the recent resurgence in the popularity of vinyl discs and other "retro" listening media, patrons are now looking for ways to access these recordings more than ever. This exhibit highlights an underutilised portion of the collection and provides historical context for today's music recording and listening practices.
Items Featured in This Exhibit
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Èdouard-Léon Scott de Martinville : Inventor of sound recording ; a bicentennial tribute
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Call Number: ML1055 .G56E3 2017"Èdouard-Léon Scott de Martinville was one of the first people to develop a way to record a visual representation of sound. He created the first known soundwave ""recordings"" using his own invention, the phonautograph. Patented in 1857, this device consisted of a drum head with an attached stylus and a soot-covered plate positioned at the other end of the stylus. When sound was directed at the drum head, it would vibrate, causing the stylus to vibrate too and, as a result, etch markings on the soot-covered plates. While Scott never had the chance hear these recordings played back to him during his lifetime, experts were finally able to hear what the phonautograph captured in 2008 using modern technologies.
An example of Scott's proof of concept for the phonautograph and for sound waves can be seen here." -
Reproducing Pianos Past and Present by
Call Number: ML1070H64 R4 -
Inventing entertainment : the player piano and the origins of an American musical industry
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Call Number: ML1070 D66I5 -
100 Albums That Changed Popular Music
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Call Number: ML156.4.P6 S60 -
Pictures of Sound : one thousand years of educed audio : 980-1980
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Call Number: ML1055 .F43P5 2012
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Rhapsody in Blue : Part I
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Call Number: ROLL M068931Unlike the music box, reproducing pianos play back a piece exactly as the musician played them, capturing and reproducing the nuanced expressions of the performer. This player piano roll is a recording of George Gershwin playing Rhapsody in Blue. Although this legendary composer and pianist is no longer with us, we are fortunate enough that we can experience what it would have been like to sit in the same room as him and hear him playing the piano. -
Billie Holiday : the original recordings.
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Call Number: DISC M1630.18 B55"Longplay vinyl discs were developed at the turn of the 20th century, as popularized by manufacturing competitors Thomas Edison and Emile Berliner. This technology allowed the everyday listener to hear music of all kinds from the comfort of their home with relative ease and affordability.
This album contains a selection of Billie Holiday's music throughout her career. While this disc was produced in 1973, the recordings it contains span from 1935 through 1958." -
Thriller
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Call Number: DISC M1630.18J2144 T5Michael Jackson's 1982 album Thriller still holds the record for best-selling album of all time. This longplay vinyl is an original U.S.A. pressing. -
A Collection of Beatles Oldies
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Call Number: DISC M1741.18 B42C66The Beatles were (and still are) immensely popular and have a prolific catalog of music. This album is a collection of some of the band's most beloved hits. -
On stilts among ducks : for viola, 1996
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Call Number: Special Collection ; CASS M298 B785O6Cassette tape; see accompanying score.
Magnetic tape began to be incorporated as an instrumental medium in the 1950s. Many composers and musicians used tape to create tape collages or 'Musique Concrète', which translates to concrete music. John Cage declared "magnetic tape was used not simply to record performances of music, but to make a new music that was possible only because of it". By the 1960s, the cassette tape became the foremost tool of the avant-garde musician and composer. -
Infected
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Call Number: CASS M1630.18T43 I53Cassette reached its peak popularity in 1985, surpassing vinyl in sales due to the cassette's ability to be played anywhere, not just in the car or in the home. The Walkman opened up a new world of portable private music listening, and the cassette outperformed the 8track and other media as it was smaller, had higher fidelity, and was rewindable. Capitalizing on the technological opportunities of the cassette, users created their own listening experiences by recording select tracks on a blank cassette, thus creating the "mixtape". -
The Chronic
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Call Number: CDISC M1630.18 .D74C5 1992The CD as a listening format rose to the peak of its popularity in the 1990s. Punk and hip-hop music started to take center stage as mainstream genres, and albums such as Dr. Dre's The Chronic introduced listeners to up-and-coming artists. -
Dark side of the moon
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Call Number: DISC M1630.18 D2740 years after the development and commercialization of stereo recordings, quadrophonic sound, or 4.1 surround sound, was experimental in the music production industry. It was not a smash hit when it began in the early '70s due to the lack of decoding equipment, like in-home 4.1 surround sound systems, and it was expensive to produce in the studio and to press. Quadrophonic records were overpowered by digital media by the time the home theater systems became popular in the '90s. Quadrophonic recordings are popular among collectors and enthusiasts, like Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, which was released as a quadrophonic production mix in 1973. -
The poem of ecstasy : op. 54 ; Prometheus : the poem of fire, op. 60
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Call Number: DISC M1002S37 OP.54R3In 1932, the first intentional attempt to capture stereophonic sound took place during the Philadelphia Orchestra's performance of Scriabin's Prometheus: The Poem of Fire. The audio capturing technique involved two microphones at opposite ends of the orchestra, connected to two separate styli, recording audio waves on the same wax disc. When played back through two separate speakers, it produced a spatial effect mimicking that of an in-person performance. -
Afro-American blues and game songs
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Call Number: DISC M1670 A37In the early monophonic days of recording technology, the Recording Laboratory at the Library of Congress equipped John and Alan Lomax with a recording setup installed in the bed of their pickup truck, permittng their travel across the country to capture the culture of unrepresented voices like those of the blues, jazz, and folk movements. Through the 20th century, the father and son duo pioneered recordings from artists such as Muddy Waters, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, and many unnamed artists across America. The sound waves were recorded on aluminum and acetate discs, now housed at the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress.
Gallery
Relevant Searches in Library Catalog
More Resources
- University of Illinois 78rpm Collection: MPAL conducted a large scale digitization project of gifted shellac 78s, which can be accessed through the Internet Archive.
- First Sounds: Website focused on preserving early sound recordings and making them publicly available. Free universal access!
- MPAL's Player Piano Digital Exhibit: Information about MPAL's reproducing player piano and collections of player piano rolls.
- MPAL's Player Piano Special Collections: More information about the reproducing player piano and player piano roll collection at MPAL.
- Sousa Archives and Center for American Music: Collection of significant archival records and historical artifacts in multiple media formats that document America’s local and national music history and its diverse cultures.
- University of Illinois Archives: Provides access to primary sources relating to the University and its faculty, staff, and students.