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Phonograph Invented
The Phonograph is invented by Thomas Edison and is the first mechanical device able to reproduce sound as well as record it. -
Gramophone Invented
Emile Berliner, a German-born American inventor, develops the phonograph further with his invention of the Gramophone. This used discs (the gramophone record) instead of cylinders, unlike the phonograph, and lead to the development of the Victrola in 1906, which was the most popular domestically used phonograph of the time. His idea was that by using discs, multiple copies of sound could be produced - an idea further developed later on with the invention of records and CDs. -
First Jukebox is Invented
Created by Louis Glass and William S. Arnold, the first Jukebox was essentially a Phonograph attached to a machine that could accept coins and allow people to listen to music using headphones. This idea of allowing large groups of people to listen to music at one time is significant because it shows the development of a wider audience for musicians and the sharing of music between consumers. -
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Development of Radio Technology
Heinrich Hertz's experimentation with electromagnetic waves in 1885 inspired the invention of the first radio system, patented to Guglielmo Marconi in 1896. Only three years later, this wireless radio technology began being fitted onto ships in order to aid communications between themselves and places inland, and in 1920 the first radio broadcast was aired to the public. However, it was not until 1939 that radio reached it's peak; over 28 million households in American had a radio at this point. -
Use of Electrical Recordings Increase
As the popularity of turn tables increased so did electric recordings, to the point where they soon overtook acoustic recordings. This is because of the clarity of the sound it produced, due to it no longer relying on the mechanical horn to amplify sound. The first record produced in this way was Art Gillham's song “You May Be Lonesome" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki2aUvThKuk) -
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Electric Instruments Begin Development
Using the ideas of amplified sound and radio, as well as the concepts derived from earlier acoustic instruments, electric instruments started being produced during the late 1920s and mid 1930s; the electric piano in 1929, the electric guitar in 1931 and the bass in 1935. -
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Vinyl and LP Records
In 1943, Vinyl became the most popular disc format that was used on a record player, because of it's durability, and in 1948 'long play' (LP) records were created and introduced to the public by Columbia Records. This sparked the beginning of competition with other LP formats as soon Radio Corporation of America (RCA) released their own version, which later proved to be more popular than Columbia's. The first record released in this format was the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto by Nathan Milstein. -
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Development of the Cassette
The first attempt by RCA at introducing music in the form of a cassette tape came in 1958; it proved to be too costly for what it was worth and soon failed. However in 1962, multi-track analogue tape recording bacame a popular medium in recording studios, and one year later the compact cassette is born. This must have boosted the popularity of cassette tapes because by 1983 they has overtaken vinyl as the most popular music format. -
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Introduction of CDs
CD players and the technology behind CDs was first introduced to the public in 1981, but it wasn't until a year later that the first publicly availlable CD player was released in Japan by Sony and Phillips. The first album released on CD was a re-release of '52nd Street' by Billy Joel, but the first album released exclusively on CD was Dire Straits' 1985 album 'Brothers in Arms'. CDs became the most popular format for music in America in 1986 and are still frequently used to this day. -
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MP3 is Born
MPEG-1 (known as MP3), a type of compressed audio format, was created by the german company, Fraunhofer-Gesellshaft, in 1993. This opened up more opportunities for listening to music in a digital format, and companies, such as Microsoft in 1997, began making their software compatible with MP3. During the early 2000s, apple helped boost the popularity of MP3 by making a range of products and services directly linked to it - such as the IPod invented in 2001 and the creation of Itunes in 2003. -
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Digital Development and the Internet
The concept of using computers to listen to music was developed further when YouTube was invented in 2005 - which had many more songs than ITunes and allowed listeners to listen for free. File sharing services, starting with Napster in 1999 and then soundcloud in 2008, used the internet to allow people to share the music they listened to as well as their own. And finally streaming services - such as Spotify, created in 2008 - have become immensely popular in current times.
