Phonograph In The Gilded Age

In the past, in order to listen to music, one had to physically be in the presence of a musician performing and as such it could be rather difficult to hear music on a regular basis. This was, however, before advancements in technology began to allow for music to become more accessible. Technology has and continues to augment and advance music for the betterment of its accessibility and economic viability.

For a long time, music and sound in general couldn't be recorded let alone played back in any capacity. This however changed when Thomas Edison made a breakthrough by creating the phonograph in 1877. The phonograph was a device that used an aluminum cylinder and stylus that etched a rough recording of the sound waves into the aluminum

With this invention and concept of recording and reproducing of sounds, the ground would be paved for better design. For instance, some ten years later, Alexander Graham Bell and Charles Tainter would collaborate to create the Graphophone which was essentially an updated version of the Edison's phonograph that utilized wax which proved to be a much better medium for sound and record longevity. with the work of Bell and Tainter, recorded sounds became recognizable however this has yet to become the point where music would come into play with recorded sound as the methods and devices used still didn't create records that were easily mass produced or that resulted in high quality sound. This would come to change with Emil Berliner and his creation that became much more popular for all the reasons that were lacking with Bell and Tainter's work. Berliner's gramophone saw development between 1887-1893 and completely went against Edison's initial design as it used

Magnetic tapes were too unpredictable with their audio quality to form a solid foothold in the market but years later would make a stronger appearance. With the improvement to compact cassette tapes or simple cassette tapes in the 1960’s, there was now a way to cheaply record and playback audio albeit with lower quality still in comparison to vinyl records. This meant that while at the time that cassette wasn’t preferable for big recording companies or musicians, they were for the ordinary person who simply wanted to easily and reliably record something (a popular example of this being the mixtape). In this particular scenario we can now see instances of stratification of music recordings where it is now entirely possible for essentially anyone regardless of social or economic class to be able to listen to music whenever they wished. This is even more apparent with the release of the 8-track for cars and the Walkman which would allow music to essentially become an industry available to nearly anyone of any class, at any time, at any place. Before this point, music was only available on gramophones or radio which could have been restrictive as these mediums weren’t always present and could be expensive to have in one’s home. In just 70 years, the music industry was completely altered by these