The First Words Ever Recorded
Before Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, it was impossible to capture sound for later playback. You’d think that Edison might consider this when he made the first-ever recording for his...
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“Happy” and “Sad” Keys
It’s self-evident to most people that there are songs that sound “happy” and others that sound “sad.” This can be a function of key, which involves the importance and relationships between the notes...
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The First Electric Guitar
What we would recognize as the first true electric guitar was invented in 1931 for musicians who needed help being heard amongst the other instrumentation in jazz bands and blues combos. Credit goes to...
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The Importance of the Transistor Radio to Rock ’n’ Roll
The second consumer product to be made with transistors (right after the hearing aid) was the transistor radio, beginning with the Regency TR-1. It was produced in part by Texas Instruments which...
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The Rise of FM Radio
Although the technology had been around since the 1930s (the first FM radio for the car was introduced in 1952 by Blaupunkt and stereo broadcasting began in the US in 1961), the frequency spectrum...
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The Rise of the Music Video
By the middle 1970s, a new art form called the “music video” began to gain attention. Although short promotional films for songs or albums had been produced for decades (they were once known as...
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Facts About the Compact Disc Pt 1
Some things you may not have known about the ubiquitous CD: The first CDs rolled off the manufacturing line of a factory in Hanover, West Germany, on August 17, 1982. The first discs off the line seem...
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Facts About the Compact Disc, Pt 2
Unlike a vinyl record which revolves at a constant speed and plays from the outside in, a CD’s spin rate varies from 200 to 500 RPM and plays from the inside out. At first, there was great reluctance...
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Facts About the Compact Disc, Pt 3
The first album transferred to CD for demonstration purposes was Living Eyes from the Bee Gees in 1981. Among the first CDs to go on sale to the general public in Japan when the format was first...
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Facts About the Compact Disc, Pt 4
The first compact disc to be manufactured in America (as opposed to Germany or Japan) was Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA in 1984. In 1984, Sony became the first company to offer an in-dash CD...
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