The first recorded music was heard thanks to the phonograph - Thomas Edison's first functional one being presented in December 1877 - of course like all new inventions there were many others who could claim the title of being the first of invent to phonograph but of course Edison ended up being the most well known (compare Edison's fame to that of a true genius like Nikola Tesla)
The phonograph functioned by having a metal cyclinder with 'scratches' read by a stylus which in turn was amplified to produce a reasonable level of sound, these devices were hand cranked. The stylus going across the cyclinder. To play different music a new metal cyclinder or metal sheet folded around the cyclinder was inserted.
In 1887 a Emil Berliner patented the gramaphone. This operated like the phonograph, except now the cyclinders were replaced with the more familiar flat discs. Its advantage was that it was easier to handle and store these disks compared to the old cyclinders and the disks were far easier to mass produce, hence the greater variety of music available squeezed out the old phonograph (this might remind people of the VHS - BETA war in the 1980's - history repeats). These first 'records' were normally less than 5 minutes long!
An evolution in the disks took place Berliner eventually settling on a material call shellac until plastics were invented, to produce his records.
In 1931 RCA Victor company produced the long play record running at 33 1/3rpm - a whole 20 minutes! Records became known at LP's - Long Plays.
In 1920 wire recorders the forerunner of magnetic tapes came out. It was the Germans during world war two that really produced the first usable tape recorders. Of course this technology was taken back to America after the war and Minnesota Minning and Manufactoring company (3M) perfected the tape. The advantage of tape was obvious - portable and later re-recordable. Later developments included multitrack recorder to produce "stereo" sound. Then from two tracks to four to eight tracks, etc.
In 1963 Phillips introduce the Compact audio cassette, immersely popular, now rarely seen except for micro recorders.
For most of my youth there were only two main types of choices in music formats - compact tape or LP.
Then in the early 80's digital technology began its evolution. First in the Compact Disk - a smaller, lighter version that although looked a similar disk shape to the old LP's used a very different technology. Instead of relying on direct contact to produce a sound - i.e. needle on the surface of the record, the new CD's did not actually have a direct surface contact. The reader scanned over the surface of the disk with the lazer picking up the data. Improvement in CD's included the blue light lazer - which having a smaller light wave means more data on the disk and a dual layer meant that in a very short space of time the data potential of the CD went from slightly more than an LP to being huge - holding a huge movie and more on one DVD.
The digital music technology has changed again to the online world and ipod's and the myriad MP'3 player wantabee's. Various file formats are stored on a variety of hard drives/disks.
The history of music recording continues to evolve due to three main driving forces - increased storage capacity, increased sound quality, increased portablity - with the new MP3's players have we reached our limits or will man require yet more?
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