Sound Matters: The Impact of Technology on Music Consumption in the Early Twentieth Century

By Richard L Beeston BA

This book has been written to assist researchers of the origin of how sound technology has changed dramatically in the first part of the twentieth Century. It deals with the technology of the growth of production and transmission of music specifically and then way in which music has been used for information and relaxation as well as the ambience in which it is consumed. It also deals with many of the formats in which the sound technology, is listen to and produced for instruction and consumption of this technology. The usage of specific and different formats for individual, small group, large group, national and international consumption for enjoyment and information in formal and informal use.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Feb 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9798369495230

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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND

Sound Matters: The Impact of Technology on Music Consumption in the Early Twentieth Century

A Dissertation submitted by

Richard L Beeston BA

for the award of

Master of Arts

with a Specialisation in Humanities and Communications

2018

Copyright © 2024 by Richard L Beeston BA.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 02/05/2024

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to my supervisor, Dr, Darryl Chalk, for the support, guidance, mentoring and impetus he has given me. His input and knowledge have been invaluable and for this I am very grateful, I would also like to thank Dr Rebecca Scollen for allowing me to do this project and the staff of the University of Southern Queensland for their generous advice on core subjects during the past three years. I thank the librarians of several universities for their permission to borrow hard to find academic references and to Jane Albert and Bruce Carty for the use of their authored books. The encouragement of many friends and family are also acknowledged as their belief in the need for this work has given me the incentive to see the completion of this project.

Finally, a special thanks to my wife Valerie who never doubted that I could complete this thesis and her patience, understanding and support during this process.

Prologue

I have used MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers Sixth Edition for referencing.

Five appendices, relating to record speeds, radios stations, and music, have been created at the end of the thesis to expand on some points and provide more details on the technologies that are my focus here.

Contents

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

Scope and Limitations

Aims and Purpose

Literature Review

Chapter Summary

CHAPTER ONE

PRE-RECORDED MUSIC: ROLLS AND CYLINDERS

Introduction

Player Piano Rolls

Reproducing piano

Cylinders

Celluloid cylinders

Conclusion

CHAPTER TWO

PRE-RECORDED MUSIC: RECORDS

Introduction

Flat Disk Records

Microphones and amplifiers

Amplification

Conclusion

CHAPTER THREE

FROM FURNITURE TO POCKET-SIZE - THE RADIO

Introduction

Pre-history of the Radio in Australia

The Advent of the Radio

The Radio in the Home

Radio’s mainstay - Music

Transistor Radios – The Pocket Radio

Australian Indigenous Radio

Conclusion

CONCLUSION

Appendix 1

Construction of Cylinders

Appendix 2

Radio Station Start Dates and First Broadcast

Appendix 3

Comparison between pianist and player piano abilities.

Appendix 4

Record sizes and speed table

Appendix 5

TOP 20 CYLINDER and SHELLAC RECORDS PLAYED ON RADIO 2CM

WORKS CONSULTED

Abstract

The development and usage of sound technology has enabled individuals, families and communities to store, play and listen to music more readily and with more understanding the over the last 150 years. How could we imagine that by the end of the 20 century, we could walk around anywhere, and listen to our own music whenever we wanted? This would have been deemed preposterous by the standards of the first decade of that century, and yet, it has happened. How has this become possible? This thesis will argue that the developments of sound technology in its various forms during the early part of the twentieth century provided the foundation for this now ubiquitous phenomenon. It will examine the development of sound technologies such as player piano rolls and cylinders as well as the many forms of records: flat disc, vinyl, and shellac. The machines that were used to play these technologies will also be discussed including the cylinder player, record player, and player piano. The technology of recording sound and listening to sound exemplified by microphone amplifiers and radio will be used to demonstrate the growth of sound reproduction and its intricacies.

Introduction

At the dawn of the twentieth century two moments occurred in Australia that are an exemplification of a profound revolution in the production and consumption of music through the use of sound technology on a global scale. Although unique in Australian history, it is probable that similar moments occurred in many different countries about the same time. They shape the way music is produced and consumed in a new environment of innovative design that would dominate the way we listen to music for the coming decades. These moments happened over 600 kms apart and each moment could not have been aware of the other and the significance of each. The first was on 2 March 1898, in a small town, on the Clarence River in northern NSW, called Maclean with a population of approximately 2000. Here the local Postal Inspector, who had imported the latest model of a Berliner gramophone, was to give a demonstration of this first, and for many years only, Berliner gramophone in Australia, to an audience in the Masonic Hall in Maclean. Little did he realize the importance of the event when a reporter on the local newspaper (Clarence and Richmond Examiner), in an eloquent report on the meeting about the Berliner Gramophone, dated 5 March, stated:

The machine has only recently been perfected and Mr Bartle, the Postal Inspector, being the only person to bring one to this river also owned the first instrument in Australia. […] The most remarkable feature of the instrument is the apparent simplicity of construction, while the records can be distinctly heard over three hundred yards away. […] The modulations are produced by the steel needle, by making a circuit of the revolving disc, encountering thereon a succession of varying ridges and depressions, which, however, destroy one needle for each record. Instrument solos, quartets and band pieces, were rendered so naturally it was scarcely possible to believe the music produced by the Gramophone. Songs, recitations and speeches were recorded so clearly that every word was distinctly conveyed to the audience. (5)

Although the description of the machine is somewhat vague, it appears to be a machine made by Berliner about 1894, with a horn similar to those used on the early cylinder machines of the day. I would argue, that the distance mentioned of over, three hundred yards, may be an exaggeration, unless there were exceptional weather conditions on the night that would carry sound that far without amplification, which was not then in existence. The vulcanite records, used in this demonstration, were no longer used by Berliner in 1896, as the company producing it could only produce an inferior quality, which distorted the sound quality.

The report (Berliner) in the local newspaper, unfortunately, does not mention how many records were played on the night. There is a note saying that the records for this machine were not available in Australia, as there were no registers for producing them here (5). There is no further representation of this machine being presented or demonstrated in any other state or non-urban area. This significant moment shows how accepting people can be when presented with a new technology, and how transformative it was, and yet, within a decade or so, it is taken for granted, when a new development takes its place. This constant change of innovation, acceptance and then discarding for something newer, is an ongoing narrative in this thesis.

The second significant moment was just two years later in Sydney. With a somewhat larger audience the event, a concert, garnered many complimentary reviews where we read from several local newspapers including the Australian Star, The Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph, printed the next day, that on:

Thursday evening 22nd March 1900, Signor Lardelli is on stage at the Sydney YMCA with a violinist as accompanist and a noted singer Ms Narelle and the concert begins with Lardelli playing the pianola. The program for the concert contained 18 items of music. Most of the pieces of music played artistically that night, were written by Lardelli himself. After five years in London he brought with him this instrument that had never been seen in Australia before, the pianola (Lardelli Concert Daily Telegraph 7).

Although misnamed in several newspapers as the pianola it was a piano player which will be clarified in Chapter 1. The report continues:

This machine is wheeled up to the keyboard of a piano, carefully set to certain octaves, and then played by means of pedals, just like a harmonium. It has a pneumatic keyboard, which is operated by. the air being forced through the perforations of a parchment cylinder This meant that anyone who owned a piano may be able to turn their piano into a player piano by buying the machine and ensuring the connections were available. Lardelli had brought a large supply of the pianola rolls with him as he been made the Australian agent for the publisher, Ashdowns, in England" (Australian Star 3).

The significance of this concert was that Lardelli promoted the possibility of having the sound technology of recorded music played in any home rather than going to concerts in public halls. And he had brought the piano rolls to prove it. Such promotion introduced a technology allowing music to be consumable in entirely new ways.

Both these significant moments, where machines have been used to play music through sound reproduction technology, have meant listeners can control what, when, why, and how they consume their music. As David Suisman has suggested: At the dawn of the 20th century, the emergence of a new technology for the mechanical reproduction of music struck many people … as a harbinger of dramatic cultural change (13). Similar events may have happened elsewhere, but I have used these events as examples of communities engaging in the acceptance of new technologies. I will show in this thesis that these and other developments of sound technology have benefited our understanding of, and our relationship to, music. These machines have also increased the availability and diversity of the music that is available, and to which we choose to listen. Arguably the more diversity we have, the greater the understanding we can have of this art form, and the greater the cultural benefit.

Music is an art form, and like most art forms, it has a narrative of developments and change, some of which are not readily accepted at the time. As an example of this, Lardelli played similar concerts in country New South Wales but, in Grafton, for example, he was cast as a misfit by the residents, and after six months he left giving one last concert in September 1901, as mentioned in the Clarence and Richmond Examiner dated 03 September (pg 4). Like other art forms sound technology has not always had an immediate acceptance because of costs and a lack of supply of recorded music.

We cannot see music like paintings or photographs or dance. We cannot touch it like sculptures and other tactile art. We can only hear it because it is a form of sound whose outlet is arranged in time. As James Lull states: Music does not require visual attention. Not only does the audience member have the freedom to experience music in this non-visually focused way, he or she need not sit down to consume music (23). Like the other art forms mentioned, music in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth