The phonautograph, invented by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1857, was the first device to record sound. The first known recording made with a phonautograph was in 1860.
How it worked
- The phonautograph used a thin layer of lampblack on a glass plate
- A membrane at the end of an acoustic trumpet vibrated when someone spoke into it
- A bristle at the center of the membrane traced squiggles into the lampblack
- The squiggles were called phonautograms
What it was used for
- The phonautograph was intended to study sound waves and acoustics
- Scott believed that future technology could decipher the phonautograms as a kind of “natural stenography”
The first recording
- On April 9, 1860, Scott recorded a ten-second snippet of a woman singing “Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit”
- The recording was not designed to be played back, but rather for people to read the tracings
- The recording was not heard until 2008 with the help of computer technology
What came next
- About 17 years after the phonautograph, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph
- Edison offered a $200 refund to early adopters of the phonautograph
