1887年に録音された音楽

Music recorded in 1887

The year 1887 (Meiji 20) was when the phonograph, invented by Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) in 1877, was transitioning from a "mysterious experimental machine" to a product intended for office dictation and entertainment purposes. The Edison Phonograph Company was founded in October 1887, and improvements were made to cylinder recording machines and a sales system was put in place.

Meanwhile, the Bell family, Tainter, and others continued to develop the graphophone, and improved recording machines using wax-coated cylinders and transversely vibrating grooves began to appear on the market as business dictation machines. These technologies became the foundation of the recording and playback media that would later support the popular music record industry.

Also in 1887, Emile Berliner (1851–1929) applied for a patent for a flat disc recording and playback method that would later be called the "gramophone," developing a technology that used horizontal rather than vertical vibrations to carve grooves into the disc. This was a decisive turning point that led to the development of later SP and LP records.

However, when considering the currently available audio recordings and research materials, it is not yet possible to find a recording that meets all of the following criteria: it was recorded in 1887, the audio source exists and is playable, and the content is music (vocals and instrumental performance).The oldest known music recording is a choral recording of Handel's Israel in Egypt, made at Crystal Palace in London on June 29, 1888.

Recordings confirmed for this year: 0

Dated "non-musical" recordings from 1887

In 1888, several speech recordings were found with fairly clear primary source information on the recording date and content, including a reading of the poem "The Phonograph's Salutation" by Horatio Nelson Powers (1826–1901) and a recording of a toast at a press dinner held in Little Menlo, London.

In contrast, even when consulting the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, major discographies, and research papers, there are no examples of "non-musical recordings with a clearly marked recording date, extant audio sources, and identifiable dialogue" that can be reliably dated to events in 1887.

It is believed that many test recordings were made in this year for business purposes, meeting minutes, court records, etc. However, many of these recordings have been reused or discarded, and in most cases it is not possible to determine with certainty that they were recorded in 1887 based on labels, ledgers, or markings on the equipment alone.

Even before 1887, several playable experimental recordings remain, including Frank Lambert's (dates of birth and death unknown) "Experimental Talking Clock" and test recordings made between 1881 and 1885 by Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) and others at the Volta Institute. These were primarily intended for technical experiments or oral recordings, and are positioned as documents illustrating the development of recording technology rather than as "music recordings" with clear titles and performers. 1887 can be seen as a bridge between these prehistoric experimental recordings and the commercial musical recordings that began appearing the following year (such as "Israel in Egypt" and cylinders for talking dolls).

Possibly recorded around 1887 (year and date of recording uncertain)

Among the experimental recordings said to have been made "around 1887," we have compiled those whose audio sources are known through later research or restoration, or those for which there are remaining testimonies of the recordings. There are various theories about the year and date of recording in each case, so we believe it is safer to treat them separately as "candidates for around 1887" rather than including them in the chronology as "confirmed recordings from 1887."

Berliner's earliest experimental gramophone discs (Emile Berliner, circa 1887)

Emile Berliner (1851–1929) applied for a patent for a disc recording method using transverse grooves in 1887, and began experimenting with recording sound on glass and metal plates. During this process, Berliner is said to have recorded short readings and simple songs (such as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star") in his own voice, and these recordings have been introduced in later restorations and on recording history websites as "some of the earliest disc recordings, from around 1887–1888."

However, even when considering the physical characteristics, labels, and related documents of existing discs, it is difficult to definitively determine that each individual recording was recorded in 1887, and many are described with broad descriptions such as "around 1887" or "experimental recordings from 1887-1888." For this reason, while MOPM introduces Berliner's early experimental gramophone discs as important examples that illustrate the technological background around 1887, they are not included in the track count and remain within this subheading.

Edison's prototype cylinder recording for the Talking Doll (Thomas Alva Edison, c. 1888–1890)

Edison's Talking Doll (Phonograph Doll) was an attempt to incorporate a small phonograph into the chest of a children's doll.The concept began to be developed in the late 1880s, and by early 1888, full-scale testing of a toy phonograph mechanism had begun.There is a record that the Edison Phonograph Works showed a prototype of a "toy phonograph" to the Talking Doll Company in November 1888. It was only commercially available for a short period in the spring of 1890.

To date, talking doll cylinders containing nursery rhymes such as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and "Hickory Dickory Dock" have been optically scanned and audio restored, but it is difficult to distinguish from the audio source alone whether each individual recording is from the prototype stage in 1888 or the mass-production period around 1890. Some explanatory articles broadly describe these as "recordings from around 1888-1890," and MOPM similarly places them in this section simply as "examples of prototype recordings from around 1887."

Professional recordings on the Bell-Tainter graphophone (Chichester A. Bell/Charles Sumner Tainter, late 1880s)

Chichester A. Bell (1848–1924) and Charles Sumner Tainter (1854–1940), along with Alexander Graham Bell, developed the graphophone, which used a wax-coated cylinder and transversely vibrating grooves, and patented it in the mid-1880s. From the beginning, the graphophone was designed primarily for business dictation and meeting note-taking, rather than for music.

In 1887, their patent was transferred to the American Graphophone Company, which began manufacturing business-use graphophones using equipment from bridge factories and sewing factories. While these machines likely produced dictation recordings and demonstrations at various venues, including government offices, companies, and shorthand conventions, very few surviving examples clearly indicate the date, speaker, and content of each recording on each cylinder. Therefore, while the 1887 graphophone recordings are extremely important for considering the history of recording, they cannot be included as specific tracks in the MOPM song-by-song list. This page introduces them as a bridge between the existence of numerous business recordings whose year and content are unknown and the more specific examples that emerged after 1888.

References

1878-1886

TOP

1888