Apple
Music

The
introduction of Apple
Music, June
30, 2015
Apple's Launch of
Apple Music - The History of Sound:
127 Years of Recorded Music which
"led to the next great leap in listening: Apple Music."
By Doug Boilesen 2015
In June 2015 Apple introduced
Apple Music as "the next great leap in listening."
As part of its promotional kick-off Apple created a video showing
Apple Music as the newest addition to the timeline of recorded
music.
The starting point
for Apple's History of Sound is the phonograph of 1888
(bypassing the earliest history
of recorded sound). (1)
Apple's video, however, isn't
a documentary about the phonograph or a scholarly history of recorded
sound. With its Apple look and feel, this is a montage
of multiple era music playing devices energized by a beat and
sounds that climax with the iris of an eye, a flash of light behind
a man at a lectern with outstretched arms and what looks like
one finger pointing up in his right hand and two fingers pointing
up or making the letter V with his left hand...cut to black, cut
to white-lettered 2015 on black, cut to Apple Music
on black...and the final cymbal.


It's a fun presentation.
For Friends of the Phonograph,
the highlights, of course, are the various phonographs playing
throughout those 127 years -- visual reminders of its continual
presence in the history of recorded music.
During its multi-generational
use the phonograph has been joined by a variety of descendent,
music delivering devices playing recorded music -- radios and
boomboxes; reel-to-reel, 8-track, and cassette playing systems;
CD players and Walkmans; computers, iPods, streaming devices --
and in every era the phonograph is still playing its records.
All devices playing recorded
music have many connections with the phonograph, like repeating
the phonograph's original promise to consumers of playing sound
and music for anyone, anytime, and as an experience that phonograph
advertisements likened to the "best
seat in the house."
The history of the phonograph
is a continuum and recorded music is at the foundation of the
phonograph's legacy.
For me what makes the phonograph's
continuum unique and beyond wondrous, however, is that the Voyager
spacecraft is now travelling interstellar space with a phonograph
record on board and it has the mind-bending
possibility of existing longer than
humans on Earth.
An awesome phonograph factola
to be sure.
Below is a link to the 2015 video
of the launching Apple Music followed by screenshots and
some additional details about the content in this one minute and
36 second presentation of Apple's History of Sound: 127 years
of Recorded Music.
WATCH
APPLE'S HISTORY OF SOUND

A
few details about 1888.

With attention refocused on the
phonograph, Edison and his assistants on June 16, 1888 "completed
Edison's first commercial phonograph, which is generally known
as the PERFECTED Phonograph." (1).

Edison's Phonograph recording
at The Crystal Palace, August 4, 1888 Scientific American
On June 29, 1888, Handel's Israel
in Egypt was recorded at The Crystal Palace in London, the
earliest known recording of classical music.

May 26, 1888 Scientific
American

July 14, 1888 Scientific
American (Wikimedia Commons)

Listen
to "The Lost Chord" (Edison National Historic Site)
The Lost Chord
Performed by: cornet
and piano (performers unknown)
Composed by: Arthur
Sullivan
Record format: Edison
yellow paraffine cylinder
Recording date:
c. August 1888
Recorded by: Col.
George Gouraud
Location: London,
England
ENHS object catalog
number: E-2440-3
SCREEN SHOTS
and Other Information

APPLE'S
HISTORY OF SOUND

The opening of the Apple History
of Recorded Music begins with 1888, a phonograph close-up,
and then a machine being cranked. This machine, however, is not
Edison's PERFECTED Phonograph nor would it have been hand-cranked
or spring driven. The man is listening with a "Recording
Tube" next to his ear, whereas a listening tube (more like
earbuds) or a horn would have been the likely way for listening
to the Phonograph in 1888.


Edison 1888 with Perfected
Phonograph and listening tube in his ears, Menlo Park Laboratory,
U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Edison
National Historic Site

Edison speaking into recording
tube of the Perfected Phonograph (later illustrated in The
Illustrated London News, July 20, 1888)



Tuning in a Radio, unknown
date or model, circa 1920's.









































Music Service Competitors for
Apple Music in 2015 (with a comparison by Techcrunch)
More 1888 Phonographia

Gouraud's "Little Menlo"
home in London. For more information about this home and Gouraud's
recordings see Patrick Feaster's "The
Phonograph as Toastmaster."
For an interesting
presentation featuring voices from an October 5, 1888 dinner attended
by Sir Arthur Sullivan and other guests
(3) , watch "A
dinner with Sir Arthur Sullivan" put together by Jack
Gibbons. The dinner was held at the home of George Gouraud, Edison's
representative in London, whose home was known as "Little
Menlo" and where Gouraud
demonstrated Edison's new "Perfected Phonograph."
Gibbons's video also
features other historic sound recordings from 1888, 1907 and 1912,
including recordings made by Savoyard Walter Passmore, as well
as historic movies filmed in England and Ireland in 1888, 1896,
1898, 1900 and 1903.

Colonel Gouraud and family
in their "Little Menlo" home listening to a message
on Edison's Phonograph, The Illustrated London News

Phonographia
|