Existing comment:
Music Room
"They make another mistake and think that because a singer is good on the stage he will be good on the phonograph. This is not the case, because the phonograph exaggerates the tremolo which is present in nearly every voice."
-- Thomas A. Edison, letter to Thomas Graf, managing director of the Edison phonograph division in Berlin, Germany, 1911
Birth of an Industry:
The sounds that echoed within these walls and down the hall were more than just music. They were the wails of the newborn recording industry. Visitors in the 1880s and 1890s often heard strange noises coming from this room, as the staff made experimental recordings on wax cylinders to discover what techniques produced the best sound quality. Recording techniques weren't yet sensitive enough to require a soundproof room, so musicians sometimes made master recordings here -- recordings that Edison reproduced for sale. By the 1910s, the phonograph was becoming part of daily life and Edison had lots of competition. This room became what in today's music industry is called the Artist & Repertoire department.
Clarence Hayes:
Edison hired Clarence Hayes, a vocalist and bookkeeper, in 1912 to manage the Music Room. As Edison evaluated music and artists for release on Diamond Disc records, Hayes organized the inventor's comments and passed them along to the recording studio, record pressing plant, and advertising department. Hayes described Edison's method: "It never matters to him whether they are big artists or not, you know. If he thinks a certain record is rotten, he says it is rotten, and that goes." |