Frenchman Recorded First Sound On Phonautograph 17 Years Before Edison Did In Phonograph

Berkeley, CA (AHN) - Sound historians and engineers from California, have discovered in France the first recorded sound and sound recorder antedating American Thomas Alba Edison's phonogram and phonograph by 17 years.

The researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley believe Parisian typesetter and tinkerer Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville produced the first sound recording, a 10-second French folk song entitled "Au Clair de la Lune," in April 9, 1860 using a phonautograph, a machine he invented to record sounds visually and not for listening.

According to the International Herald Tribune, the device had a barrel-shaped horn attached to a stylus, which etched sound waves onto sheets of paper blackened by smoke from an oil lamp. The researchers found Scott's paper record of the song, called phonautogram, at the French Academy of Sciences in December while they were conducting a project to compile the world's oldest recorded sounds.

The researchers then scanned Scott's 9- by 25-inch paper to convert the scribbled sound patterns into digital format and played it using modern technology.

The researchers were composed of American sound historian David Giovannoni, phonograph historian and Indiana University teacher Patrick Feaster, and Archeophone Records owners Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessey. Archeophone specializes in early sound recordings.

The researchers will present to the public Scott's phonautogram and his other older paper records found in Paris on Friday at the annual conference of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. They will also play the 1860 phonautogram "Au Clair de la Lune" during the event.

Edison is credited for recording the first spoken words, "Mary had a little lamb," on a sheet of tinfoil and playing it using a phonograph, his own invention, in 1877.