Recently I discovered 3 types of recorded music hidden away under some rubbish in a back room here at Ag Heritage Museum. Not exactly a farming discovery, but very interesting!
The first discovery was a box of "paper music rolls" used in "player pianos". A player piano plays the music on these paper rolls represented by holes in the paper. Someone has to pump the pedals at the bottom of the piano to make the rolls go around and the music play.
The next discovery I made was a box full of round paper tubes. Inside of these tubes were more tubes. These tubes were actually recordings of music, as I later learned. They were invented by Thomas Edison to be played of the first "phonograph" also an Edison invention. These tubes are examples of the first recorded music. What a find!!! They all date to around the turn of the century. We have a "Gem Phonograph" that was made by Edison to play these tube type of recordings here at the Ag Heritage. I hope to get this phonograph running in the future so that I can play these "tube recordings" for museum visitors.
In that same back room I found a box of old "records", the flat disc kind. Not very exciting until I Googled the record name and found that this was a very early recording done by Thomas Edison that replaced the "tube type" of recording that I had also just discovered. The record was very thick and heavy compared to modern day records. Edison designed a phonograph to play the disc recording I found but sadly, we don't have this type of phonograph here at the museum.
Some very interesting discoveries here at Ag Heritage. Let me know when you plan to visit and I'll make sure I have these recordings handy for your group to examine.
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