The Voice and Its Double: An Approach to Orality and the Heritage of Early Recordings in Scott's Phonoautograms and Edison's Phonograms
Keywords:
Voice, orality, sound recording, nursery rhyme, bluesAbstract
This article focuses on the medial heritage that can be derived from the first sound recordings in the inventions of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville and Thomas Alva Edison. The comparison of both case studies centers upon their respective social, cultural and technological contexts. By taking into account ethical (moral) and semantic (literary) aspects, as well as their forms of circulation and reception, and with regard to diverse types of artistic and technical transformations, this research shows how these repertoires have survived up to date. Beyond acknowledging their differences, this comparison also highlights the fact that the content of these pioneering recordings is linked to social practices such as the oralization of verses and children's songs rooted in the collective memory, which are recovered in other more contemporary emblematic recordings and in other musical genres such as the blues.
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