9781422277386

T he technology for recording music and playing it back later dates to the 1870s. The great inventor Thomas Edison built the first phonograph in 1877. For the recording process, sound waves produced by a voice or instrument moved a needle over a piece of tin wrapped around revolving cylinder. The needle cut grooves into the tin. A second needle then “read” the grooves and produced a copy of the original sound waves. Later phonographs recorded the sound on wax cylinders, and then on discs made of such materials as shellac and vinyl. These early recordings and later ones made on tape are referred to as analog . The recording devices and materials recreate the sound waves generated when music is made. WORDS TO UNDERSTAND analog  referring to sound waves duplicated by making grooves in a disc or turning them into magnetic signals recorded on tape commercial  in business to make money compression  the process of removing some digital information from a music file to make it smaller rip  take sound off a digital disc, similar to recording on tape with analog music upload  transfer digital files to a network

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