Music & Musical Instruments

• 

  Volta Laboratory Experimental Recording

  Description

  This is an experimental sound recording made in the Volta Laboratory, Washington, D.C., on 11 March 1885. The recording process involved focusing a beam of light, projecting it through a liquid, and causing sound waves to interrupt both the light and the liquid to expose a prepared photographic plate. The recording, which starts at the center and spirals outward, is of variable density, that is the areas of exposure vary in density according to volume and pitch of the sound recorded. Process is described in U.S. Patent 341,213 awarded Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester A. Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainter on 4 May 1886.

  Sound was recovered from this recording in 2011.

  Content summary: “Mary had a little lamb”

  Content transcript (37 seconds):

  “ [?]…Sumner Tainter and H. G. Rogers. This eleventh day of March, eighteen hundred and eighty-five. [trilled r sound] [indistinct phrase] Mary had a little lamb, and its fleece was white as snow [alternatively, black as soot?] . And wherever Mary went…Oh [indistinct word].

  Mary had a little lamb, and its fleece was white as snow [alternatively, black as soot?].

  And wherever Mary went, the little lamb was sure to go. How is this for high? [trill]”

  References:

  Patrick Feaster, “A Discography of Volta Laboratory Recordings at the National Museum of American History”

  Leslie J. Newville, “Development of the Phonograph at Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory,” in Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology, United States National Museum Bulletin 218, Paper 5 (1959): 69-79.

  Steven E. Schoenherr, “Charles Sumner Tainter and the Graphophone,”

  Wile, Raymond R. "The Development of Sound Recording at the Volta Laboratory," Association for Recorded Sound Collections Journal 21, No. 2, 1990, pp. 208-225.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  ca 1885

  date recorded

  1885-11-03

  ID Number

  ME.287654.11

  catalog number

  287654.11

  accession number

  57694

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Berliner Gramophone Record

  Description

  Emile Berliner, a German immigrant who settled in Washington, D.C., profoundly influenced the direction of early sound-recording technology. In November 1887 he patented the first of a series of inventions that would result in a commercially successful disk record and a machine to play it on--the gramophone.

  This rare rubber record is about 7 inches in diameter. It was made in May 1898 and donated to the museum by Berliner himself. According to information inscribed by hand in the center of the disk, it plays a banjo duet of the tune "Narcissus," performed by Joseph Cullen and William Collins.

  Part of Berliner's success stemmed from his process that permitted mass-production of sound recordings. In that process, a performer made a master recording, a mold of that master was made, and then, from that mold, multiple disks could be pressed.

  In contrast, Berliner's main competition—Edison's phonograph and the Bell-Tainter graphophone—played recordings made on wax cylinders with vertically cut grooves. At first, the only way to make multiple copies of these cylinders was to make multiple originals, but by about 1900 a process for making mass-producing cylinders was devised. In the meantime Berliner's disk recordings, longer playing and more durable than cylinders, won over consumers. Berliner's design for a laterally cut disk record, playing at 78 revolutions per minute, became the industry standard.

  Berliner experimented with a variety of materials for records, including glass, celluloid, and hard rubber. He eventually settled on a shellac compound called Duranoid. Other manufacturers adopted the compound as well and continued to make records with it until the late 1940s. In search of a more durable material, Columbia Records introduced the vinyl long-playing 33 rpm disk record and RCA the three-minute 45-rpm disk.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1898-05

  referenced

  Cullen, Joseph

  Collins, William

  maker

  Berliner, Emile

  ID Number

  ME.308322

  catalog number

  308322

  accession number

  71816

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Tenor Recorder

  Description

  Olive C. Hazlett (1890–1974), a leading American mathematician of the 1920s, received this wooden tenor recorder from the family of astronomer Harlow Shapley (1885–1972) . Hazlett gave the recorder to a mathematician, Grace Shover (1906–1998), whom she had befriended at national mathematics meetings. Grace Shover Quinn and her physicist husband, Robert B. Quinn (1907–1993), gave the instrument and its instruction book to the Smithsonian Institution in 1983.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  ID Number

  1983.0873.01

  accession number

  1983.0873

  catalog number

  1983.0873.01

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Propeller Indiana’s Hand Bell

  Description

  Found on the wreck of the propeller steamer Indiana, a bell as small as this one would have been too small to serve as a fog signal for any distance. It probably would have been used to signal crew watch changes, as a dinner bell, or possibly to signal someone on a nearby shore.

  ID Number

  1979.1030.15

  catalog number

  1979.1030.15

  accession number

  1979.1030

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Autopiano

  Description (Brief)

  Advertising piece for Old Colony Piano Company of Brockton, Mass. Die-cut from celluloid sheet stock, one side carries the image of a player piano. The bookmark advertises the Autopiano, a player piano.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  after 1905

  maker

  Whitehead & Hoag Company

  ID Number

  2006.0098.0673

  accession number

  2006.0098

  catalog number

  2006.0098.0673

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Kranz-Smith Piano Co.

  Description (Brief)

  Metal match safe with hinged lid. The wrap-around plastic label shows an image of a Chickering grand piano on one side, and a Bradbury upright piano on the reverse. The match safe was an advertising piece for Kranz-Smith Piano Co. of Baltimore, Md.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  ca 1906

  advertiser

  Kranz-Smith Piano Company

  maker

  Whitehead & Hoag Company

  ID Number

  2006.0098.0993

  accession number

  2006.0098

  catalog number

  2006.0098.0993

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• Fritos Twist Record

  Description

  This 78 rpm record was made by the PAMS (Production, Advertising, Merchandising Service) production company in February 1962 for the Frito-Lay company to promote its Fritos snack food with a dedicated jingle, the “Frito-Twist.” The disc’s white paper label bears the Fritos and PAMS logos on both sides. Side A plays “The Frito Twist,” and Side B contains the instructional “How to Twist.” (In earlier versions of this promotional record, side A featured “Dallas: My Home Town” with “The Frito Twist” on side B.) The music for the “Frito Twist” was written by Euel Box, a Dallas-based composer and arranger best known for his work on the “Benji” movies of the 1970s and 80s, and a music director for the PAMS company. The sound engineer on the recording was Dick McGrew (as noted in the fine print along the edge of the record).The Dallas-based PAMS production company was founded in 1951 by William B. Meeks, Jr., often credited as the creator of the musical station break. In the 1950s-1970s, advertisers looked to music and dedicated jingles to help promote their products. They aimed branded dance fads in particular at teenagers and young adults.

  This record was purchased by Kaleta Doolin, whose father, C.E. Doolin, founded The Frito Company in 1935. Though she did not remember the release of the original recording (she was 12 years old at the time), she later learned how to dance the Twist. This record is part of a collection of objects and archival materials on the Doolin family and the Frito Company donated by Kaleta Doolin, the daughter of C.E. Doolin. See Frito Company Records, 1924-1961, #1263, NMAH Archives Center.

  C.E. Doolin launched “Fritos” in 1932, inspired by a recipe he had purchased from Gustavo Olguin, a Mexican-American restaurant owner in San Antonio, where Doolin had worked as a fry cook. Olguin’s “fritos” (the name came from the Spanish word frit, meaning fried) were small fried corn chips made from masa dough. Doolin bought the recipe, Olguin’s hand-operated potato ricer, and nineteen customer accounts for the snack, all for $100. He then patented his own device for extruding the masa dough through a cutter, which produced ribbon-like strips that were then fried in hot oil. Doolin marketed the chips as an ingredient in recipes, many of which were inspired by his mother Daisy Dean Stephenson Doolin’s dishes for entertaining. The chips were used in both sweet and savory preparations, including as crust for fruitcakes, breading for salmon croquettes, and garnish for tuna salad.

  In 1945 Doolin connected with Herman Lay, famous for automating the manufacturing process of potato chips and the head of H.W. Lay & Co. Lay took on the nationwide distribution of Fritos at this time. Doolin passed away in 1959, and in 1961 The Frito Company officially merged with H.W. Lay & Co. to become Frito-Lay. Frito-Lay went on to develop more products (including the wildly popular snack foods Cheetos and Doritos) and become the largest snack conglomerate in the world. Initially promoted as an ingredient in foods for entertaining, Fritos were advertised mostly to children, both in print and television campaigns and via cartoon characters such as the cowboy-inspired “Frito Kid.”

  Fritos were most successful as a standalone snack. Following the success of the commercial potato chip in the 1930s, there was a growing market for other salty snacks and pre-packaged foods to be eaten on the go and in-between meals. The creation of “snack time” as a new type of American meal helped bolster the popularity of Doolin’s invention. The packaging of these snacks would also prove revolutionary—before 1900, snack foods and sweets were sold in small paper bags and portioned out by the grocer or shop owner. As manufacturers experimented with cans and glassine bags and materials such as wax paper and cellophane, they found new ways to keep food fresh and vacuum-packed until the customer opened it. Over the second half of the twentieth century, snack foods would develop into a $22 billion dollar industry.

  The Frito Twist on Youtube

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1962

  ID Number

  2012.0079.04

  catalog number

  2012.0079.04

  accession number

  2012.0079

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• Horstmann Brothers & Co. Military Trumpet

  Description (Brief)

  This trumpet was made by Horstmann Brothers & Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania around 1879-1882. It is an F natural trumpet made of brass, with a blue cord. This trumpet is stamped:

  HORSTMANN BROS. & Co. [/] PHILADELPHIA

  This is a standard military trumpet, made according to Specification No. 38, dated February 15th, 1879, “Specifications for Trumpets,” Quartermaster General’s Office, War Department:

  “For all foot troops -- To be the same as standard sample brass trumpet ’F,’ two (2) coil, and with two (2) mouthpieces. When complete, with mouth-piece in, to weigh about twelve and a half (12 ½) ounces, and to measure about sixteen (16) inches in length, and about four and a half (4 ½) inches in width at center. Diameter of bell to be about four and a half (4 ½) inches.”

  William Hortsmann, born in Germany, emigrated to the United States and established himself as a maker of fringe, laces, and trimmings in Philadelphia, in 1815. William Horstmann & Sons were located at North Third Street between 1830 and 1857, manufacturing and importing everything from textiles and trimmings to military goods including drums, pistols, and swords. As the company expanded, Horstmann & Sons moved the factory to 5th and Cherry Streets and their storefront to 2223 Chestnut Street. Later the company would grow to two stores in New York and an agency in Paris. William Horstmann retired from the company in 1845, and his sons, William and Sigmund continued the family business until 1872.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1878-1882

  1879-1882

  maker

  Horstmann Brothers & Company

  ID Number

  MI.093197

  catalog number

  093197

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• Plucked Dulcimer made by George Daugherty

  Description (Brief)

  This plucked dulcimer was made by George Daugherty in Grider, Kentucky in the 1800s. It has a trapezoidal shaped body made if pine. It has eight strings (four melody and four drone strings).

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1800 - 1899

  unspecified

  DeFrance, Mrs. B.K.

  maker

  Daugherty, George

  Daugherty, George

  ID Number

  MI.324973

  catalog number

  324973

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• Vincent Bach B-Flat Trumpet

  Description (Brief)

  This trumpet was made by Vincent Bach Corporation in Elkhardt, Indiana in 1965. It is a B-flat trumpet, serial number 31291, made of brass and nickel silver, and has three piston valves with mother-of-pearl finger buttons. This trumpet is engraved:

  Stradivarius [/] Model 37 [/] Vincent Bach [/] Corporation [/] Elkhardt, Ind. [/] U.S.A.

  Vincent Bach (1890-1976), born Vincent Schrotenbach, was an Austrian musician and brass instrument maker. In 1914, Bach emigrated to the United States, where he performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera and continued to play through 1926.

  With an investment of $300, Bach started making mouthpieces in 1918, and by 1924 expanded his business making trumpets, cornets, and later trombones. In 1961, Bach sold his firm to the Selmer Company, which acquired his tooling and machinery and continued making his instruments with his original designs and blueprints.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  unspecified

  Selmer, Inc.

  maker

  Vincent Bach Corporation

  ID Number

  MI.66.143

  catalog number

  66.143

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

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