Sound Recordings

The Advent of Sound Recording

Cheryl Tipp, Natural Sounds Curator writes:

Over the past 5 weeks, listeners of BBC Radio 4 have been treated to a series dedicated entirely to sound and its many roles in human culture over the past 100,000 years. Noise: a Human History, written and presented by Professor David Hendy and made in collaboration with the British Library's Sound Archive, has explored a multitude of subjects, from the power of great orators to the significance of resonant spaces.

Episode 25, Capturing Sound, looks at new technologies that emerged during the latter half of the 19th Century, making it possible to record and thereby transform sound from something previously transient and elusive.

The British Library has an extensive collection of both early recordings and the equipment used to record and playback these sounds. Many of the earliest machines in the collection were the inventions of Thomas Edison, the first person to design a device that could both record and playback the captured sounds.

Edison Home Phonograph (1900)

Over 350 images of recording and playback equipment from 1877 to the end of the 20th Century can be explored in the Sound Recording History section of British Library Sounds. The site also contains over 600 early spoken word recordings that bring together the voices of sportsmen, explorers, writers, politicians and even royalty.

Don Bradman, Australian cricketer - How it's Done

Amy Johnson, pioneer aviator - The Story of my Flight 

Christabel Pankhurst, suffragette and co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union - Suffrage for Women

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States of America - Address to the Congress of the United States, 8 December 1941

This varied collection is drawn from commercial cylinders and 78rpm discs that date from the earliest days of recorded sound to the late 1950s, when LPs became the standard format for the record industry. Many of the recordings have never been reissued.

Noise: A Human History is broadcast on weekdays at 13:45 on BBC Radio 4, with a special omnibus edition at 21:00 on Fridays. All episodes broadcast so far are available on iPlayer Radio.

British Bird of the Month: Starling

Cheryl Tipp, Natural Sounds Curator writes:

Two things come to mind when thinking about the Common Starling, Sturnus vulgaris - mumuration and mimicry. Starling murmurations occur when thousands of individuals flock together forming great swirling patterns in the sky, either when leaving their roost at dawn or returning to rest at dusk. From Brighton Pier to the Somerset Levels, these magnificent spectacles continue to wow audiences across the country.

Starlings are also known for their remarkable ability to imitate different sounds. The following example, recorded by Vic Lewis in Herefordshire, England during the spring of 1968, includes mimicry of House Sparrows, a Jackdaw and even a barking dog.

http://sounds.bl.uk/Environment/Listen-to-Nature/022M-LISTNAT00246-0001V0

Many other birds also make use of their ability to mimic sounds, sometimes with very unexpected results. The British Library CD 'Bird Mimicry' features a remarkable collection of recordings such as a Jay neighing like a horse, a Blackbird imitating the sound of a computer modem, Bullfinches singing German folk tunes and a Fawn-breasted Bowerbird spontaneously mimicking the various sounds of a building site.

(Image courtesy of Electrographica)

And a salad batch for the trip back to London, sir?

Jonnie Robinson, Lead Curator for Sociolinguistics writes:

This month we've uploaded linguistic descriptions of conversations about local speech in Aston Cantlow, Bedworth, Coventry, Keresley and Wilmcote: the set of BBC Voices Recordings made by BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire. The descriptions list the participants' responses to a series of prompt words and in the case of Bedworth, Coventry and Wilmcote include a summary of the pronunciation and grammar of the contributors.

So what unites speakers in this part of Warwickshire? Well, there's general consensus that Bedworth [bedduth] has a micro-dialect of its own and a strong sense that although accents locally may not be well-known nationally, they're definitely not Brummies as confirmed by this speaker in Coventry:

0:09:27 Coventry has an accent of its own it it’s peculiar to itself it’s not Leicestershire it’s not Bedworth even it and it’s not it’s certainly not Brummy

Common local terms include babby [= baby], pumps [= PE shoes] and - for Coventrians at least - batch [= bread roll]. As a lifelong Sky Blues fan I have many happy memories of trips to Highfield Road, invariably calling in at the chippy on Gulson Road to stock up for the journey home (the best chips in the world according to my son). After one particular Premier League match against Wimbledon (yes, that did happen) we were in the queue behind a group of opposition fans when a local wisecrack suggested they might like to add a salad batch as a side order - a playful reference to the stereotypical southerner flaunting his perceived social superiority even in terms of his eating habits. Sadly, of course, the Wimbledon fans hadn't a clue what a batch was, but the locals got the joke immediately.

There are several linguistic highlights in this batch (excuse the pun) of recordings. There's an abundance of, like, data in the recording with Bedworth teenagers that will interest anyone studying the, like, use of the discourse marker 'like' and that. The awareness in Wilmcote of the local significance of the pronunciation of words such as grass and bath confirms this part of the Midlands as a transition area between a 'northern' short vowel and 'southern' long vowel for words in this set. But above all, the real gem is the discussion in Coventry of City's 1987 FA Cup triumph at Wembley, a result that finally gave Sky Blues fans relief from constant references to the Monty Python World Forum sketch in which Che Guevara is unable to answer what was at the time a trick question: 'Coventry City last won the FA Cup in what year?'