Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-07-10
TALKING MACHINES.
BY Frederic J.Haskin.

Practical problems OF the talking ma
chine trade will engross the attention of
the delegates to the National Association
Of Talking Machine Jobbers which meets
In Milwaukee today. Ways and means
for improving the methods Of selling rec
ords and of extending the use of the
talking machine in the schools will be
discussed.
The sale of talking machines has be-
come an important factor in the musical
instrument business. but even more i'm
portant is the sale Of records to those
VINO already have machines. Every
newspaper reader is familiar with the
announcements OF new records made
monthly by the several talking machine
firms. and the general public knows that
the music store talking machine concerts
are designed to promote the sale OF rec
ords quite as much as to advertise the
machines themselves
A Milwaukee retail musical instrument
dealer has fitted up an automobile for the
purpose of extending his talking machine
trade through the rural sections Of Wis
consin. He carries several machines and
large number Of records and goes about
over the country giving free concerts at
the farmhouses and taking orders wher-
ever he can get them. A San Francisco
retailer has similar system for selling
records In the city and suburbs. He has
a wagon which carries several thousand
records. Regularly each month this
wagon visits every old customer who
owns talking machine, and the house
holder is given an opportunity to hear
the new records on his own machine and
IN his own home before making pur-
chases.
When Edison invented the first practi-
cal talking machine a great future for
co m m r Cial
For Pleasure and industrial
More Than Business. predicted for
it. and while 1t is true that the phono-
graph is used more generally in business
today than ever before. by far the greater
number Of talking machines are used for
entertainment and not for business. AS
nearly all of the talking machine records
used for entertainment are musical. it
may be said that the words talking ma
chine" are hardly appropriate Yet this
term is used by the trade because Of the
unavoidable confusion Of monograph,
.'graphophone" and "gramophone." The
popular impression that the term ''phono-
graph should be applied to any machine
which reproduces sound from a cylinder
record. while ''gramophone' or graphic
phone" should be properly applied to a
disc playing machine. is incorrect. The
first photograph model used a disc rec
ord, and the first gramophone record was
made on a cylinder.
AS a matter of fact, the three different
words describe three different machines.
The photograph was invented by Thorn
as A. Edison in 1915 and was patented
In 1877. Il was the first sound-repro-
ducing machine. Edison used the prin-
ciple of the phonautograph. an instru-
ment invented by Leon Scott in 1857,
which recorded sound on a cylinder by
means of q needle vibrated by sound
waves falling upon a thin diaphragm.
Mr.. Edison was attempting to use this
principle to perfect a telegraph sending
instrument which would send the dots
and dashes Of the Morse code by opening
and closing the electric circuit through
perforations in a sheet Of tinfoil wrapped
about a cylinder of metal. He found that
the perforations produced the same effect
on the vibrating needle when the CYL
Under was again reyolved under it. TAX
ing advantage of the principle of sound
reproduction Of the newly invented tel
ephone, Edison produced the photograph.
Nine wears later I'm 1855 Alexander