美国国家公共电台 NPR At The Dawn Of Recorded Sound, No One Cared

 

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

This year, another inventor, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville, would have turned 200 years old. If you're wondering who, he's the Frenchman who beat Thomas Edison in the first recording¹ of sound. Edison's New Jersey² lab recently brought together both inventors' great-grandsons.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Edouard-Leon was my great-grandfather.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: It is a great pleasure to meet and to welcome a fellow scholar and a fellow great-grandson of an inventor (unintelligible).

(APPLAUSE)

CORNISH: NPR's Laura Sydell was in the audience. After that, she set out to learn why both men even wanted to record sound in the first place.

LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE³: In 1857, Scott de Martinville patented the earliest known sound recording device, the phonautograph. He recorded himself singing the song "Clair De Lune."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

EDOUARD-LEON SCOTT DE MARTINVILLE: (Singing "Clair De Lune").

SYDELL: But Scott never heard that recording. We can hear it now because almost a decade ago some audio archaeologists used a computer to play back his recordings⁴. Scott recorded sound using a needle that etched its vibrations⁵ onto a plate of glass. As strange as it seems, all the French inventor cared about was seeing what sound looked like.

EMILY THOMPSON: The idea of playback just didn't occur to him.

SYDELL: This is Princeton professor Emily Thompson. She teaches the history of sound technology.

THOMPSON: He wanted to understand how sounds work. He's part of a tradition of finding ways to render sound visible so that you could look at it and learn about it.

SYDELL: Scott proved that vibrations are truly how sounds come to our ears. But the scientific community had trouble accepting his breakthrough.

THOMPSON: Sound separated from a sounding body was just sort of a conceptual leap that I'm not sure people had the cultural context to invent this stuff.

SYDELL: But they did know about photographs, says David Giovannoni. He's part of the team that recovered the audio from Scott's recordings.

DAVID GIOVANNONI: Scott and others were thinking about we're going to have to find a way to daguerreotype⁶ the voice. He's basically saying, I want to photograph the voice.

SYDELL: There's no definitive⁷ evidence that shows that Edison knew about Scott's breakthrough when he stumbled onto sound recording. Initially⁸, he was just trying to improve Alexander Graham Bell's telephones. Years later, an Edison assistant wrote this, as read here by Giovannoni.

GIOVANNONI: (Reading) We were sitting around. We'd been working on the telephone, yelling into diaphragms. And Edison turned to me and he said, if we put a needle or a pin on this diaphragm it'll vibrate. And if we pull a strip of wax paper underneath⁹ it, it should leave marks. And then if we pull that piece of paper back we should hear the talking.

SYDELL: At first, no one knew what to do with this invention. It took 20 years to figure out that music was the killer¹⁰ app.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SCOTT: (Singing "Clair De Lune").

SYDELL: Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville had long given up on his sound etchings when he read that Thomas Edison's new invention, the phonograph, was demonstrated at the French science academy. He wrote the academy, saying that his work had been used by that New York electrician. Scott was ignored. He died shortly after and did not live to see recorded sound become popular. But his story may have a lesson for inventors - even if you've got a scientific breakthrough, it helps to know you've got a market that wants it. Laura Sydell, NPR News.

1 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

2 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

5 vibrations   

n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 )；震动；感受；（偏离平衡位置的）一次性往复振动

参考例句：

• We could feel the vibrations from the trucks passing outside. 我们可以感到外面卡车经过时的颤动。
• I am drawn to that girl; I get good vibrations from her. 我被那女孩吸引住了，她使我产生良好的感觉。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 daguerreotype   

n.银板照相

参考例句：

• The inventor of the daguerreotype is a French artist.银版照相的发明者是位法国艺术家。
• The image was taken by louis daguerre who invented the daguerreotype-one of the earliest methods of photography.这张照片是由路易斯达盖尔拍摄，他发明了银版照相法-摄影的最早方法之一。

7 definitive   

adj.确切的，权威性的；最后的，决定性的

参考例句：

• This book is the definitive guide to world cuisine.这本书是世界美食的权威指南。
• No one has come up with a definitive answer as to why this should be so.至于为什么该这样，还没有人给出明确的答复。

8 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

9 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

10 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。