![]() ![]() Has a message for you that is important enough to cause him to break his Permitted his voice to be recorded for the public. Edison, the inventor of the phonograph, has never before I was able to find this picture of Mary Jordan performing at the Century Theatre: Not much is known about Mary Jordan, apart from her career with Edison and a note in the Edison Amberol Monthly vol 11 about her headlining at the Century Theatre in New York. True to form, in Mary Jordan's recording of this aria, her vibrato is slow, and the solo violin passages are devoid of any trace of vibrato. "That's great! That's great!" Edison said." When a famous violinist was playing for Edison, the violinist quickly realized the sort of sound Edison was looking for and thus ".he drew a dead sound, the worst kind possible, utterly devoid of vibrato. “Instead, Edison sought clear diction, what he called “straight” tone: just plain, unadorned notes.” “Edison in the business to find the best mechanical way to “establish music on a scientific basis.” Along with a more finely honed consumer product, he likewise sought to eliminate the intervention of the singer’s dramatic personality, expressed through vocal devices like vibrato he believed these “false notes” were symptomatic of “interpretative” music and its concomitantly misleading and superfluous nuances and subtleties-which, of course, he could not truly discern or appreciate. Neil Baldwin, in his book, Edison, Inventing the Century, recounts the story of Edison’s dislike of complicated music: This peculiar musical taste of his, it is conjectured, was due to his hearing loss. It is fairly well documented that Thomas Edison did not tolerate vibrato or tremolo either in voice or instrument. I wonder if he heard it? What must it have been like to hear recordings of your works in the early days of recording? Something that struck me right away about the recording was that Mary Jordan made the recording while Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) was still living. ![]() Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix) Cylinder number 2158: Edison Blue Amberol This week's installment is a February 1914 of My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice, from Camille Saint-Saëns Opera Samson and Delilah, as performed by contralto Mary Jordan (1879-1961). ![]() Along with the video and recording, I am compiling a little narrative including interesting facts about the artist and recording. #Battle cry of freedom organ series#In my continuing series of recordings of early Edison Phonographs and Cylinder records, I am taking selected recordings from my collection and linking them with a video of the actual phonograph playing the recording. One can even play tunes and solve more puzzles contained within the larger drawers! In much the same way (with apologies to Kagen Sound), the pipe organ desk-when *FED* the appropriate combination of drawers opening and closing-opens up to reveal secret compartments. Sure enough a trap door opened in the floor and Shaggy, Scooby, et. So what a perfect combination, to build an organ that makes noise as one opens and closes the desk drawers.ĭo you remember an episode of Scooby Doo where the team finds a note on an organ that says "FEED the organ and watch the floor?" Its always stuck with me, that Velma (who else?) figured out that FEED meant to play the notes F, E, E, D on the organ. Pipe organs, as we all know, are the epitome of a "secret box" with all of their pipework, windways, windchests, mechanical actions, wiring, and bellows, reservoirs, and blowers. Kagen's specialty is secret boxes, and is a recognized member of the world's only guild of secret box makers. And my favorite, the aforementioned organ pipe birdhouse.īut it was the Kagen Sounds pipe organ desk that really grabbed my attention, for, not only is it beautifully crafted desk with organ pipes about it's also a sort of puzzle! Master wood worker and designer Kagen Sound of Denver, Colorado, has created this pipe organ desk with the most beautiful woods, unparalleled craftsmanship, and intrigue. (Whether or not making a birdhouse from an organ pipe qualifies as a travesty is a topic for later discussion.) Well, it's surprising what people have dreamed up. ![]() I got the idea from a picture I'd seen of a birdhouse made out of two old wooden flute pipes. I recently created a board on Pinterest called Random Old Organ Pipes. ![]()
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