Music Devices Over The Years

The way we listen to our music has changed over the years. The devices we use are becoming much more technical then they used to be. From the phonograph to the IPod, the devices have become both much easier and convenient.

First to come around in 1877 was the phonograph. This used cylinders to record and reproduce sound. As you talked into the cylinders, your sound waves would move a needle that was making scratch marks on a record. If you put the needle back on the first point and played it back, it would produced a scratchy version of the words you had spoken.

Next in 1888 came the vinyl records. These records took the idea of the phonograph, but took them a step further. Instead of you going through and recording yourself, there was already scratches in the disks that when you played it back, played music. The down side of this was that it needed to be cranked in order for it to work. Finally in 1925 the electric record player was created, so no cranking was necessary.

In 1965 8-tracks came around. 8-tracks are long continuous rolls of tape inside a hard plastic cartridge. The tape inside of the cartridge is split into 8 tracks (which is where the name came from). The tape is spun around coils on the inside the the cartridge, playing 2 tracks at a time. The music continues to play as the coils spin the tape.

The Walkman came around in 1978. It was a portable device for listening to cassettes. It was capable to do things such as play, stop, fast forward, or reverse. In the Walkman is an electromagnet, which is highly sensitive to the tape inside the cassette. This causes vibrations which sends the sound waves through the headphones.

In 1983 CD's were introduced. They are shiny round discs. They are almost the same thing as vinyl discs, only a lot smaller and made of plastic. This made them much more convenient. Another benefit to CD's was that there is the ability to skip tracks, unlike on a cassette. In 1995 recordable CD's were introduced, which bumped up the popularity because it made it so mixed tapes were possible. In 1992 minidiscs were introduced, which were easier and pocket-sized.

Today, we have mp3 players and IPods. They are very convenient because they are quite small (you can fit them into your pocket) and you can fit all your music into one place without having to carry around lots of CD's, or tapes, or whatever it ay be that you may use. All of your songs from all different bands or genres can be put into one place, and can be done on the computer. It makes it all much easier.

I absolutely love my IPod. I take it everywhere i go, its like my baby! I would much rather carry that around then any other bulky music device. Also you don't have to listen to it through headphones, but can put it onto speaker. Its great!

For more information on this history, go to http://library.thinkquest.org/08aug/01589/mediaplayers_history.html