The document outlines the major developments in the technology and music industries from 1877 to 2003, including key inventions like the phonograph, gramophone, radio, vinyl records, cassette tapes, compact discs, and mp3 files. It describes how each new format was adopted and led to changes in how music was produced and consumed, from Edison's first recording of sound in 1877 to the digital revolution enabled by the internet in the 1990s and 2000s.

1. Timeline of the Technology and Music Industry.
1877 - While experimenting with a new telegraph device, Thomas Edison
wonders upon the beginnings of recorded sound. By the end of the year, he
records ‘’Mary Had A Little Lamb” on the first working phonograph, in which he
becomes the first inventor to successfully record the human voice.
By 1885 Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter challenge Edison’s phonograph with
their graphophone, like Edison’s phonograph, which creates sound as an
engraved wax cylinder rotates against a stylus.
1888 – Emile Berliner invents the gramophone. It uses a disc rather than a
cylinder, like the phonograph. The gramophone can hold up to 2 minutes of
recorded sound.
1890s – As one of the 30 franchises competing in the graphophone leasing
business, the Columbia Phonograph Company achieves little success until it
begins to record music to send to fairgrounds to accompany its leased
graphophones. The popularity of the fairground jukeboxes allows the Columbia
Graphophone Company to survive the economy of the 1890s and to become to
only graphophone leasing company to turn a profit.
1900s – The developments in the materials and the production techniques of
both the disc and the cylinder give recordings a more clear and dynamic sound.
Mass production techniques for both technologies improve and the music
business takes off. Along with the graphophone and the gramophone, the piano
also becomes one of the most popular businesses of the time.
Music publishers appeal to the courts when the piano roll companies refuse to
pay publishers for the rights to reproduce recordings on the piano scrolls.
1920s – The Radio Corporation of America begins mass-producing commercial
radios. KDKA in Pittsburgh becomes the first commercial radio station to receive
call letters and begins regular broadcasts by announcing the returns of the
presidential election.
1925 – In 1925, Bell Telephone Laboratories introduces electrical amplification
and the first electrically recorded discs go on sale.
1930s – Tape recording cartridges are developed in this time, but tapes remain
largely behind the scenes during the Depression and into the 1950s. The
presence of free radio broadcast during the Depression leads to a decline in
record sales.
1940s – The fragile nature of discs made from shellac is revealed when RCA
Victor ships the first “V-Dsics” to entertain troops abroad in 1943 and polyvinyl
chloride known as PVC or vinyl is adopted as the new material for record

2. production. Vinyl survives as the record industry’s material of choice long after
WWII ends.
The RCA disc is also introduced alongside a cheap means of playing its format
and the 7-inch single quickly becomes the standard for the jukebox. In 1950, RCA
releases records on the 12-inch Columbia format and in 1951, Columbia follows
suit with the release of records on the 7-inch RCA format.
1964 – Cassette tape has its commercial breakthrough, when Phillips introduces
its own 30-minute format for the tape cartridge and allows other manufactures
to duplicate the specifications.
1970s – Cassette tapes hit the big time with the decline of 8-track players and the
introduction of the Sony Walkman in 1979. The Walkman revolution coincides
with improvement in cassette sound quality and the cassette tape suddenly
becomes the only format that you could have in your home, in your car and in
your pocket.
1980s – Pillips and Sony announce plans to work together to come up with a
uniform standard for Compact Disc in 1978. In 1982, record companies
announce a worldwide standard that ensures that all CDs will play on all CD
players.
With the introduction of the CD, the 80s become the most explosive boom period
in recorded audio history, as consumers replace their vinyl collections. Within
three years of the CDs arrival in the marketplace the electronics industry sells
one million CD players. It took 11 years for color television manufactures to sell
one million units.
1990s – The combination of digital audio and the Internet create a combustible
phenomenon upon the invention of the MP3. It compresses digital audio files
that can be easily sent from computer to computer.
1997 – Artist Prince announces that his next album will only be available via the
Internet. He sells 100,000 albums without the aid of the record label.
2003 – Apple computer launches the most successful online music store to date.
In its first year, apple sells 70 million songs at $0.99 per song, creating nearly
$70 million in legal Internet music sales.