Continuing with our visit to Kanazawa Phonograph Museum 金沢蓄音器館, a surprisingly rewarding stop conveniently located across the bridge over Asano River from the old town at Higashiyama (where most people visit in Kanazawa). The Kanazawa Phonograph Museum opened in 2001, showcases the personal collection of Hiroshi Yokaichiya, the owner of a record shop in Kanazawa.
In Part 1 of this post, we traced the invention of using cylinders and then discs as the physical medium for recording sound. Enjoy some music while browsing.
Before 1925, all recordings were made by means of the artist singing or speaking into a horn, the power of their voice directly vibrating the recording stylus and thus cutting the wax of the master disc.
Early phonographs were powered by a hand-cranked spring motor without electricity. After cranking the handle, the spring inside the motor would unwind, releasing the stored mechanical energy, which rotated the turntable or cylinder at a consistent speed.
The pickup typically featured a stylus that tracked the grooves of the record. This stylus was connected to a diaphragm made from materials like mica, glass, or, later, metal. As the stylus moved through the grooves, it vibrated in response to the record’s modulations, which then caused the diaphragm to vibrate. These vibrations were mechanically amplified through a large horn attached to the diaphragm, allowing the sound to be heard.
In 1920s, electrical pickups were introduced, offering improved sound fidelity by converting the mechanical vibrations into electrical signals that could be amplified electronically.
The vintage phonograph demonstration we attended was absolutely fascinating. It was an eye-opening experience to see these early devices operate up close, and even more so to finally hear directly the sound they produced, without any modern reproduction.
The playback experience makes one appreciate the improvement in the sound technology and the resulting fidelity of music we take it for granted nowadays.
By the early 20th century, companies like Victor Talking Machine Company and Columbia Records were producing and selling both phonographs and records on a large scale, and cheaper. Phonographs became household items, and recorded music became accessible to the general public, which fueled a growing music industry and allowed for the spread of different musical genres.
Most early records were recorded at about 78 to 80 rpm. The durations of 78 RPM recordings is about three to five minutes per side, depending on the disc size.
In 1948, Columbia Records introduced the 33⅓ rpm long-playing (LP) record, which allowed for longer recordings on each side, typically up to 22 minutes. Shortly after, RCA Victor introduced the cheaper 45 rpm single, which became a popular format for shorter pop music recordings, the singles.
It’s very generous that the museum has listening posts for their small selection of records.
That takes me back to the 70s when I had my own vinyl collection and would go to great lengths to protect them – I even recorded them onto cassettes to minimize playing the vinyl disc, especially on player with a stylus of questionable quality. Cleaning the record before and after playback was such a ritual back then.
It struck me, looking at the Spotify icon on my smartphone screen, how dramatically music has evolved in the last century and a half – a leap from physical mechanisms to ethereal digital streams. My own musical journey has spanned crackling vinyls at 33 and 45 rpm, the hiss of cassette tapes, the pristine clarity of CDs, the brief era of MiniDiscs, the rise of personal MP3 libraries, and finally, the endless catalogs of music subscription services. The amount and quality of music now at our fingertips is truly mind-boggling.
We really learnt a lot after visiting this small museum as it documented the entire history of the development of music recording with working equipment.
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