Sound Recording

Question 1

Mediation

Answer 1

Intermediary action referring to the practices of all the people who intervene as popular music is produced, distributed and consumed

Question 2

Hegemony

Answer 2

The predominant influence of political or cultural force over another

Question 3

Counter-Hegemony

Answer 3

Resisting the influences of a political or cultural force that has hegemony

Question 4

Thomas Alva Edison

Answer 4

American Inventor (1847-1941) Invented the phonograph in 1877 and used tinfoil as the first recording medium

Question 5

Edison Phonograph Company was created in…

Answer 5

1887

Question 6

Columbia Records

Answer 6

Founded by Edward Easton, Chief promoter of musical recordings, sound recordings as entertainment

Question 7

Emile Berliner

Answer 7

German inventor in Washington, D.C., Mass produced flat discs, Co-Founded Victor Talking Machine Company, 1901

Question 8

The First Major Labels

Answer 8

The Edison Company, Columbia Records, Victor Talking Machine Company

Question 9

Coin-Operated Cylinder Playback Machine

Answer 9

Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco, 1889, Urban Places, Military Marches and Vaudeville Tunes

Question 10

Home Entertainment Device

Answer 10

Improvements: Sounds, Appearance, Musical Genres

Question 11

Musical Genres

Answer 11

Message of “cultural uplift”

Victor Red Label and “cultural superiority”

Question 12

Ethnic Recordings

Answer 12

25+ million immigrants between 1865 and 1917, Sounds engineers travel the world, local music in foreign markets

Question 13

Ethnic Recordings (2)

Answer 13

New Concept of local cultural: Separate, Private, Inferior

Question 14

Phonograph in the Home

Answer 14

improved its sound, appearance, and musical genres
provided message of “cultural uplift”
Targeted women and upper class
most of them were designed to look like furniture

Question 15

Minstrelsy

Answer 15

Minstrel shows were the first american musical and theatrical entertainment that was the most popular form of entertainment from the 1840s-1880s
Racialized sounds
Origins of Minstrelsy 
European quadrille (white)
Parody called “cakewalk” (black)
Imitation of cakewalk (white)
Cakewalk becomes signature element

Question 16

Jim Crow

Answer 16

Song was written by Thomas Dartmouth Rice in 1829
It was the first international American hit song
Marketed as “authentic” black culture.
Al Jolson was a major performer of this - “World’s Greatest Entertainer”
Blackface makeup
Was actually respected in black communities. (ie. was welcomed in black clubs)
Legitimately loved black culture.
“Jim Crow” was being used as a collective racial epithet for blacks and minstrel shows helped spread this racial slur

Question 17

Race Records

Answer 17

Key patents expired in 1915
Music that was marketed towards African Americans
Independent music labels produced music such as jazz and blues that other labels could not.
marketing term for blues recordings

Question 18

Enrico Caruso

Answer 18

“Questa o quella”
opera
labeled as high class music
promoted opera as a means to cultural uplift
Victor created the Red Label for their classical catalog in order to emulate a European concert venue

Question 19

Al Jolson

Answer 19

“Camptown Races”-worlds greatest entertainer. Performed in blackface and in the jazz singer, credited to bring black music to white audience

Question 20

Bessie Smith

Answer 20

“Down-hearted Blues”-the empress of the blues; first major blues and jazz musician. In 1923 signed with Columbia, sold 6.5 million records