MUSIC RECORDING

physical record of a musical performance that can then be played back, or reproduced. Because music evaporates as soon as it is produced, humans, seeking permanence in life's ephemera, have long sought ways to record and reproduce it. The efforts to capture the fleeting sounds of music have followed two basic methods: that of symbols and that of signals. The formermusical notationmatured earlier, and in one form or another it virtually monopolized the recording of music for centuries; the latter had to await the emergence of technology for its development. In notation, symbols are written down as a message to a trained performing musician who understands them and reinterprets them into sound. Signals, on the other handbeing direct physical impressions of, and potential stimuli to, soundsbypass the performer in their reproduction and, in some electronic compositions, even in their recording. This article concerns itself solely with the latter, nonsymbolic, method. For information on the former method see notation. Additional reading Roland Gelatt, The Fabulous Phonograph, 2nd rev. ed. (1977), a general history of the phonograph, particularly good on the complex corporate developments; Oliver Read and Walter L. Welch, From Tin Foil to Stereo, 2nd ed. (1976), a scholarly and detailed phonographic history with much elucidation of technical matters; Frederic W. Wile, Emile Berliner: Maker of the Microphone (1926, reprinted 1974), an adulatory, but worthwhile, biography; Fred Gaisberg, The Music Goes Round (1942, reprinted 1977), an autobiographical account of the history of the phonograph by a man associated with Berliner from the earliest days (a valuable source despite many inaccuracies); Matthew Josephson, Edison (1959), a thoroughly researched biography of the inventor of the phonograph; Joseph Batten, Joe Batten's Book: The Story of Sound Recording (1956), another personal documentation of early phonographic history, not as far-ranging as Gaisberg's but with much unduplicated material. Russell Miller and Roger Boar, The Incredible Music Machine (1982), is a popular history.