Imagine walking through Times Square during rush hour and hearing not a single ounce of music around you. The electronic billboards are silent, the cars passing by are nothing but lifeless metal husks, stores feel drab with not a single catchy jingle, and people are agitatedly pacing the streets. Music does not exist in this bleak world with no way for it to stimulate the people who desperately need it. Dr. Syrigos, a historian, wrote, “Music coordinates emotions, helps important messages to be communicated, motivates people to identify with a group, and motivates individuals to support other group members.”[1] As humans, music occupies our everyday life and is transmitted to us whether we like it or not, and we have playback devices to thank for that. Everywhere you venture, there is some variety of music heard from a known or unknown source, acting as a stimulus. Times Square, as mentioned above, is a location of stimulus overload with billboards advertising products with vivid visuals and all too familiar jingles, and the bustling stores, playing your favorite tunes over the radio. Music players, like phones or MP3 players, are unconsciously used everyday to relay our favorite artists and groups to us, but have we ever thought of how these devices came to be?
Living in the modern age, listening to music is as easy as walking to the bathroom or looking up the latest and spiciest celebrity breakup on the internet. Modern playback devices are portable and are able to store a vast amount of music, all in pristine high quality. However, rewind to 1877 where music playback was in its infancy. Thomas Edison, a fledgling inventor, had just invented the phonograph, the first invention of its kind to record and playback music in one bulky package. To even record a sound on the phonograph required a weird amalgamation of items such as tin foil, a needle, a cylinder, and of course the mouth of the phonograph.
By shouting into the mouth of the phonograph, the needle inside of the cylinder would scribble the sound waves onto the tin foil and would allow for playback, albeit limited as the tin foil would eventually crumple.[2] The phonograph would evolve with time and reinvent itself as the turntable with records serving as the substitute of the cylinder and tin foil. However, the method of needles and grooves would remain. However, it stands that the phonograph allowed the common person to listen to music from the comfort of their own home.
Now, fast forward to 1979 where record players and radio were standard and were the primary sources of listening to music. Tapes were present at the time but were primarily for use in the car as it was more convenient and portable. Now, portable is a word many of us have blissfully experienced before but in 1979, music portability was scarce and almost nonexistent, that is until Sony released The Walkman. The Walkman is a playback device relying on cassette with several buttons functioning as start/stop, fast forward/rewind, and eject. Simple enough right? In actuality, The Walkman’s ability to play music from a cassette was not entirely special as it had been done before for use in journalism. However, the revolutionary addition of The Walkman stemmed from its portability and accessibility which had never been seen before: “Portability and privacy made it the ideal product for thousands of consumers looking for a compact portable stereo that they could take with them anywhere.”[3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBqseObEt54
The only glaring weakness of The Walkman was its single capacity limit, which only allowed for one cassette to be inserted at a time. Flash forward to 2001 and this problem would be amended by a device which would revolutionize how we would listen to music for the last time in current history.
“Music is a part of everyone’s life, and because it’s a part of everyone’s life, it’s a very large target market all around the world. It knows no boundaries.”[4] In this quote, entrepreneur Steve Jobs understands the impact of music quite well, and would soon become a technological figurehead only few in history would achieve. Upon returning to Apple in 1997 after resigning in 1985, Jobs envisioned of a product which would forward the digital evolution of music in big strides. In 2001, the first generation of the iPod was released to the public and while it was highly criticized for its price, the innovation of having a device store thousands of songs was unparalleled.
The easy to use interface of the scroll wheel possessing basic functions also made the iPod more accessible than its competitors. Now, why is the iPod such a huge deal in digital music? When Apple had released the iPod in 2001, there were other digital MP3 players on the market previously. However, Apple’s flagship device was the first to usher in a sleek design as well as a simplistic structure and function, making it more appealing than its competitors. Through the years, the iPod would gradually evolve, introducing more internal space, features, designs, and would eventually cement its place in history as one of the most influential digital products to grace the 21st century.[5]
Looking back in history, it’s amazing to look at the progress playback devices have made. From the lack of portability and clunkiness of the Edison phonograph, to the portable yet limited Walkman, to the age of digital music with portability and ultimate accessibility. The strides made in music playback technology is a great technological marvel and thanks to those who made their contributions, music can be heard from the most bustling of cities to the silent confines of the country: music can be heard anywhere.
[1] http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/origin-music-00972
[2] https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/kidsyouth/the-phonograph.htm
[3] http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1907884,00.html
[4] https://www.cultofmac.com/124565/an-illustrated-history-of-the-ipod-and-its-massive-impact-ipod-10th-anniversary/
[5] https://www.lifewire.com/history-ipod-classic-original-2000732