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Second, artists almost certainly adapted their singing styles to please Mr. So it’s possible, perhaps even likely, that Edison left us with a highly biased sample of the vocal music of the era. First, by choosing who got recorded, Edison created an impression that vibrato and other methods of pitch alteration were not widely used in live performances-and nowadays we lack the means to make detailed comparisons. In their study of Edison’s practices, scholars Tilo Hähnel and Karin Martensen claim that he may have influenced singing in several ways. When asked about it, he said wanted to invent his own. Photos often show Edison cupping his hand to improve the hearing of his one functional ear.Įxperts now believe that surgery might have improved Edison’s hearing, but he refused to consider it.

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His written policy on singing from 1912 emphasizes this point: “All that we desire is that the voice shall be as perfect as possible, free of conspicuous tremolo, clear and without ragged sustained notes, free of subsidiary and false waves on these notes.” It’s possible that this personal history helps explain his absolute insistence on clarity in musical performances. In other words, Edison’s inability to hear certain frequencies was serious enough to incapacitate him in important situations long before he entered the music business. At school, he had difficulty following the speech of the teacher, and this held him back-as a result, his entire formal education only amounted to a few months.

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He claimed this problem started at age twelve-possibly due to a bout of scarlet fever, or a series of ear infections, or (as Edison himself suspected) an injury to his ear during a train trip. He was deaf in one ear, and had poor hearing in the other. What’s make all this even more unsettling is that Thomas Edison, the world’s most influential music talent scout, was severely hearing-impaired.

In other instances, Edison complained about “guttural sounds,” “uneven volume,” or “ridiculous noise.”

“I have about made up my mind that EVERY Italian tenor is an all around general damn fool,” was his commentary in response to a 1917 session featuring tenor Guido Ciccolini. Hold it.” And even the great Caruso got dismissed out of hand-Edison’s response to a 1912 session was “Caruso is getting big tremolo, tune N.G., all N.G.”īut Thomas Edison had other objections to singers. Not wanted.” Edison’s reaction to the celebrated Italian soprano Adelina Agostinelli was caustic: “Her tremolo queers this song. I turned him down for I couldn’t stand it.” After listening to Adele Ponzano, Edison noted: “Terrible rapid tremolo. After hearing the legendary Irish singer John McCormack, Edison concluded: “Fine voice marred by a terrible tremolo. His notes on recording sessions make this unmistakably clear. Imagine Simon Cowell on steroids, with a dose of Steve Jobs, and that gives you some sense of Edison’s impact on the culture.įirst and foremost, Thomas Edison hated vibrato-or what he called tremolo. And his influence was so pervasive during the early 20th century, he even changed the way people sang. He wasn’t just interested in technology, but had strong opinions about singers and songs. Īs it turns out, Edison also had very definite aesthetic ideas about music. True, it was analog content back then, not digital.

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And he even managed to make money on content -by running his own record label and movie studio. Thomas Edison, bless his soul, set all that in motion. “Meghan and Harry Have Given Spotify Just 35 Minutes of Content So Far in Their £18m Deal” “Why Music Content on YouTube is About More Than Music” “Can Disney Outspend Netflix On Streaming Content?” “Amazon on Pace to Spend $7 Billion on Video and Music Content.” “Netflix Will Invest Around $17.3 Billion This Year in Content”

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