Historical – Tremblings and Warblings https://www.tremblingsandwarblings.com A Blog on the Science of Music and Speech Fri, 22 Oct 2021 07:10:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 The Mechanical Talking Head: An Early Speech Synthesiser https://www.tremblingsandwarblings.com/2017/06/mechanical-talking-head/ https://www.tremblingsandwarblings.com/2017/06/mechanical-talking-head/#respond Tue, 06 Jun 2017 12:10:13 +0000 http://www.tremblingsandwarblings.com/?p=454
Photo of the Euphonia
The Euphonia, a mechanical speech synthesiser. Public domain photo, sourced from Atlas Obscura.

In a dimly-lit room in the back of London’s Egyptian Hall, a few curious people had gathered.  Each had paid a shilling for the privilege of seeing the object standing in the centre of the room.  A grotesque device it was — the mask of a woman’s face, framed in the fashionable ringlets of the day, … Read the rest

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]]> https://www.tremblingsandwarblings.com/2017/06/mechanical-talking-head/feed/ 0 The Voice in the Soot: Humanity’s Earliest Known Recording https://www.tremblingsandwarblings.com/2017/01/the-voice-in-the-soot/ https://www.tremblingsandwarblings.com/2017/01/the-voice-in-the-soot/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2017 01:42:17 +0000 http://www.tremblingsandwarblings.com/?p=174
Image extracted from the video Let There Be Sound, Part 4 by First Sounds / CC BY.

This is the first known dated recording of the human voice, recorded in 1860 but only played back for the first time in 2008:

Au Clair de la Lune, 1860

Au Clair de la Lune, March 2008 release by First Sounds / CC BY.

Creepy, isn’t it? It reminds me … Read the rest

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