Voice recording may be world's oldest (AP/CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- At first listen, the grainy high-pitched warble doesn't sound like much, but scientists say the French recording from 1860 is the oldest known recorded human voice.

The 10-second clip of a woman singing "Au Clair de la Lune," taken from a so-called phonautogram, was recently discovered by audio historian David Giovannoni. The recording predates Thomas Edison's "Mary had a little lamb" -- previously credited as the oldest recorded voice -- by 17 years.

The tune was captured using a phonautograph, a device created by Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville that created visual recordings of sound waves.

Using a needle that moved in response to sound, the phonautograph etched sound waves into paper coated with soot from an oil lamp.

Giovannoni and his research partner, Patrick Feaster, began looking for phonautograms last year and in December discovered two of Scott's -- from 1857 and 1859 -- in France's patent office. Using high-resolution optical scanning equipment, Giovannoni collected images of the phonautograms that he brought back to the United States.
***
more (but no audio clip, DUH!): http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/03/27/france.recording.ap/index.html

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Audio link now at the BBC

Oldest recorded voices sing again

An "ethereal" 10 second clip of a woman singing a French folk song has been played for the first time in 150 years.

The recording of "Au Clair de la Lune", recorded in 1860, is thought to be the oldest known recorded human voice.

A phonograph of Thomas Edison singing a children's song in 1877 was previously thought to be the oldest record.

The new "phonautograph", created by etching soot-covered paper, has now been played by US scientists using a "virtual stylus" to read the lines.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7318180.stm

audio: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7310000/newsid_7318200?redirect=7318205.stm&news=1&nbram=1&bbram=1&nbwm=1&bbwm=1&asb=1


And how could I forget this story, which I first about at DU: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002875.html

Here's a tantalizing reference to the reputed Lincoln recording: http://members.aol.com/allenamet/NYT32599.htm

[zazen]

2. When that was recorded, some Americans owned black people. Amazing.

I don't specify white because a few blacks owned other blacks too.

The singer may have been alive during the later Napoleonic wars, and she must have met many older people throughout her life who were alive during the American and French Revolutions. She probably had talked to people who had witnessed the storming of the Bastille, the execution of MA and Louis, the Terror of Robespierre. Just amazing. And now we hear her voice as if she were singing on a really bad cell phone connection.

I only wish that "hoax" about ancient pottery possibly accidentally recording nearby sounds were true. Maybe it will be, someday. History's so cool.

[Crunchy Frog]

3. Hey wow! I've harbored secret fantasies about that ancient pottery scenario.

I didn't know anyone else had thought about it too. :)