The First Recorded Sounds

The First Recorded Sounds Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. Born 25 April 1817 Died 26 April 1879 (aged 62) -Au Clair de la Lune- The inventor of sound recording made the world’s first recordings of airborne sounds in Paris between 1853/4 and 1860 on a machine he called a phonautograph. Scott recorded the French folksong “Au Clair de la Lune“ on April 9, 1860, and deposited the results with the Académie des Sciences in 1861. It remains the earliest clearly recognizable record of the human voice yet recovered. The words have been a matter of controversy, but the latest playback—unveiled in May 2010—establishes them as “Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot, prete moi—,” rather than “Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit,” as originally announced. The latest work also reveals that Scott had allowed the cylinder to slow down—possibly to a complete stop—between the words “Pierrot” and “prete,” perhaps indicating a pause to check how much unrec