The phonograph was a revolutionary. The invention allowed users to listen to music that had been recorded using records. I know that idea is so common place now; we walk around with endless music available at our fingertips. However, at the time, music could only be heard if someone was playing it live. When Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, his goal was not to make a machine to play music. He was trying to expand on Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone by figuring out a way to incorporate an answering machine by transcribing messages. His first models included a writing feature and his target audience was office personnel. However, it soon was discovered that these machines can record sound and voices. The accidental development of this music centered technology, the phonograph, would change the music industry forever. Early adopters of this technology included musicians that desired to record their performances to create records and music lovers that could see the value in investing in records and a phonograph.
The phonograph widely was adopted after a while, because it was an economically sound way for people to play music in their homes that they were not making themselves. It allowed music lovers to listen to a single performance of an artist multiple times and allowed for the development of a deeper appreciate for the artwork. Most people had phonographs, more well known as record players, by the 60s and 70s. The early adopters had been growing in numbers up until this point. The phonograph really inspired a long line of development in music technology to cassette tapes, CDs, iPods, to streaming platforms. Through the uses and gratification theory people do a cost-benefit analysis to see the tangible advantage of using a product. It is through this theory that the majority eventually adopted the phonograph across the nation.
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