My Father's Gramophone
@owlwings (43915)
Cambridge, England
February 23, 2017 4:26am CST
I wonder how many people here know what a Gramophone is? These days (if one exists in anyone's setup any more), its called a 'record player' or 'turntable' and is hooked up to a fancy amplifier. The popular names, 'Gramophone' and 'Phonograph' were both brand names, so, really, I shouldn't call my father's contraption a gramophone because it was almost entirely 'home brewed', however, that is what we always called it.
It was a truly spectacular construction and, for as long as I can remember, stood in the corner of our sitting room. It consisted of a rather sturdy table into which was built a very good quality clockwork motor which drove the turntable at 78 revolutions per minute. That mechanism was the only part which was commercially made and I don't know when or where my father bought it.
The rest of the machine consisted of a wooden framework which supported a huge paper cone and the playing head. When I say 'huge', I mean really enormous! It was about 3 feet (1 metre) in diameter and was carefully made from a stiff cartridge paper.
The centre of the cone was connected by a delicate linkage to a sizeable piece of metal (which was probably typefounder's metal - a mixture of lead, tin and antimony - since my father worked at the University Press in Cambridge). This very heavy lump of metal had been drilled and filed by hand to hold the needle which played the record and was suspended by string and wire from the wooden gantry above the table so that the pressure it put on the record was minimal but just enough to keep the needle in the groove.
There was absolutely no amplification involved. The vibrations of the needle were transmitted to the centre of the paper cone and were quite adequate to fill the room with sound!
We had a collection of records, of course, which was mostly orchestral - Beethoven and Bach - with some more 'popular' music, such as Gracie Fields' "The Biggest Aspidistra" and a four record set of Paul Robeson's "Ballad for Americans". The one which holds the most memories for me was a recording by the pianist, Myra Hess, of Bach's chorale, "Sheep May Safely Graze". It brings back strongly the smell and the quietness of the room and the morning sun lighting the dark brown of an old oak table with dust motes dancing in the light.
Myra Hess plays her own transcription of the wonderfull: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (Jesus bleibet meine freude) - Chorale from Cantata BWV 147. Read along ...
17 people like this
17 responses
@topffer (42156)
• France
23 Feb 17
I still have the first gramophone of my mother. It is a 1948 portable model accepting both 78 and 33 revolutions records. I have always been surprised by the quality of the sound. Besides I am collecting 90 revolutions records of the beginning of the 20th C, and when I hear the low quality of these records I am asking myself how some people might have thought that this invention could have a future 
?
?3 people like this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
23 Feb 17
I think that we only graduated to an electric record player when my father became ill and could no longer maintain his Heath Robinson contraption. That would have been in the mid fifties, I suppose.
I have occasionally come across 80 r.p.m. records but never 90 r.p.m., though I know that early recordings were often to be played at very high speeds in order to improve the quality. Of course, the records you are talking about were often recorded mechanically and without the use of microphones. The musicians had to be placed well away from the recording device and the singer had to sing into a sort of funnel. The needle cut its wavy line in the wax disc purely by the vibrations transmitted to a mica diaphram.
3 people like this
@topffer (42156)
• France
23 Feb 17
@owlwings Pathé started to produce 90 rpm in 1902, and it became quickly a standard in France before WWI. During the war there are 80 and 90 rpm and the last 90 rpm are made in 1921. String instruments could not be recorded at the time, and they are replaced by brass instruments. There is a speaker voice introducing each piece/song, and, if the sound is not good, it is emotional to hear the voice of great artists of the 19th C. I like my little collection
.
.3 people like this
@topffer (42156)
• France
23 Feb 17
@JolietJake Not so nice that your record covers, but an ancestor. Here the record cover of a Pathé from 1906.
3 people like this
@LadyDuck (457349)
• Switzerland
23 Feb 17
I remember the Gramophone, I wonder if it is exactly the same as a Victrola. My father had a large collection of records of Italian Operas and orchestral too. I still have many of those records, but my younger brother broke several of them, I do not remember the name of the material, but back in time they were not made with plastic.
3 people like this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
23 Feb 17
Yes, Victrola was yet another trade name for it. Most 78 rpm discs were made from shellac, the product of a small beetle which lives in India, and were very fragile. It's impossible to imagine how many billions of insects gave their lives in the service of "art and entertainment"!
3 people like this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
23 Feb 17
@LadyDuck It's actually rather mind-blowing to read about all the various uses of shellac, even in the modern world, with so many manmade plastics available.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For the minimalist rock trio, see Shellac (band). Some of the many different colors of shellac Shellac is a resin secreted by the female lac bug, on trees in the forests of India and Thailan
2 people like this
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104632)
• United States
24 Feb 17
I think that gramophone is quite a generic word to refer to any record playing device of it's day. Atleast, it's a term coined now to refer to those first generations of music players.
I can only assume that my family had such a thing. memories of my youth are filled of playing on the old piano that was in severe need of a tune up and replacement of keys.
Forgive me if I over looked the answer, but does your father's gramophone still survive today?
2 people like this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
24 Feb 17
No. My father's contraption was very fragile and, once he was unable to keep tinkering with it, it quickly disappeared (and we got a posh electric record-player). I don't think that any part of it still survives, though I did keep the heavy metal block that held the needle for some years.
1 person likes this
@ScribbledAdNauseum (104632)
• United States
24 Feb 17
@owlwings a good memento to keep, as another music player could have (perhaps not easily) been built from it.
I think the use of paper as the speaker was very clever.
2 people like this
@AbbyGreenhill (45496)
• United States
23 Feb 17
I knew what is was. Do I get an "A"? interesting post, thanks.
2 people like this
@JudyEv (325337)
• Rockingham, Australia
23 Feb 17
We had a gramophone but without the cone affair. I don't know how it produced the volume it did but you could hear it quite easily within the lounge room at least. The mechanism would have to be wound up for every record. The needle was supposed to be changed every record but we usually played three before changing the needle. What a long time ago that seems.
2 people like this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
23 Feb 17
They usually had a small diaphram connected to the needle which was made of either metal or a sheet of mica. That was at the small end of a sort of trumpet (often folded up inside the box). It was incredible how they were able to be so loud!
2 people like this
@RebeccasFarm (86515)
• United States
5 Jan 21
Wow Owl, this is fascinating!! RIP your dear Father. I do recall the word gramophone, course I only had the little record players with handles like a carry case for playing 45s when I was a teenager.
I do recall the word gramophone, course I only had the little record players with handles like a carry case for playing 45s when I was a teenager.1 person likes this
@Jackalyn (7559)
• Oxford, England
23 Feb 17
My sister and I grew up with a wonderful wooden gramaphone that had belonged to my Great Grandma. It even had old records to go with it and we would wind it up and listen to "Little old lady walking by." As I got older I hoped that it would play my LP's. It wouldn't. That is when my parents, who never did get it we were too old for the toy shop, bought a toy record player that would only play singles. (They also managed to get me a toy typewriter and toy guitar instead of the real thing!) I cannot remember what came next, just that Dad would never let us use his new stereo. That drove us mad playing "The Sound of Music" each Sunday. Thankfully cassette players took over and eventually CD's. Recently I bought myself something decent to play music on for the first time.......That original Gramaphone? My sister sold it to an antique house and got £100 for it in the seventies.
2 people like this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
23 Feb 17
We also had a (slightly) more portable gramophone which had a wooden case and doors at the front (to adjust the volume). That was used mostly to play my older brother's 'jazz' records which were not allowed to be played on my father's machine (my parents disliked most popular music, which was all called 'jazz', whether it was Louis Armstrong or 1930's dance band music!). I don't know what happened to that machine. Perhaps the spring broke or maybe we took less care of it than we should have done and it fell to pieces. I imagine that it would be worth quite a bit now!
2 people like this
@Jessicalynnt (50525)
• Centralia, Missouri
23 Feb 17
well how many people call tissues Kleenex? whatever works, lol
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
24 Feb 17
I know quite a few people who refer to tissues as Kleenex and the words 'sellotape' (in the UK) and 'scotch tape' (in the US) are used to refer to adhesive tape of any brand. We still call vaccuum cleaners 'hoovers' in the UK, too.
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@Jessicalynnt (50525)
• Centralia, Missouri
28 Feb 17
@pgntwo all over the south, that is so true
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@pgntwo (22412)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
23 Feb 17
33 and a third, that was the more common speed on the Fisher, I think, record player around when I was a nipper. No 78s, although the turntable supported that speed, and the occasional single that played at 45rpm (Stars on 45, remember that?) None of it now though. Good article.
1 person likes this
@stapllotik (1933)
• India
24 Feb 17
Interesting post and discussion. Were there or are there any gramophones which has a recording function or having radio? Also I heard something called as virtual gramophones. Can someone put a light on it?
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
24 Feb 17
I don't know about 'virtual gramophones'. I shall have to look that up, though I believe that it refers to a Canadian website devoted to early recordings issued in Canada.
The earliest 'gramophone', the phonograph, used a wax cylinder and was originally capable of both recording and playing back. It was only later on that they invented the process of making a more durable cast of the wax original which was capable of being played back hundreds of times.
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@changjiangzhibin89 (16517)
• China
5 Mar 17
I just saw the phonograph in the movies.Your father's phonograph seemed to be a monster one and I can imagine that assembling it was certainly a very demanding job.
1 person likes this
@bagarad (14283)
• Paso Robles, California
25 Feb 17
One of my maiden aunts had a Victrola when I was a small child. It was in the sunroom of her home, and I remember listening to her records there, but I don't remember which music she played. Later she had a turntable that played 33 rpm records, and I'm not sure which music she played on the Victrola and which on the newer turntable. I do remember she supplied me with Gilbert and Sullivan albums.
1 person likes this
@garymarsh6 (23393)
• United Kingdom
23 Feb 17
I had one when I was a child oh boy I wish I had kept hold of it. You had to wind it up and it used to give me no end of entertainment especially as it started to wind down and played the music and singing as if it were a base singer!
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