Popular Science MontJily 



659 



Embalming a duet by Lina Cavalieri and Lucien Muratore. Cavalieri was formerly 

 a member of the Metropolitan Opera Company. Muratore is a distinguished Italian 

 tenor. The photograph shows in a general way how songs with orchestral accompaninient 

 are recorded. Sometimes the phonograph projects through a partition, so that the singer 

 sees only its mouth. Often five or six phonographs are used simultaneously to make 

 records. In making master records, the artists always sing twice 



Singing for the Phonograph 



THE recording of the human voice on 

 the phonograph is almost a science 

 in itself — not so much as the artist is 

 concerned as the laboratory head who is 

 responsible for the clearness of the ulti- 

 mate record. While each phonograph 

 company has its own system of arrang- 

 ing the recording phonograph relatively 

 to the orchestra and artist, the essential 

 principles are very much the same in all 

 laboratories. 



As a general rule the musicians are 

 perched midway between floor and ceil- 

 ing, with their instruments pointing 

 toward the horn of the recording phono- 

 graph. Men who play the tuba and 

 similar brass instruments turn their 

 backs to the phonograph so that the 

 mouths of the instruments may project 

 their growls and blasts toward the horn. 

 In order that the tuba pla\'ers may see 

 the conductor of the orchestra, mirrors 

 are placed in front of them, which reflect 

 the movements of his baton. 



For violin solos, an ordinary violin is 

 used, the artist usually playing directly 



in front of a horn projecting through a 

 partition. This is true of chamber 

 music and all records in which the violin 

 tone can be heard with sufficient dis- 

 tinctness. In heavy orchestral pieces, 

 however, a special instrument called, 

 after its inventor, the Stroh violin, 

 is used. It seems that the sounds 

 of the ordinary violin are difficult 

 to produce, especially at a distance. 

 Stroh devised a violin which has 

 no sounding-board. It comprises sim- 

 ply a bridge, over which the strings 

 arc stretched in the usual manner, and a 

 horn which amplifies the sounds. This 

 instrument is now used in all phonograph 

 laboratories. On the finished phono- 

 graph record its sounds are hardly to be 

 distinguished from those of an ordinary 

 violin. 



Many experiments have b^en made to 

 determine the best shape of room in 

 which to make records. Edison, for 

 example, tested almost every conceivable 

 form. He even went so far as to build 

 a room in the shape of a horn, the small 

 end of which terminated in the phono- 



