How the Microphone Changed Music

Just as the development of e-mail in the 1990s changed the love letter, the technology of the 1920s forever altered the love song.  

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries–before movies, before television, before radio–the most popular form of live entertainment in America was vaudeville, a live variety show consisting of unrelated acts, ranging from acrobats and animal trainers to magicians and musical performances.

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The photo is of a young Rudy Vallee using his megaphone to perform.
Rudy Vallee

No Way to Amplify Sound

Musical performances, however, could be problematic. Theaters were often large, and there were limited ways that music could be presented to a big audience because there was not yet an effective way to amplify sound.

As a result, the successful singers of the day were those who had stentorian voices and could project. Though nineteenth century songs like Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer” or “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” may have been about love, the only way to perform them was by singing at top volume.

Singing bandleader Rudy Vallee came up with one solution: He used a megaphone to help amplify his voice over the sound of his band. Even after microphones came into use, Vallee was so identified with it that he kept the megaphone as signature prop for his performances.

The photograph shows a small band. Everyone is crowded around the recording horn. The men are all dressed in suits, and one fellow stands on the stage and seems to be in charge
An acoustical recording session. Library of Congress

Acoustical Recordings

Between 1890-1925, music engineers were working to find ways to capture sound as well as amplify it. By the 1910s, the acoustical recording process was being employed. This involved musicians and/or singers crowding around a recording horn (cone) that contained a diaphragm connected to a cutting needle.

The needle rested on a recording medium. As the diaphragm responded to the sounds made by the performers, the needle cut a corresponding groove into the recording material, usually a thin sheet of foil wrapped around a cylinder.

For the recording horn to capture the sound, it was vital for each instrument or singer to be in close proximity to it at the appropriate time. If a certain performer or instrument was to be featured, the other performers stepped quickly out of the way so that the sound from the intended performer could be closest to the cone with its diaphragm. The process involved a lot of awkward jockeying around.

Performers also learned to manipulate sound themselves. For louder and higher notes, they stepped back a bit to avoid distortion. For a softer sound, they needed to move forward so the sound could be picked up by the recording. In general, lower voices were easier to record at this time. And certain instruments could be heard better than others. The banjo, the trumpet, the trombone, and the xylophone were ideal.

All these aspects had an effect on the type of music that was chosen to be recorded.

Another Development Comes Along

The microphone—so called because it was said “to do for the ear what the microscope did for the eye.”—had been a project of many.  Much of the tinkering with the early microphones was to perfect them for use with the telephone.

This is a patent application.
Patent application for the carbon button microphone

An inventor in England (David Edward Hughes) was probably the first to create what became known as the carbon button microphone. But inventors in America were having success, too. Emile Berliner, a German-born inventor who worked in Thomas Edison’s laboratories, was among the first to come up with a usable carbon-button microphone in this country.

Edison initially showed no interest in Berliner’s accomplishment, so Berliner sold the rights to his invention to Alexander Graham Bell. Eventually he also went to work for Bell. (Later Edison would weigh in on what needed to be done with the microphone, and he and Berliner went through a fight over the patent.)

Carbon Button Microphone

The carbon button microphone was a drum-like device that enclosed two electric contacts separated by a thin layer of loose carbon. One contact was attached to a diaphragm that vibrated when struck by a sound wave; the other was connected to an output device. This microphone was perfect for telephone because it converted sound into voltage. (Improved versions of the carbon button microphone existed in telephones until the 1980s.)

In the early 1920s, a few radio stations began to operate, and they, too, found the microphone vital. The first commercial radio station broadcast in 1920. By the late 1920s, more people bought radios as they delivered exciting entertainment—much more so than most people could find locally.

A beautiful color photo of an old carbon button microphone with "On the Air" atop it. 
istockphoto
Vintage microphone

Electrical Recording as Well

Along with the progress being made on the microphone, engineers were finding a way to record by using electricity. Developments in these two areas were soon conjoined. As microphones were used to capture the sounds for recordings, musicians soon realized that the microphones permitted them to be heard better in theaters and auditoriums because their sound was amplified.

This color photo from the National Park Service shows an electronic recording device with a horn to absorb sound leading to a stylus that records on the medium
Electrical recording device. National Park Service

Changes in Music

These discoveries had a vast effect on music. Instead of a singer belting out a song so that it could be heard in the back row of a theater, these belting singers actually sounded terrible in front of a microphone. They never learned to modulate their tones.

As musicians experimented with what worked, they learned that a new type of music was possible. For the first time, emotions could be conveyed with the sound of the voice. Lyrics could be about love and the tones could be intimate and suggestive, as if the performer was whispering the song to each listener. It became known as “crooning.”

Women loved it, and then as now, women were responsible for spending much of the family budget. As a result, radio stations quickly got on board with songs produced by crooners. Soon they discovered commercials were sometimes more effective when whispered. As more people listened to the radio and began hearing the new sounds that were possible, audiences wanted to see these people in person. The clubs started booking crooners to perform live. In 1932, TheNew York Times ran a headline” Radio Invades Vaudeville: Public Desire to See Microphone Performers Beckons Them to the Footlights—Many Now on Tour.”

Inspired Controversy

Change is usually followed by controversy, and this shift was no different. In The Rise of the Crooners by Michael Pitts and Frank Hoffman, the authors point out that this new form of singing was considered “dangerous.”

In Boston, the Catholic Church’s Cardinal O’Connell came out against crooning, feeling that it corrupted young people and led to bad morals. From a totally different camp, singing teachers condemned the style because they felt the American chest would shrink because of lack of lung development.

Despite this opposition, the popularity of the music grew. Early crooners included some like Al Bowlly and Gene Austin, who are little known today. Rudy Vallee was an exceedingly popular crooner who learned to shift music and acting styles and remained extremely popular. Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Nat King Cole were also crooners, all of whom still maintain followings today.

Vintage microphone made of brass. Created by Western Electric.
Western Electric microphone

Some Rock and Roll Features Crooning

Though the 1950s ushered in the era of rock and roll, there are still musicians who mix in a crooning-style of song. Norah Jones is certainly in that group, but so, too is someone like Bob Dylan who will add into his repertoire a song like, “To Make You Feel my Love.”

Though the Doors are unlikely crooners, Jim Morrison’s “Touch Me” is a song that has definite crooning roots. After his emphatic, “Come on come on come on come on now touch me baby,” take a listen to “Now I’m gonna love ya, til the heavens stop the rain…” Morrison’s self-declared admiration for Sinatra is more than evident.

Crooning Today

We may no longer call it crooning, but today’s listeners still love a love song now and then. We love words of adoration; we love the musical intimacy, and we savor the feelings we get when a song reminds us of all the aspects of our own lives that inspire love. 

A color photograph of Nat King Cole's Hollywood Star of Fame

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  1. Pingback: White Christmas The Story Behind the Song by Irving Berlin

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