Landmarking through Music: Early Recordings Revealed

Listen to early recordings as heard by your great-grandparents! Connect with early 20th century music through wax cylinders and develop an understanding of their role within society at the time.

An engaging and interactive one hour workshop will present early recordings and recording technologies, inviting you to discover a range of historical playing machines, including phonographs and gramophones. Participants will have the chance to learn about the history of recordings, the music registered on those recordings, and the socio-cultural context of their production.

As a part of this event, we will record wax cylinders in front of the audience, thus creating an entertaining way for everybody to learn how mechanical sound recording technologies work. Audiences rarely encounter early recordings outside of museums, locked up in cabinets. Nowadays, it is hard to imagine how wax cylinders and discs sounded, as well as understand their role in society.

The Guildford Institute is fully accessible with level entrance access, a lift and accessible toilet on the ground floor. The Assembly Room is located on the first floor. There is on-street parking nearby including unrestricted blue badge parking on Ward Street. Nearby car parks include York Road and Leapale Road.

This University of Surrey event is part of Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 7–16 November 2024. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, with generous support from Research England, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org.