Timeline of the Technology and Music Industry.

1877 - While experimenting with a new telegraph device, Thomas Edison wonders upon the beginnings of recorded sound. By the end of the year, he records ‘’Mary Had A Little Lamb” on the first working phonograph, in which he becomes the first inventor to successfully record the human voice.

By 1885 Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter challenge Edison’s phonograph with their graphophone, like Edison’s phonograph, which creates sound as an engraved wax cylinder rotates against a stylus.

1888 – Emile Berliner invents the gramophone. It uses a disc rather than a cylinder, like the phonograph. The gramophone can hold up to 2 minutes of recorded sound.

1890s – As one of the 30 franchises competing in the graphophone leasing business, the Columbia Phonograph Company achieves little success until it begins to record music to send to fairgrounds to accompany its leased graphophones. The popularity of the fairground jukeboxes allows the Columbia Graphophone Company to survive the economy of the 1890s and to become to only graphophone leasing company to turn a profit.

1900s – The developments in the materials and the production techniques of both the disc and the cylinder give recordings a more clear and dynamic sound. Mass production techniques for both technologies improve and the music business takes off. Along with the graphophone and the gramophone, the piano also becomes one of the most popular businesses of the time.

Music publishers appeal to the courts when the piano roll companies refuse to pay publishers for the rights to reproduce recordings on the piano scrolls.

1920s – The Radio Corporation of America begins mass-producing commercial radios. KDKA in Pittsburgh becomes the first commercial radio station to receive call letters and begins regular broadcasts by announcing the returns of the presidential election.

1925 – In 1925, Bell Telephone Laboratories introduces electrical amplification and the first electrically recorded discs go on sale.

1930s – Tape recording cartridges are developed in this time, but tapes remain largely behind the scenes during the Depression and into the 1950s. The presence of free radio broadcast during the Depression leads to a decline in record sales.

1940s – The fragile nature of discs made from shellac is revealed when RCA Victor ships the first “V-Dsics” to entertain troops abroad in 1943 and polyvinyl chloride known as PVC or vinyl is adopted as the new material for record

production. Vinyl survives as the record industry’s material of choice long after WWII ends.

The RCA disc is also introduced alongside a cheap means of playing its format and the 7-inch single quickly becomes the standard for the jukebox. In 1950, RCA releases records on the 12-inch Columbia format and in 1951, Columbia follows suit with the release of records on the 7-inch RCA format.

1964 – Cassette tape has its commercial breakthrough, when Phillips introduces its own 30-minute format for the tape cartridge and allows other manufactures to duplicate the specifications.

1970s – Cassette tapes hit the big time with the decline of 8-track players and the introduction of the Sony Walkman in 1979. The Walkman revolution coincides with improvement in cassette sound quality and the cassette tape suddenly becomes the only format that you could have in your home, in your car and in your pocket.

1980s – Pillips and Sony announce plans to work together to come up with a uniform standard for Compact Disc in 1978. In 1982, record companies announce a worldwide standard that ensures that all CDs will play on all CD players.

With the introduction of the CD, the 80s become the most explosive boom period in recorded audio history, as consumers replace their vinyl collections. Within three years of the CDs arrival in the marketplace the electronics industry sells one million CD players. It took 11 years for color television manufactures to sell one million units.

1990s – The combination of digital audio and the Internet create a combustible phenomenon upon the invention of the MP3. It compresses digital audio files that can be easily sent from computer to computer.

1997 – Artist Prince announces that his next album will only be available via the Internet. He sells 100,000 albums without the aid of the record label.

2003 – Apple computer launches the most successful online music store to date. In its first year, apple sells 70 million songs at $0.99 per song, creating nearly $70 million in legal Internet music sales.