First Sounds present first recorded Voice

Au Clair de la Lune--French folk song (1860 Phonautogram)

Scott recorded someone singing an excerpt from the French folksong "Au Clair de la Lune" on April 9, 1860, 17 years before Edison invented the phono graph....and deposited the results with the Académie des Sciences in 1861. The existence of a tuning-fork calibration trace allows us to compensate for the irregular recording speed of the hand-cranked cylinder. The sheet contains the beginning line of the second verse-"Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit"-and is the earliest audibly recognizable record of the human voice yet recovered.

• Au Clair de la Lune--French folk song (mp3)

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Image: Sarah Lucas, chicken knickers