fennessy

The phonograph, as a sound medium, integrates technicality, artistry and culture. The Fennessy Phonograph Museum attempts to break away from the musical cultural ﬁeld that relies on phonographs and vinyl music as concrete material carriers and intangible continuations. By building a production space that encompasses knowledge, ideas, and culture, it aims to form a comprehensive industrial form that integrates social education, aesthetics, entertainment, and value exchange, and to restart a new cultural practice.

The First Record of Sound

In 1857, Frenchman Léon Scott (1817-1879) invented the phonautograph, the earliest recording device, which successfully recorded the waveforms of sound.

The First Sound in the History of Recording

"Mary had a little lamb, whose fleece was white as snow" – this few seconds of sound became the first recorded sound in the history of audio. The sound could be recorded, but only as a recording of sound itself. It wasn't until 1877, when the U.S....

The Spark of Wisdom

In 1885, American inventor Alexander Bell (1848-1924) and instrument engineer Charles Sumner Hunter...

The "Flattening" of the Gramophone

In 1888, Emil Berliner officially introduced the Gramophone turntable and exhibited it in Philadelphia. This was the world's first disc record and gramophone, using a flat zinc plate coated with wax for playback and recording...

Pushing the Gramophone to the World

Emil Berliner's American Gramophone Co. did not last long. In 1894, Berliner established the American Gramophone Company in Baltimore, Maryland...

The Continuing Development of Records

In June 1900, due to illegal competition, Emil Berliner closed his company and transferred the patent to Eldridge Johnson, who continued the development of the gramophone in the U.S....

The Phonograph Enters the Electronic Age

In 1919, Bell Labs' Joseph P. Maxfield and Henry C. Harrison applied electronic amplifiers to the phonograph, successfully creating an all-electronic phonograph...

The Flourishing Record Manufacturing Industry

After 1901, the 10-inch 78rpm coarse-grain shellac records became the mainstream format of records.

The Golden Age of Phonographs and Records

In 1950, stereo (Holophonics) began to develop. These were epoch-making improvements in the history of recording.

The Revival of Vinyl Records

Vinyl records are experiencing a second renaissance in the music market. In recent years, the sales of new vinyl records (especially 7-inch single EPs) have significantly increased worldwide, somewhat reversing the decline of the 1990s...

New Faces Given by the New World

The turntable, along with vinyl records, has made a resurgence, re-entering people's lives with a new face and identity. The world of vinyl records, once dominated by the equipment needed to play them, now...

Remolding the Classics

In 2005, Fennessy used the gramophone as a medium to weave a profound and sincere bond, awakening and reshaping a far-reaching, hidden and urgently needed connection. Physical music, as a carrier of emotional memory and culture, will continue to occupy a unique position in human life…