collection of original sousa and his band recordings

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toobagrowl
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Re: collection of original sousa and his band recordings

Post by toobagrowl »

Man, those are some OLD 100+ year old recordings. They kinda remind me of the music in the Little Rascals and the Three Stooges. The musical style seemed more dry/staccato back then; not much 'taper' to the notes. Very interesting in a historical way :!:
Ace
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Re: collection of original sousa and his band recordings

Post by Ace »

Big advances in recording sound quality between 1899 and 1911 (e.g., Florentiner March).

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mbell
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Re: collection of original sousa and his band recordings

Post by mbell »

Even though this is Sousa's band, he is probably not conducting on any of them. Sousa hated recordings because he thought they would affect demand for live music. He was right of course. There are just a few recordings of the Sousa Band with Sousa himself conducting. My understanding is Arthur Pryor conducted on most of the recordings. Still, they probably give you a very good idea of how Sousa wanted his music played. I've read that the recordings might tend to be a little faster than how the band would have played in concert.

The earlier recordings would be cylinders and the later ones regular acoustic 78s. The horns for capturing the sound also got larger and more efficient over time.

mike
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opus37
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Re: collection of original sousa and his band recordings

Post by opus37 »

I have several of these old recordings. Some are labeled Sousa Band and many are labeled Arthur Pryor's Band. Arthur Pryor was a member of Sousa's Band and left Sousa and started his own band in the early 1900's. Most of his band was made up of former Sousa Band members. Whether a recording was rushed or not depends on the disk it was recorded on and therefore when. The early recording were on cylinders, they are definitely rushed or compressed to fit on the recording. Seven inch disks were available in the late 1800's, which quickly went to 10 and then 12 inch disks. Later they went to 2 sides. All these changes happen over about a 10 year period. There are Edison recordings and "Victor" recordings. They are recorded differently (the reason why is a story in it self). Most play back machines will only play one style. If you have a 10 or 12 inch recording, it likely is not compressed and was recorded in the speed as was common in the day.

As for repair of an old gramophone, it is hard to find someone to do it because they are messy and labor intensive. They are not complicated. There are several DYI videos on You Tube to show you how. Parts are available on the internet for most machines. There are folks who advertise on the internet who will do the repair, you send your machine, they fix it and send it back. Expect to pay $250 to much more for a restoration. By the way, your "old" machine is worth about as much as the restoration cost. I found a local guy who does this work and has a storefront with 1000's of records for sale. He does the repair, but is slow. It took him a year to get to mine. Most of his stock is from people "donating" their collection to him. Come to think of it, I should go back and browse again. He specializes in old Jazz recordings.

There are on line searchable listings on most 78 recordings ever made. There are auction houses that specialize is selling old recordings. Some go for $1000's, most for about $3. This is a whole subset of the collecting world.

Also, the quality of record varies greatly on who played it. Needles are use once and thrown away item. A lot of people used a needle several times, which does a real number on the record. Records also wear each time you play them so a heavily played dish will be scratchy and hard to hear clearly.
Brian
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