Before music could be stored on a flat, spinning disc, it was captured on rotating cylinders. Thomas Edison's phonograph, which used wax cylinders, was a marvel. To listen, you'd place a needle on the cylinder's groove and turn a crank. But the system had a major flaw: cylinders were difficult to mass-produce. Each one had to be recorded individually, making them expensive and rare.

Then came Emile Berliner, a German-born American inventor. In 1887, he patented a new system he called the gramophone. Instead of a bulky cylinder, Berliner's machine played a flat disc. This simple change was revolutionary. A master recording could be used to create a metal stamper, which could then press thousands of identical copies. Suddenly, recorded music could be a product for the masses, not just a novelty for the wealthy.

Early disc records didn't have a single, universal speed. They spun at anywhere from 60 to over 100 revolutions per minute (RPM), depending on the manufacturer and even the specific recording. This created chaos for consumers, who needed machines that could handle different speeds.

By the mid-1920s, the industry began to settle on a standard. The speed of 78 RPM emerged as a practical compromise. It was fast enough to produce decent sound quality for the time, but slow enough to allow for a few minutes of music per side. This standardization was driven by the electric motors that began replacing hand-cranked mechanisms in phonographs. These motors were most efficient at speeds around 78 RPM.

The material used to make these early records was just as important as the speed. While Berliner's first discs were made of hard rubber, the industry soon adopted shellac. Shellac is a natural resin secreted by the female lac bug on trees in India and Thailand. It was mixed with a filler, like powdered slate or limestone, and a bit of cotton fiber for strength.

Why shellac? It was relatively cheap, melted at a low temperature, and became very hard when it cooled, allowing it to hold the fine details of the sound grooves. This mixture was pressed into a hot, flat pancake and then stamped with the master recording. The resulting discs were heavy and brittle — dropping one usually meant it was gone for good — but they were the foundation of the recording industry for half a century.

Time to see what you've learned about the birth of the record.

The shift from cylinder to disc, the standardization of speed, and the use of shellac all paved the way for the modern music industry.