The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I was playing John Phillip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" on our newly restored Edison phonograph for my know-it-all son-in-law who insisted there was something wrong, the machine was playing it too fast. I explained to him some recordings were faster and some were slower tempo than we're used to. I've confirmed that the unit's speed is properly calibrated.

Later I compared modern performances of Stars and Stripes on Youtube with my 1913 recording. Modern performances are consistently 2 minutes 45 seconds, but the 1913 version was 4 and a half minutes, because they played the entire march twice! Obviously if you bought a 4 minute cylinder, you expected at least 4 minutes of entertainment, so they sped up the tempo 30% and doubled the song to make it fit. Other songs, they may have slowed down slightly to meet the 4 minute requirement.

The varying tempos for stuffing music into one side, also in acoustic 78s, is another variable in the game when you're trying to find out the right speed to play something. Some records are a real enigma!

I think if you compare the 10" Victor Sousa's Band Stars and Stripes Forever, the tempo is slower.

I read somewhere that longer Diamond Discs were speeded up during the dubbing process in order to fit onto Blue Amberols.