The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Today I went to a nearby elementary school to present a special lesson. Having volunteered for several days, the students knew me. We used the old phonographs to demonstrate science concepts such as force, friction, vibration, and interaction. The functions of the motor was discussed. Records were played, mostly acoustic, and it helped students understand how the machines functioned.

It was interesting to see their reactions to the old music. In one photo I provided lyrics for a sing along to one of the records with a vocal refrain.

Don

Here is the other photo

Awesome!!!! What kind of questions did the students have?

Well done!

My neighbor has 4 kids between 9 and 17. The youngest sometimes sees me working on projects in the garage and reported to me that he was able to answer a question at school about Edison by hanging around. I had them all over for a historical talk and demonstration after that. See them engaged in the process was rewarding.

James.

That's what we should all inspire to do. We should try and find a way to attract young people to our hobby. I wish you would have recorded a cylinder for them right there with all of them singing. That would have amazed them.

Thank you for the replies so far. Yes, making a cylinder recording would be a nice project but I did not have a blank cylinder or recorder. A short video clip of how a tinfoil phonograph worked was also shown.
The questions asked by the students were about how old the machines were and their value.

This is great! Thank you for sharing. Having participated in some historical "fairs" and lectures/talks, I find that younger folks and people that don't know much about phonographs seem to enjoy hearing them for the first time! As another collector on this forum mentioned once, it really doesn't matter if the model is rare or valuable, simply seeing it "crank up" and "play" without electricity is amazing!

In your instance, demonstrating these phonographs to younger people may very well "spark" the interest. I was around 13/14 years old when I got interested in antiques and phonographs.... so it can happen!

That's what I found out, most people are interested. I always have pictures and videos of some of my better playing machines on my phone and find myself always being asked about phonographs. The nostalgia when someone remembers that thier grandfather had something like that. My family bought a Victor 2 and had to make payments to afford it. My mom remembers having parties and everyone dancing, they were the only ones that had a record player. I finally got my own thanks to one of our members and my 82 year old mom couldn't believe that they were still around. That made my day.

That is awesome Don. Look out for a new letter I sent you
Travis