What Did The Past Sound Like?

There was an interesting programme on UK television a few months back (it doesn't happen often!):

During the First World War, German technicians carried out sound recordings to correlate the accents and dialect words spoken by captured British soldiers with districts of origin. The military idea was towards building a sound archive for training Germans to become indistinguishable when conversing with British citizens, for infiltration pending an invasion. The archive was kept on traditional flat record discs in a museum on the eastern side of the city of Berlin.

A dialect coach made enquiries and the content of the archive was made available to her, it having remained untouched, practically, for around a century. The archive, containing the ways people spoke all those years ago, is of such national importance that a copy has been archived in the British Museum.

While it is possible to distinguish with ease the way written language changes over the years, the existence of an archive of the spoken voice is extremely unusual.

In summary, spoken language has softened since those times, and local dialect words fall into disuse, as one might expect with globalisation and improving communications.

Yes, sounds do change over time!

Interesting sub subject being some time ago a few of us locals got into a discussion about local dialect and general information coaching being used for witness protection transplants being we all know one or more people whose general actions Vs stories do not check out regarding who they claim to be and from where.

The problem is no one can fluidly fake a dialect and knowledge base did not grow up in. Suspected people have a tendency towards too many slight inconsistencies in obvious non coached local knowledge of the area and what they may be doing for a living it becomes a point of suspicion.

I had a former manager that most every person who worked around him suspected of being a witness protection transplant. Who he claimed to be and what he claimed to have done all his life and where had way too many holes in it to add up.

He was well known for being a dimwit and general lying untrustable sack of crap which made his attempts to hold up a credible and consistent background story that could pass local knowledge base confirmation scrutiny impossible. He was just not that smart (he thought he was but no one else did) and his nature to lie and stab anyone in the back whenever he felt it would benefit him was obvious.

The same tiny but obvious character and local knowledge plus life story points that give most everyone here suspicions of certain people for the same reasons for being here.

You can not have worked in the Texas oil fields for 20 years driving truck then have worked in the North dakota oil fields for 20 more (when they were not active more than 5 - 7 years earlier) doing the same work for a suposed large company (that does not exist by confirmable knowledge only a local would have) in a small town that has less than 100 people (only a fact only local would know about) when you are less than 50 years old plus anyone who has any truck driving background can pick you out in a day as being too stupid to have ever held a truck driving job for 40 years to begin with.

Maybe someone can fake it in a large city or general dense urban area but not out here.

Two words.:

Lilly

Hammer

Doesn't bring up anything in a google search besides Lillehammer France information.

It was a series I streamed a couple years ago or so. About that very situation. Funny/good stuff.

a little absurd

I'm sure I spelt it rong.

Lilyhammer

looks interesting

... (( )) ... is that , as opposed to:

Ninny

Hammer

(( ninnyhammer ))

There are sounds that are preserved on 5,000 year old pottery.

Quite interesting.... it appears the sounds were recorded as the potter was making their pottery on the wheel, just like Edison's first recording device. It may not be precise or clear, but at the time the pottery was made the environment was imprinted onto the pottery itself.

I don't know, to me it seems unlikely that sound vibrations from a conversation would vibrate the tools enough to imprint the turning clay. I would think that if there were anything recorded, it would be noise from the bearings of the potter's wheel. (I can't imagine that the bearings were all that good that long ago.) The human brain has a tendency to hear voices in random noise, much like seeing faces in random patterns. It's a pattern matching thing.

MythBusters tried to intentionally recreate the effect but were only able to pick up noise.

http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/mythbusters-database/ancient-voices-recorded-into-pottery/

It actually recorded the potter telling a dirty joke,.... plain as day!

in all seriousness....

... to me it seems unlikely that sound vibrations from a conversation would vibrate the tools enough to imprint the turning clay. I would ...

That's true... If you read how the pottery was made. With basically a stick (stylus) against the clay as its forming, it could record bits and pieces... or something???, like the rattling of the patter's wheel. And if they used glazing, all would be lost.

I just though I'd share this, for a number of reason's.

1.) as it was on topic.

2.) When I first learned of it, I knew, I'd be able to use it,... some day.

I've long regretted not preserving the sounds of the linoleum factory where I worked during college vacations in the 70's. One machine had a belt-driven pulley about 5 ft diameter, which scraped against a sheet steel guard at every rev (about 12 rpm). It ran day and night (I worked up to 20hrs shifts sometimes). I can till hear it ringing through my head on quiet nights. That part of the factory was demolished about 35 years ago.

I can till hear it ringing through my head on quiet nights.

well, in a way, it still preserved... we just have to figure out how to preserved JohnDG:

...or download before demise, perhaps?

When I was a kid my Dad had a 78 RPM record of a Ford sedan being started and driven for a few minutes with a manual shift transmission, then braked to a stop and shut off. The Ford would likely have been from the late 1940s or early 1950s. There was no speaking, nor any other sound on the record, just the sound of the car.

Needless to say, it was a really boring record to listen to. Nevertheless, I kind of miss it.

I'm not sure why my Dad even had it. Perhaps it was a sound effects record used for testing phonograph systems. (?)

Sadly, the record was lost during a fire that burned items in the attic. (No one was injured.)

Some sounds already lost to most people are the crack and hum of a CRT TV set being switched on. Along with it, we've lost the CONELRAD emergency warning system and (I think in most places) the National Anthem being played 'at the end of the broadcast day'.

I have a 78 RPM record of Spike Jones song 'BeetleBaum",... or Bomb... listened to it as a kid,... I loved it.

I had "Dark Town Poker Club" (78) c/o my mum and dad. Also "Woodman Spare That Tree".

My Dad had a lot of other great 78s, including 'Donkey Serenade' by Allan Jones. Loved that song as a kid. It wasn't until later as an adult that I realized what an amazing singer he was.

Two of my other favorites were 'Green Door' by Jim Lowe, and 'This Old House' by Rosemary Clooney. Man, I miss those records. Thank goodness for YouTube.

Old piano player rolls preserve the original sounds of famous musicians before recordings. The clickity clack of the morse code key deserves preservation; also the sound of mighty steam locomotives, pile drivers and the ping of sonar.

Great thread subject! A couple come to mind - along with that ratcheting dial phone, the "dial tone" itself. Kids won't know what a "dial tone" is, or to "dial". I guess "busy signals" are going away - they go to voice mail.

Another sound you rarely hear today - the sort of Theremin swoop of an old radio being tuned in. I could probably find some examples from old movies on youtube.

"Argo Transacord" - what bliss!

I still have and listen to several CDs of these sounds, but then I'm a steam lover. I keep a 400 lb steam engine in my Family Room. Great conversation starter.

Ours was wood with a fixed piece mounted on the wall we spoke into and a corded handle we put to our ear. The sound of our ring on the party line was a long and two shorts from the bells

How about:

The "gedunk" sound of a Coke bottle dropping as it vends?

The snap as an old black and white TV's picture collapses in to a blue dot?

The sound of the tuner as you change channels on that same TV?

In the early 60's the sound of the dial tone and busy signal changed. The busy signal used to be a buzz buzz sound. I don't remember what the dial tone used to sound like.... prime example.

The reaction of a 12 year old, after a hymn has finished and everything is quite, a "fart in church"

but then again,... that's not really past sounds...

May've already been said, but sounds of a matrix printer and a line printer should be preserved.

First job, we had (2) wide body JDL's for printing up to 'C' size drawings. I used to love that sound, made you thing you were productive. Both printers going.... within 2 years, I hated and despised that sound.

Not a sound but a smell. Old vacuum tube amplifier warming up that been unused for near a decade.

Just got a old Heathkit FM-4 tube radio working and set it up with one of my old vacuum tube PA amplifiers.

Mono three channel audio on a 10 watt vacuum tube amp doesn't do half bad!

Smell is mostly slow-roasted dust

What's that smell?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/ny-museum-stages-first-scent-exhibit

Mimeograph

Metronome

Marbles

.. the sound of a record at the end.

ffffffffffffiip.. ffffffffffffiip.. ffffffffffffiip.. ffffffffffffiip..

Here are some sounds from the past. (Today's kids are still trying to figure out how you send a text with a rotary phone.)

http://mentalfloss.com/article/29230/11-sounds-your-kids-have-probably-never-heard

Another sound I remember well from a temporary job when I was a student was from an AEI press shop, where I was employed making parts for .... rotary 'phone dials!

Speaking of rotary phones,... I recall the party line,... and that days version of social media was an old woman who was always listened in on it. And it then spread from there.

You always knew when she was listening because you heard that 'clik-click'.

I remember my brother and his friends getting po'd from that his friend when he was talking to his friends. He brought in a brass whistle from a steam engine... and when he heard that 'clik-click'.

It was either that or started a very far fetched rumor.

There must have been one of those old hens on every party line being I have heard that same story countless times over the years.

And same as you, they had ways of dealing with them too! So and so has XYZ disease or even died or went to jail or stole whatever from so and so when none of it was true.

Only find the rumor was all over the local town a day or two later making whomever spread it look like a gossiping old fool and whomever believed them look even dumber for having listened.

Rather like facebook or whatever social media now but it took two - three days for the gossip and outright lies to get spread instead of 20 minutes.

The juicier the gossip the faster it traveled.

Funny, on the radio the other day I heard the President giving a press conference overseas. When there was a break in the speech, I heard the incessant clicking of cameras. I thought, "Are they still using Speed Graphics in the press?" Of course not, they're using digital cameras now, and they don't make any noise--except the old fashioned 'camera' noise that is programmed into them.

I suppose that the shutter noise will be preserved forever, not only in cameras, but in our phones, too! I do wonder, however, if the younger generation will ever question why a digital camera makes noise...

The reason for that is If it didn't make a sound, it would leave you wondering if did it take a picture.

I miss:

The sound of a John Deere 2 cylinder tractor,the mill steam whistle that blew at lunch,the squeak of the rusty old wheels of the ice delivery wagon,the relieved lip flapping snort of the mule when he was put in the stable after hard day's work.

The rooster welcoming sunrise every morning, the hens squawking when they laid an egg,the hoot owls in the evening,and the doves in the spring.

The raucous sound of Guinea fowl when disturbed.

Going to sleep to the sound of rain on a tin roof.

All of the things we took for granted in our youth,but are forged in our memories.