The Dead Media Notebook (90 page)

Yet Day’s main concern is not so much with the mechanics of recording as with the manifold ways in which the process has increasingly influenced the evolution, reception and understanding of music itself. Admittedly, this happened more gradually than in the early dissemination of jazz, or the way post-war pop was recording-driven from the start. No one imagined that the recording of operatic arias that comprised much of the early acoustic discography offered any real alternative, let alone threat, to the experience of live opera, while the first two decades of electric recording were largely devoted to catching up on the standard classical repertoire.

Only since the emergence of the LP has recording come to play a more central role in musical developments in the rediscovery of early music, for instance, or the promotion of new music (electronic music, not least). And only with the vast expansion of the recorded repertoire over the last couple of decades has something approaching the entire history of Western music been restored to present consciousness a phenomenon which, interacting with comparable expansions in the availability of pop, world music, and so on, has so powerfully contributed to the relativistic, pick-and-mix culture of so-called post-modernism, which we are all now enjoying, or suffering from.

The benefits of recording, as a means of preserving past greatness, of reaching vast new audiences, of restoring unjustly neglected music and promoting the new, are obvious enough.

Yet Day quotes a Spectator editorial of as early as 1888, warning that the accumulating products of mechanical reproduction could threaten “the free growth of our posterity” and comparable doubts about recording have continued to surface ever since: the notion, for instance, that the edited perfection of discs has increasingly inhibited live performers from taking spontaneous risks, has become a critical commonplace.

Though an inveterate record-maker himself, Benjamin Britten evidently felt that the gramophone somehow violated the “holy triangle” of composer, performer and listener, and lamented that records allowed great works to be misused as mere background music.

Hans Keller went so far as to argue that our growing reliance on recordings as the primary source of musical experience, plus the ubiquitous curse of muzak, have tended to foster an “infinite postponement of concentration”, progressively degrading our powers of focused listening his own included.

Since Day’s declared purpose is to stimulate and source further thought and research into the history and repercussions of recording, he is more concerned to raise such issues than to resolve them. In any case, he has his work cut out to reduce the vast array of evidence and commentary that the recording process has thrown up to something like an orderly plan. This he has partly contrived through a deft choice of case histories: the influence on taste of Walter Legge as a recording executive; the role of David Munrow in the early music discography; the shifts in performing style preserved in successive recordings of the works of Webern, and so on.

Occasionally the sheer pressure of material reduces Day’s prose to portmanteau syntax and breathless lists. But it remains a lively and provoking read. As a historian, he is, of course, more concerned to understand the past than to speculate about the future. Yet it could be argued that at least one basic development in recording technology is long overdue and could go part of the way towards reconciling those who regard recording as a deadening substitute for live musical experience. Sound recording may have changed out of all recognition since Edison; what has not is the simple fact that, every time a disc is played, it remains exactly the same.

Yet how easily one could imagine something called, say, the “variable disc” upon which an artist such as Alfred Brendel had recorded perhaps a half dozen slightly contrasting interpretations of a Beethoven sonata which the playback mechanism then crosscuts differently each time to provide the illusion of perpetual spontaneous performance.

Or the “transformational disc”, enabling purchasers to modify the tempi, dynamics and nuances of a Bruckner symphony to create their own ideal performances. Or, maybe not. For however the rest of us might profit from such extravagancies of “interactive” recording technology, to the systematic archivist-historian they could well prove the ultimate nightmare.

Source: A Century of Recorded Music: Listening to Musical History by Timothy Day

From Andrew Reid

The “contoura” is a remarkable example of the clever use of relatively straightforward technology.

The machine is what you might call a “photographic copier”, if you wanted to distinguish it from the xerographic implications of the modern term “photocopier.”

I am unable to date the machine with any precision, but it has the utilitarian simplicity I associate with late-1940s or early-1950s hardware. It is an electrical device, but has no Underwiter’
s Laboratories or other consumer safety data plates, and addresses and phone numbers in the documents lack ZIP codes and numeric prefixes, respectively.

Physical description: The unit itself is basically a light box, about 5 cm thick, and about 10 inches by 8 inches for the
“research model”, and 14.5 x 9.5 inches for the “legal model.” My example is evidently a “legal model,”
and has 10 15-watt incandescent light bulbs in two rows of five, wired in parallel. A thick (4 mm) frosted glass plate covers the array of bulbs, which are activated by a simple pushbutton switch. The unit also comes with a translucent plastic air bladder, resembling a modern courier envelope, 2-3 cm thick when inflated and somewhat larger than the face of the light-box. One side of the air bladder has a glass plate glued to it. Also provided is a piece of thin, translucent paper the same size as the face of the light box, which the instructions call the
“paper mask.”

Judging from a careful reading of the instructions, I believe my example is complete except for necessary photographic supplies. Use: According to the instructions, the unit is supposed to be accompanied by one of two types of
“Contoura Contact Paper”, photographic paper with a very slow-speed emulsion which allows it to be handled briefly in ordinary indoor lighting conditions.

“Type C” paper is recommended for copying written and printed material, and “Type Y” is used for photographs or half-tones. Presumably these papers differ in their con
trast sensitivity.

To actually make a copy, the user first places the photographic “Contact Paper” face down on the document to be copied, then places the inflated air bladder, glass-side down, on the contact paper, then the “paper mask”, and finally the light box itself.

Users are cautioned against attempting this in direct or strong light, but the instructions emphasize that no darkroom is required. The box is activated for approximately ten seconds, and the exposed contact paper is developed by “ordinary”
photographic processes, either right away if the chemicals are available, or later on, if the exposed contact paper is promptly placed in a black envelope.

Processing is as for photographic prints, except that, as previously mentioned, no darkroom is needed, although subdued light is recommended. For a developer, the instructions recommend “Eastman Dektol” or equivalent, an optional stop bath, and then “Eastman Acid Fixing Bath”.

Readers familiar with amateur darkroom techniques will recognize these names, and the ordinariness of this print-development process is further emphasized by the claim that users can, if they wish, have their copies developed by “a photographer or local developing service.”

Special features: The instructions imply that the
“paper mask” provided with the unit evens out the brightness of the light bulbs, and recommend that, if a light bulb burns out, your return the unit to the distributor for a new set of bulbs and a new paper mask.

The paper mask accompanying my unit has dark spots corresponding to the light bulb positions, so the claim is plausible, but the means of producing the paper mask is unknown. (The frosted glass plate appears to be uniformly thick.) From the promotional literature, it’s clear that the principal practical advantage of the machine is its portability (“Fits in briefcase!”) and convenience (“less than 7 lbs!”) and literal flexibility—the plastic cushion allows the photographic paper to “match the contour of the material being copied” (emphasis original), hence, presumably, the name “Contoura”.

This, coupled with the error-free nature of photocopying, makes quite a sales pitch. The documents produced are, of course, negatives, and additional copies must be made to get positives. Transparencies can be copied by placing the paper emulsion-side-up underneath the original.

Source: Working example with instruction sheet and promotional brochure

From Harald Staun

Mail communication with one’s family and friends has long been a critical factor in maintaining servicemen and womens morale during wartime. Military commanders acknowledge that frequent contact between families separated during war helps strengthen fortitude, makes loneliness endurable and provides needed reassurance. Of course, all those letters take up space. During World War II, the military and Post Office Department looked for a way to reduce the bulk of mail, conserving badly-needed space.

The answer was V-mail, pre-printed envelope sheets that could be photographed and transferred to microfilm for shipping. V-mail originated in England where it was used for exchanging personal mail with British armed forces in the Middle East. The system was adopted by the United States Post Office Department and put into practice on June 15, 1942. V-mail ensured that thousands of tons of shipping space could be reserved for war materials. The 37 mail bags required to carry 150,000 one-page letters could be replaced by a single mail sack. The weight of that same amount of mail was reduced dramatically from 2,575 pounds to a mere 45. The blue-striped cardboard containers held V-mail letter forms.

V-mail consisted of miniaturized messages reproduced by microphotography from 16mm film. The system of microfilming letters was based on the use of special V-mail letter-sheets, which were a combination of letter and envelope. The letter-sheets were constructed and gummed so as to fold into a uniform and distinctively marked envelope. The user wrote the message in the limited space provided, added the name and address of the recipient, folded the form, affixed postage, if necessary, and mailed the letter. V-mail correspondence was then reduced to thumb-nail size on microfilm. The rolls of film were sent to prescribed destinations for developing at a receiving station near the addressee. Finally, individual facsimiles of the letter-sheets were reproduced about one-quarter the original size and the miniature mail was then delivered to the addressee.

The first large Army operated V-mail station overseas was opened on April 15, 1943 at Casablanca, North Africa. Hastily set up in a field following the Allied invasion of North Africa, this makeshift station continued to operate until September 15, 1943. Between June 15, 1942 and April 1, 1945, 556,513,795 pieces of V-mail were sent from the U.S. to military post offices and over 510 million pieces were received from military personnel abroad. In spite of the patriotic draw of V-mail, most people still sent regular first class mail. In 1944, for instance, Navy personnel received 38 million pieces of V-mail, but over 272 million pieces of regular first class mail.

During the latter years of World War II, V-Mail became a popular way to correspond with a loved one serving overseas. V-Mail letters were written on forms that could be purchased at five and ten cent stores or the post office. These special forms were photographed, put on film, flown across the world and then reproduced at the mail center closest to the recipient’s position. The development of the V-Mail system reduced the time it took a soldier to receive a letter by a month - from six weeks by boat to twelve days or less by air. However, the main advantage of V-Mail was its compact nature. Reduction in the size and weight of the letters translated into more space for crucial military supplies on cargo planes; one advertisement explained that 1,700 V-Mail letters could fit in a cigarette packet, while reducing the weight of the letters in paper form by 98%. Transport of the letters by plane minimized the chances that the enemy would intercept the letters, although writers were reminded to delete any information that might prove useful to the enemy in case some V-Mail was captured. Americans on the home-front were encouraged by the government and private businesses to use V-Mail.

Letters from home were compared to “a five minute furlough,” and advertisements that instructed how, when, and what to write in a V-Mail reached a peak in 1944. Letters were to be cheerful, short, and frequent. V-Mail made it possible for servicemen halfway across the world to hear news from home on a weekly basis.

During World War Two, mail and morale were one and the same, and early in 1942 the military devised a simple method to deliver millions of pieces of very important news from home to the servicemen serving in the ETO. It was called V-Mail, and, of course, the V meant Victory (The hyphen in the phrase “V-Mail”
was printed as three dots and a dash as at right Morse code for the letter
“V”) It was a simple photographic system.

The letter writer wrote the letter on a V-Mail form, a one-sided, regular-sized piece of paper with a box on the top for the receiver’s address. The letter was sent in, and after it was cleared by the censor, the mailroom photographed the page onto 16-mm black and white camera film. The reel of V-Mail film was then flown or shipped to a processing center in the addressee’s general location where a copy of the letter was printed onto a piece of 5” x 4” black and white photographic paper.

This then was folded, slipped into an envelope and dropped into a mailbag for delivery. The V-Mail system was necessary because mail had to vie with food, fuel, ammunition and supplies for precious overseas cargo space, and V-Mail allowed thousands of letters to fly from America to France in the place of only a few hundred bits of regular mail. During the war over 1.5 billion (yes, b as in baker) V-Mail letters were processed.