Popular Singing And The Invention Of The Microphone

Revised July 23, 2018

Like all successful new technology, the microphone had a profound impact on life and culture, including the development of entire new industries. It affected music in numerous ways. For one, it enabled the development of an entirely new approach to singing popular songs.

The microphone became a foundational technology in the telephone, public address, radio broadcasting, and sound recording industries. Early carbon microphones quickly proved adequate for telephone transmission as early as 1876, but not for most other uses. They had limited frequency response and a high noise level.

Experiments with carbon microphones, crystal microphones, capacitor microphones, and electromagnetic microphones followed over the next half century. By the 1920s, microphones had matured sufficiently to revolutionize all aspects of the music business.

The illustration here shows an interview with bandleader George Olsen (right) in 1926 at New York’s NBC,   WJZ. The microphone, manufactured by Western Electric, was extensively used for recording and broadcasting in the 1920s. With this design, the microphone unit is attached to steel ring by springs. Therefore, any vibrations from the stand will not affect its performance.

Microphones and music

Lee de Forest invented the first practical amplifier. He demonstrated it by broadcasting Enrico Caruso’s operatic singing from the Metropolitan Opera House to other locations in New York on January 13, 1910. Without microphones, the feat would have been impossible.

Early phonograph recording depended on a recording horn. Electric recording, with microphones, started in 1925.

The Vitaphone Corporation released the first sound picture, Don Juan,in 1926. The success of The Jazz Singer the following year proved the viability of sound motion pictures.

Before the microphone came along, people singing in public had to develop a technique of vocal production that could make their voices heard in the farthest corner of the largest venues. Opera singers were the first to require it, but they were not alone. Singers of American popular music did not need a voice suitable for opera, but they did need a big voice and forceful delivery. Watch this clip from The Jazz Singerof Al Jolson singing “Toot, Toot Tootsie,”and especially watch his posture as he concludes the song. It appears to be not only a dramatic gesture, but a means of adding sheer power to the finish.

Jolson first broke into the vaudeville circuit in 1903 and Broadway in 1911. He naturally used the same vocal techniques in his movies. Not counting videos that show only still pictures, he ends every song with the same gesture on every video I have found of him.

Of course, Jolson could not have recorded that clip or anything else without a microphone, but as long as microphones were used only for recording, no one could sing in a theater, dance hall, or otherwise large venue without developing a comparable vocal technique. Only when it became available for live performance could professional singers use a softer, more intimate style.

Crooners become the rage

Rudy Vallee, from the August 1, 1935 issue of Radio Stars.

The vocal technique known as crooning could not have existed without the microphone.  Rudy Vallee appears to have been the first major star to use a microphone to sing in a ballroom, in 1930. Although it is uncertain how rapidly the sort of sound system he used became commonplace, others in the business surely noticed.

Bing Crosby made his first recording in 1930. He went on to become America’s most famous crooner.Here’s a video of a live appearance at Cocoanut Grove in 1931. The camera spends a lot of  time on the patrons, but when it shows the performers, Crosby’s microphone shows up clearly. He would have needed a vocal technique like Jolson’s to make himself heard without it.

The microphone enabled a gentler, more intimate delivery in public that before would have been suitable only in the privacy of someone’s house.

Sources: A brief history of microphones / Hugh Robjohns, Microphone Data Book, 2001 [Link no longer works.] The history of the microphone / Los Senderos Studio. [March 2015] Radio activity: the 100th anniversary of public broadcasting / Marina Koestler Ruben, Smithsonian. January 26, 2010.

Photo credits: WJZ interview. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons Rudy Vallée. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons