A Brief History of Sound Recording–The Book!

To mark our museum’s 10th anniversary in November 2025, we’ve greatly expanded our gallery dedicated to the history of sound recording–and published a new guide book for it!

A Brief History of Sound Recording: Fully Incomplete & Highly Biased is written and designed by Dr John Kannenberg, our museum’s Director & Chief Curator – it’s 100% human-crafted content, using no generative AI, packed with 350+ photos & illustrations, most in full colour!

Ten years in the making, this 120-page FULL COLOUR book covers the history of sound recording from our museum’s unique perspective, a guide to 36 sound recordings from our Permanent Collection of Sounds, dozens of photos of our Physical Objects Collection, a Timeline of Sound Recording, and 30+ Listening Close-Up essays–all to bring you a history that’s deeply researched and highly unconventional.

“Maverick scholarship”
– The Wire Magazine

“A true labour of love and well worth your time”
– Wallpaper* Magazine

“Informative, hilarious, and, in the end, devastating.”
– Prof. Charles Hatfield, CalState Northridge

Press the Play button to stream the entire playlist, or press the “1/37” link at the top to scroll through the list of all 37 videos.