Music Advent 2021 - Day 3 - Silent Night

Today's song is O Holy Night, sung by Frieda Hempel in 1919 onto an Edison Diamond Disc. The Edison Diamond Disc was so named because the stylus on the arm was a real diamond. This was one of the technological improvements over the Victrola phonograph that the Edison had. The diamond stylus helped provide a much clearer, truer sound for the time. It also meant that the record itself had to be very strong to withstand being scratched and ripped up by the diamond. This was accomplished in part by using a record made of shellac that was a full quarter of an inch thick. These records were heavy!

The other improvement that the Edison had was the motor. Other steel needle based phonographs used the grooves of the record to advance the needle; this created extra wear and tear on both the stylus and the record and ultimately caused the records to wear out quicker. The Edison phonograph, on the other hand, used the motor itself to advance the stylus arm and so kept that wear and tear away from the record.