he Gramophone was invented by Emile Berliner in 1887, its earliest creation can be dated back to 1877 by Thomas Alva Edison who named his brainchild, the “Phonograph”. Later came the “Graphophone” invented by Alexander Graham Bell who made his creation out of waxed cylinders unlike the normal round ones used by Edison. Its biggest setback was its inability to play the same record more than once. Then Emile Berliner came up with the Gramophone and the records with the facility to play frequently and the ability to produce in mass quantities. Emile, as a German immigrant was working in Washington, was the first to use flat disks (or records) other than the roundcylinders used by his predecessors .The gramophones come in two varieties, with horns or speakers.They come in stylish stan-

ds whose designs are determined by the size, speed of the record, the winding properties and its portability.

The first records were made of glass, later zinc, and eventually plastic. It’s said that women those days used to connect the gramophones to the sewing machines to avoid winding the equipment repeatedly. Emile founded The Gramophone Company to sell the gramophone and its records (sound disks) by promoting it in two ways, by signing artists to record their music using his system and by making the painting of Francis Barraud’s “His Master’s Voice” as his company’s official trademark.

Emile sold its licensing to patent the makings of the gramophone and its records to Victor Talking Machine Company by making the gramophone a global success. The earliest Berliner Gramophone artists were Auguste Aramini, Arthur Collins and the US Marine Bands to name a few in the West. Auguste Aramini (1875 – 1950) was a French born singer who emigrated to Canada in 1897 while in Montreal he made several recordings for the Berliner label, including Faut te faire vacciner and Adieux d'amants.