Acoustic Listening

Abstract This chapter offers an in-depth study of the technical processes and the material challenges of capturing sound during the acoustic era (1877–1925), that is, the heyday of recording horns, before microphones, loudspeakers, and electrical recording came into scene. The protagonists of this chapter are recording experts and recording scouts via their multifarious improvisations with the recording equipment and the peculiarities of their aurality—or what I framed here as acoustic listening. While recounting how acoustic records were made in mobile recording laboratories, this chapter also studies how imperial power was exercised by way of technical knowledge and the monopoly over the technological means for sound production.