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First Sounds strives to make humanity's earliest sound recordings available to all people for all time.
First Sounds seeks out the world's oldest sound recordings—wherever they are.
We rewrote history in 2008 when we discovered and resurrected humanity’s first recordings of its own voice, created in 1860 in Paris by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. Since then, we have identified and played back even older recordings. First Sounds remains the authority on Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville and his recordings.
First Sounds is dedicated to audio preservation.
We have digitally preserved every airborne sound recording known to exist from before 1861, plus many recordings made thereafter.
First Sounds pioneered the playback of the oldest sound recordings in 2007 and has been in the forefront ever since.
Sound recordings made before the invention of the phonograph were not intended to be played back. Extracting their sounds remains our specialty.
First Sounds is collaborative.
David Giovannoni, Patrick Feaster, Meagan Hennessey, and Richard Martin founded First Sounds in 2007 to facilitate, coordinate, and promote the efforts of individuals who share their passions and of organizations that share their goals. First Sounds is unincorporated; we neither solicit nor accept financial donations.
First Sounds offers free and universal access to its work.
We believe humanity's earliest sound recordings are the patrimony of all mankind. We present them here under a Creative Commons Attribution (BY) license which conveys certain privileges and responsibilities. We encourage everyone everywhere to study and enjoy them.
Email us at info@firstsounds.org.
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With its bucking broncos, yee-hawing cowboys and pitchers of cold beer,
the Fort Worth Stockyards is a rowdy and testosterone-fuelled throwback to the
old days of the American West.
While today tourists
throng the mule and horse-barns that were once the last 'civilised' outpost for
livestock traders on Texas's
famous
Last weekend,
however, there was another spectacle at the first night of its championship
rodeo — a Stetson-wearing Prince Harry.
Judging by the
photographs posted online — before they were mysteriously deleted — the Duke of
Sussex did not look entirely comfortable.
Perhaps it was the gushing posts that appeared on Instagram. 'We get a lot of rodeo royalty but this is the first prince I've seen,' enthused Cory Melton, a muscular wrangler who breeds bucking bulls.
Yet his genial
observation — which also claimed that Harry was going to enter the bull-riding
competition but had lost his 'rigging bag', an essential piece of rodeo kit —
was swiftly removed.
As, too, was a
message brimming with Southern hospitality from rodeo secretary Cindy Reid, in
which she generously thanked Harry for his visit.
No doubt some will
wonder if an event reeking of 'toxic masculinity' might sit uneasily with Harry's
image as the self-appointed Prince of Woke. But was there, perhaps, another
explanation why he might not be pleased to see pictures of himself at the
so-called 'Cowtown coliseum'?
The visit coincided
almost exactly with the first anniversary of his and Meghan's Oprah Winfrey
interview from which, we were assured, a 'global wave of service' would be
unleashed by the couple.
An appearance at a
kitsch tourist attraction can hardly be described as an illustration of their
'shared commitment' to a life of good works. Indeed, the embers of their
incendiary claims about cruelty, neglect, snobbery and racism aimed at the
heart of the Royal Family are still glowing.
More than 50 million
people around the world — including 12 million in Britain and 17 million in the
U.S. — tuned in to hear Meghan discuss how royal life had made her suicidal,
blame sister-in-law Kate for making her cry at a bridesmaids' dress-fitting
and, infamously, allege that a member of the Royal Family had questioned what
colour her son Archie's skin would be.
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The repercussions are still being felt as are the memorably damning soundbites: 'Were you silent, or were you silenced?'; 'My family literally cut me off financially'; and complaints that Archie 'won't be given security, he's not going to be given a title'.
More significantly,
12 months after the so-called 'interview of the decade', we are entitled to ask
what on earth a couple who set themselves the loftiest of standards has
actually been doing since — apart from overseeing the stream of platitudes and
wearily right-on slogans that are issued with monotonous regularity from the
luxury of their nine-bedroom, 16-bathroom mansion?
Take, for example,
their attendance at last month's National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People Image Awards, where they accepted the President's Award that
recognises special achievement and distinguished public service.
Over the years this
venerable organisation — set up in 1909 in response to violence against black
people — has handed its most prestigious award to some significant individuals,
who have done much to raise the aspirations of America's black population, from
boxer Muhammad Ali to preacher-turned-politician Jesse Jackson and former U.S.
Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.
Yet according to the
citation, they received this honour for 'heeding the call to social justice'
and 'joining the struggle for equity' in
Doubtless it was
merely a coincidence that the media for the awards was organised by Sunshine
Sachs, the New York-based public relations outfit that has been advising Meghan
since her days as an actress.
Activism, of course,
is part of the identity the couple have moulded for themselves since abandoning
their royal lives for
But for all this and
other high-minded declarations, the 'shared purpose and global action' has not
quite materialised.
But what has it
accomplished? According to reports, the initiative has since gone rather quiet.
There is one area,
of course, where there has not been silence — the various legal battles they
have fought with newspapers and broadcasters including The Mail on Sunday, The
Sun and the BBC, and more recently, the Home Office, which Harry is suing over
the loss of their police protection in the UK, for which he has offered to pay.
It is only fair to
point out that the main event in the
The Queen has still
not met the great-granddaughter given her family nickname and it is not clear
when that situation will change.
We now know Harry
and Meghan will not attend the thanksgiving service for Prince Philip later
this month and their presence at June's Platinum Jubilee celebrations — which
coincides with Lilibet's first birthday — is increasingly uncertain. In fact,
relations between the
If anything, they have worsened. Harry's revelation that he has collaborated with a ghostwriter on a tell-all memoir, due out this autumn, has spread a deep anxiety across the royal household.
A well-placed source
this week told the Mail that the Royal Family were 'absolutely dreading' its
publication. 'God knows what one-eyed nonsense will be in it,' the source said.
The fear that its contents could overshadow the Queen's anniversary is more
intense than those that surrounded Prince Andrew before he settled his
sex-abuse lawsuit.
We understand that
recent reports that Harry and his father are in frequent contact are wide of
the mark. Prince Charles is often unavailable when his son calls and, because
he does not have a mobile phone, Harry relies on officials to patch him through
when he does ring. And that is often not possible.
This is an
extraordinary case of history repeating itself. At the height of the marital
differences between Harry's parents, Princess Diana was similarly thwarted in
phone calls to both Charles and other senior royals.
And in both cases
there has been an issue of trust. Thirty years ago, Charles never forgave Diana
for leaking intimate family secrets to author Andrew Morton. Now, Palace aides
believe Harry could damage Charles's hopes of making his wife, the Duchess of
Cornwall, his queen if he raises new questions about her role in the break-up
of his father and mother's marriage.
Pointedly, Harry was
silent when the Queen announced her stated wish that Camilla should be her
son's queen when the time comes — rather than a mere princess consort as was
originally planned
There has been at
least one phone call between Charles and his son where voices were raised.
As a friend of
Charles says: 'Simply put, the worry is how on earth will things be resolved if
Harry is unkind about Camilla.'
As for Harry's
relationship with his brother, that has still not recovered from the Oprah
interview — and the allegations (still being investigated) that Meghan had
bullied royal staff, something that Meghan's lawyers have denied.
Whether the Duchess
of Sussex ever returns to
Glimpses even in the
Television is, of
course, crucial to the
So what else have
they done since that Oprah spectacular? Have they achieved even one of their
ambitions, or has it been a year of living aimlessly?
The answer,
according to our audit, suggests accomplishments have been scant. Two weeks
after Oprah, Harry was unveiled as 'chief impact officer' for mental 'wellness'
app BetterUp, described as 'a platform for coaching and mental fitness' in the
workplace.
On May 3, the duke
was a participant on stage at the 'Vax Live' awareness concert at the SoFi
stadium in
A fortnight later he
was happily filmed going through therapy on an Apple TV+ series that focused on
the importance of mental health. Four days after the birth of their daughter,
Meghan published her children's book The Bench, with hundreds of copies given
away free to schools and children's libraries across the
Although it became a
New York Times bestseller within a week of release, overall sales are said to
be disappointing. Certainly, it has not been flying off shelves at the couple's
local book store, Tecolote in Montecito. A store saleswoman was reported
saying: 'Meghan has never come into the shop.'
On July 1, Harry was
in
World events rarely
pass without some kind of intervention from the
So far so
predictable. Making the cover of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People
issue last September was surely validation for all their endeavours.
Next stop
Intriguingly, their
participation came after Global Citizen was named Organisation of the Year at
the 2021 American Business Awards — nominated by none other than . . . Sunshine
Sachs.
Six weeks later, the
couple were back in the Big Apple for the November 11 Salute to Freedom gala,
which honoured military veterans and to which Harry wore his insignia as a
Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO), a medal he received from
the Queen.
That same month,
Meghan was criticised for using her royal title to lobby
Then came the
couple's Christmas card — showing the first photo of their daughter — and its
cheesy message: 'Archie made us a Mama and Papa, and Lili made us a family.'
In February, Harry
opened up to BetterUp about how he sets aside 45 minutes a day to 'build
resilience' and meditate. He admitted to 'burning the candle at both ends'
before he learnt how to embrace what he described as 'inner work'.
All in all, the
couple's schedule hardly compares with the daily work of the royals they left
behind.
So might this
indicate they have been busier in their private lives?
Last month,
accompanied by his cousin Princess Eugenie, Harry was photographed at the Super
Bowl in
But sightings in
their neighbourhood are rare. Harry has been spotted pootling on an electric
bike while being trailed by his security team and also at the wheel of his
Range Rover. He has also been seen buying groceries while Meghan was spotted in
December carrying bags from the Pierre LaFond delicatessen.
They did attend the
town's July 4 parade. But according to Sharon Byrne of the Montecito
Association, 'no one knew it was them'. And they contributed as sponsors for
Montecito's Christmas parade.
With so few local
appearances, rumours circulated that they may even have moved out — but this
does not appear to be the case.
Certainly, locals
are protective of their celebrity residents.
For example when
reporter Richard Mineards revealed that Archie had taken his first riding
lesson, he did not name the upmarket stables he attended.
But it's always been
that way in Montecito. There are no 'maps to the stars' or tour buses past their
homes, as in
A neighbour who has
lived near the
The bodyguards who
constantly patrol the couple's perimeter fence in golf carts are far more
visible.
Only Harry and
Meghan can say whether a year that began with the hype and rage of their Oprah
interview has turned out quite how they intended.
On the face of it, however, it doesn't seem to have added up to much.
1 O
God, why have you rejected us forever?
Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your
pasture?
2 Remember the nation you purchased
long ago,
the people of your inheritance, whom you redeemed—
Mount
3 Turn your steps toward these
everlasting ruins,
all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary.
4 Your
foes roared in the place where you met with us;
they set up their standards as signs.
5 They behaved like men wielding axes
to cut through a thicket of trees.
6 They smashed all the carved paneling
with their axes and hatchets.
7 They burned your sanctuary to the
ground;
they defiled the dwelling place of your Name.
8 They said in their hearts, “We will
crush them completely!”
They burned every place where God was worshiped in the land.
9 We
are given no signs from God;
no prophets are left,
and none of us knows how long this will be.
10 How long will the enemy mock you,
God?
Will the foe revile your name forever?
11 Why do you hold back your hand,
your right hand?
Take it from the folds of your garment and destroy them!
12 But
God is my King from long ago;
he brings salvation on the earth.
13 It
was you who split open the sea by your power;
you broke the heads of the monster in the waters.
14 It was you who crushed the heads of
Leviathan
and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.
15 It was you who opened up springs
and streams;
you dried up the ever-flowing rivers.
16 The day is yours, and yours also
the night;
you established the sun and moon.
17 It was you who set all the
boundaries of the earth;
you made both summer and winter.
18 Remember
how the enemy has mocked you, Lord,
how foolish people have reviled your name.
19 Do not hand over the life of your
dove to wild beasts;
do not forget the lives of your afflicted people forever.
20 Have regard for your covenant,
because haunts of violence fill the dark places of the land.
21 Do not let the oppressed retreat in
disgrace;
may the poor and needy praise your name.
22 Rise up, O God, and defend your
cause;
remember how fools mock you all day long.
23 Do not ignore the clamor of your
adversaries,
the uproar of your enemies, which rises continually.
