it doesn't quite feel like im doing this right but at least its out there right?

Part 5

So now that I’ve established what audio drama is and what it entails the next step would be to go back in time I suppose and find out how it all came about. This will be all next week’s blog.

Ok so going back into the dark ages, well not really the dark ages but where audio drama started… I found an interesting book online all about audio drama and for this section my this blog, that is finding out about the origins of the art form itself I used a book called Radio Drama by Timothy Crook. Not only does he give an account of how audio/radio drama came to be, but what is very interesting is that he relates the different stages, and the progression of audio drama in terms of age. The chapter is entitled “The Six ages of Audio Drama and the Internet Epoch” (an Epoch being a certain time in history when something significant happens, basically it is a phase or an era.).

1st Age- again Timothy Cook like other scholars is unable to put a definite date to when Audio Drama began. It is evident from history that if we go back in time, like way back oral theatre/ drama was all people had. Looking at the way in which myths, folklores, traditions, fairytales and so on have been passed on over centuries it has been through oratory relations. In 1450 Marshall McLuhan a Canadian Academic of Communications, Culture and Technology started what he called the “McLuhan Age of the Glutenberg Galaxy”, this was the advent of print media that enabled the auditory to be translated into the visual. Cook states at it was only 100 years after this that communications of an audio nature were established so that can be dated around the late 1500’s. Throughout this stage a combination of the human voice and machine components were used in theatrical performances to “synthesize natural and biological sounds”. (Cook.T, The Six ages of Audio Drama and the Internet Epoch, Audio Drama: Theory and Practice, p.22).

2nd Age- 1878 onwards. So with the invention of the phonograph (that is “a Piece of equipment used to reproduce sound stored on a disk called a phonograph record.” (www.sciencelobby.com/dictionary/p.html)) It was the first time in history that it was possible to record the human voice with the ability to play it back. Random piece of information coming up but according to may authors Thomas Edison, the inventor of this marvel in 1877 recorded ‘Hallooooo’ and proceeded to sing ‘Mary had a little Lamb’ on his creation. This was thus the introduction of sound editing and the advent of advertising this machine for educational and entertainment purposes. In 1906 one of the first advertisements for Edison’s created stated that this machine would help people learn languages and store their music- I suppose one could say this was sort of the establishment of what we know now as mp3 players and iPods? Well after all this people became more create and there were now cassettes, removable discs and the jukebox which just about put the phonograph out of business. From about the mid 1980’s in America and Britain there has been a massive growth in purchases of the spoken word i.e. the purchase of more audio books.

3rd Age: 1902 onwards
Yay now we have the telephone and cables transmitting/ broadcasting sound as well as downloading… the machine of this phase was the electrophone which is basically an instrument that produces sound by electrical means…. Basically! Ok somehow this is an age in audio drama but I don’t really see how it is relevant. Cook just goes on to talk about how the telephone comes into play and there is no real competition from the radio for the electrophone and this is till about 1922 so I’m going to end this phase now.

4th Age: 1908…..
Ok now there’s electromagnetism or something like that and wireless comes into the picture with mass broadcasting of sound to much larger audiences. Yes finally I see where this guy was going with the whole ages thing……. It is here that the development of a certain style of performing and writing was established and this was……………. Yes wait for it………………………………

“AUDIO DRAMA”
That’s pretty hectic, out of 6 stages we only appear in stage 4, this is rather surprising to me. In fact doesn’t it just break your heart? I’m not even being sarcastic why couldn’t these inventors just think faster about all these things they were going to create? Imagine where we would be today? Anyway this was invented for the purpose of… and I quote “dramatic expression”. These stories or plays were the plays that were written specifically for the ear. Like I mentioned before “plays-for-the-ear”, however that other guy I read from said that audio drama and these ear play things are two different things? Hmmmmmm. Annnnywayyyy, by this time fm, digital technology and satellite had been established and the hopes that these would provide much better sound quality… which they did as we still use these today. So in 1938 what may have been the first audio drama was broadcast on October 30th on CBS.