About

I research the history and culture of early sound media, especially the phonograph. A key aim of mine has been to establish ways of “reading” actual early sound recordings in the same sense that cinema historians “read” early films. I received my doctorate from the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University in 2007 and am a co-founder of the First Sounds initiative known for its digital playback of phonautograms recorded by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville in the 1850s and 1860s.