In 1876 the course of technology, communication, art, culture and history was changed by an AT&T employee. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone by which the first transmissions of speech occurred. It only took a year for Thomas Edison to store and playback these electrical signals by inventing the phonograph, thus giving birth to the recording industry.
Bell’s work, along with his colleague Claude E. Shannon, were primarily concerned with telephone communications and methods to maximize speech intelligibility over long distances. Shannon, possibly the more philosophical of the two, published a framework of audio information based on their work titled “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”. He describes a system of a Transmitter (or sound source) combining with Noise, and reaching the Receiver (or Destination). Noise in this definition is not limited to unwanted sound reaching the microphone, such as an airplane flying overhead, but any sound created by the recording system that changes the sound source information at its destination. In the case of Bell and Shannon, static in the phone lines caused by electrical interference. This theory has been upheld as a standard practice in recording since its inception for good reason; there is a point at which sound source information is no longer recognizable at a certain noise floor, rendering the communication useless. Yet, this framework leaves more to be desired, creating the flawed ideal of a “zero noise” signal and raises questions about the nature of audio recordings in a modern, content driven culture.
Edison’s phonograph, along with the practical applications of Shannon’s theory gave way to rapid technological advancement into the 20th century. Chomsky theorized that throughout the public, there was growing promise for an override of complex human issues, solved rather by thoughtful machines.
“Computers were on the horizon, and their imminent availability reinforced the belief that it would suffice to gain a theoretical understanding of only the simplest and most superficially obvious of phenomena - everything else would merely prove to be "more of the same," an apparent complexity that would be disentangled by the electronic marvels. The sound spectrograph, developed during the war, offered similar promise for the physical analysis of speech sounds.” (Chomsky, 3)In a time of booming technological leaps, anything can seem possible. The thought of a recording system that could seamlessly replicate human speech in an indistinguishable timbre from first hand hearing, could exist within a collective imagination. Though it would alleviate any need for live music, readings, theatre and any other public-human-noise-making all together.
In the case of music, during the recording of a singer and subsequent introduction of noise to that voice, the nature of the performance changes all together. This is the subtle and often overlooked distinction of an audio recording vs its sound source. Because there is no such thing as a “zero noise audio signal,” there is a fundamental difference between a song as it is performed into a microphone and the playbackable, recorded counterpart. A recording exists as a new, complex and distorted combination of noise and source. Recordists should lose the notion of recording a voice, for example, as an attempt to create an indistinguishable copy, but rather a new product altogether that builds upon its source material.
The creative use of noise to enhance the intelligibility of a sound source is what I would like to call “Recording Language.” To speak it: picture the recording process not as a hindrance to effective information transfer, but as a medium to add meaning and depth to a performance. Anything that could possibly be considered noise (distortion, filtering, hum) is strategically implemented as a means to increase intelligibility. A singing record becomes the combination of two languages: musical language and Recording Language. This is no less applicable in voice-over and field recording where tools of distortion and noise can add to the intelligibility of the scene at hand.
In the 1920s a more practical example of strategic system noise arose in communications, leading directly to an increase of intelligibility.
“Early radio broadcasts faced many of the same inherent problems that were found in a telephone call, namely, the introduction of noise into the signal leading to the sound of static and the limited frequency bandwidth available to the early pioneers in these industries. With telephone communications, it was found that, if the bandwidth was limited even further, greater intelligibility of the signal (transmission) could be gained, at the same time reducing the nonessential frequencies of the voice that are not needed for effective communication” (Blakemore, 11)Many of the biggest limitations faced by early audio engineers can be overcome by anyone with a smartphone. The once arduous mission of overcoming the barrier of noise is mostly irrelevant in modern recording. Yet, relative to the development of human language and speech, Edison’s invention and recordings of the human voice are brand new. We are only beginning to explore the first horizons of the Recording Language, leaving many possibilities for future communications.
The recording language is a technologically derived form of communication and wouldn't exist without the perforation of recording instruments. This is similar to texting where new tone indicators have arisen due to the nature of the technological medium. Ending a text with a period is redundant and can indicate aggressiveness. A few examples of such technological limitations turned intelligibility indicators exist in voice recording…
The accessibility of recording technology in our smartphones and elsewhere leads to people becoming fluent in Recording Language. Some even go as far as to parody the low quality microphones of earbuds and laptops; think distorted brainrot memes.
More often this is a subtle phenomenon, but as audio-visual content via the internet, tv and smartphones become more apparent, the more we will start to perceive strategic timbres which contain emotional resonances in a recording. A purposeful recording quality expands upon the meaning of a sound source. This creative use of noise will be the basis of intelligibility for the modern media we increasingly consume.
by Grady Spors
02/23/2025