As an expert in the field of music history, I can provide a comprehensive answer to your question about the first song ever made.

The history of recorded music is a fascinating journey that spans centuries. While many people might assume that the invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison marked the beginning of recorded music, this is not entirely accurate. The story of the first recorded song actually goes back to the mid-19th century with the work of a French inventor named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville.

Scott de Martinville was a printer and bookseller by trade, but he had a keen interest in acoustics and the science of sound. In 1857, he invented a device called the phonautograph, which was designed to visually record sound waves. Unlike Edison's phonograph, which was created to play back sound, the phonautograph was initially intended for the study of acoustics and was not designed to reproduce sound.

The first song recorded using Scott de Martinville's phonautograph was "Au clair de la lune," a traditional French folk song. This recording was made in 1860, and it is considered to be the earliest known recording of a human voice and music. The recording was made by Scott de Martinville himself, who sang into a horn that was connected to a stylus. The stylus etched the sound waves onto a sheet of soot-blackened paper, creating a visual representation of the song.

This early recording was not playable as we understand it today. The phonautograph did not reproduce sound; instead, it provided a visual record that could be studied. It wasn't until much later that technology advanced to the point where these visual recordings could be converted back into audible sound.

The significance of Scott de Martinville's work cannot be overstated. His invention laid the groundwork for the development of sound recording technology that we know today. While Edison is often credited with the invention of the first sound recording device, it was Scott de Martinville who made the first known recording of a song.

In conclusion, the first song ever made, in the sense of being recorded, was "Au clair de la lune," recorded by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1860 using his phonautograph. This pioneering work opened the door to the future of recorded music and set the stage for the many innovations that would follow.

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It is often stated that Thomas Edison was the first person to record sound and, by extension, music, but that isn't the case: the first ever recorded song was actually recorded by --douard-L--on Scott de Martinville, a French printer and bookseller who also invented the phonautograph, the earliest known sound recording ...Apr 2, 2014read more >>