A rare recording by the Polyphone Symphony Orchestra
of Chicago performing, from 1898, The Night Alarm.
The Night Alarm
Company
The Talking Machine Company
Cylinder #
1074
Category
Orchestra (descriptive)
Title
The Night Alarm
Performed by
The Polyphone Symphony Orchestra
Circa
1898-1899
Announcement
"Polyphone record, the Night Alarm, played by the Polyphone Symphony Orchestra."
A very popular descriptive selection, The Night Alarm
appeared in most record companies'
catalogs of the 1890s – in some, as early as 1889.
The selection almost always included the same features: an introduction, "fire!",
a block number being telegraphed, "block 32!",
rousing fire-trucks-racing-to-the-scene music with bells clanging,
(quickly) extinguishing the fire,
and concluding with a rag-tag fireman chorus.
Great fun.
The odd groan sound at the end of the recording is heard on most "Polyphone" records
from the Talking Machine Company (see "The Polyphone Groan" below).
The Talking Machine Company (TTM), which changed their name at least two times –
The North American Phonograph Co., Chicago 1890-1892
The Chicago Talking Machine Co. 1893-1897
The Talking Machine Co. 1898-1902 ff
– began marketing around 1898 a phonograph attachment with two reproducers:
The Polyphone.
When working properly, the stylus in each reproducer would track the same portion of
the recording separated by an inch or two, providing a near doubling of typical volume,
plus a reverberation effect (and, as an added bonus,
your wax records would wear down twice as fast).
Although the attachment should work with any standard record, TTM, not missing an
opportunity to advertise their products, proudly announced their records
as "Polyphone Records".
Even more unusual from the early sound recordings preservation viewpoint, is the
presence of a strange-sounding groan heard at the end of most, and apparently unique to,
Polyphone records.
Although the groan may be simply an artifact of the process used to make copies
(for example, perhaps the sound of a brake being applied on the master phonograph),
it is heard in sufficiently different ways that gives it a certain comic appeal.
An analysis of 5 Polyphone groans (best heard through headphones):
TTM 1075 – Typical
TTM 3047 – Typical - faint
TTM 4078 – 'Digestive' - short
TTM 8324 – 'Digestive' - long
TTM 9052 – 'Nasal' - short
To hear the Polyphone groans —
— This cylinder of the month is from the collection of Tyrone Settlemier —
