Phonograph

Hello. I am a phonograph, but you can call me a talking machine. Before I was made, a happy giggle or a sweet song would just float away into the air, gone forever. But I was special. I was created to catch those sounds and hold them tight. I keep them safe so you can listen to them again and again. I am a sound catcher, and I love to share what I hear. It makes me so happy to play a beautiful sound for you.

My best friend was named Thomas Edison. Thomas was a wonderful inventor with a head full of sparkly ideas. He worked in a big room called a workshop, and he loved to build new things. One day, he thought, 'What if I could make a machine talk?'. So he started to build me. He gave me a big, shiny horn, like a giant ear, to listen to all the sounds. He gave me a tiny, tickly needle and a cylinder that loved to spin round and round. He worked for a long, long time, putting all my pieces together until I was ready to listen.

One very exciting day, on December 6th, 1877, Thomas leaned close to my shiny horn. He sang a little rhyme, 'Mary had a little lamb.' My tiny needle wiggled and danced on my spinning cylinder, catching his voice. Then, it was my turn. I played his voice right back to him. He was so surprised and happy. After that, I brought music and wonderful stories into everyone's homes. My magic lives on today whenever you listen to a song, because I was the very first machine that learned how to keep a sound.