Difference between revisions of "Multiphone"

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[[Category:Dossier]]
 
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[[Image:Shyver-musicphone.jpg|300px|right|thumb| The pre-war model of the Multiphone, then called the "Music-Phone"]]
  
INTRO
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The Shyvers Multiphone, released in 1939 by Kenneth C. Shyvers, was an early model of a coin-operated phonograph (also known as a jukebox). It allowed patrons at restaurants, cafes and bars to play music at their table, and worked through telephone lines. The user inserted the necessary amount of coins, and was connected to a team of all-female disc jockeys in Seattle, who manually put on the selected song on a phonograph, playing the music through the telephone connection. At the height of the product's popularity, the 8,000 Multiphones were used in various establishments primarily on the west coast.
  
 
== Kenneth C. Shyvers ==
 
== Kenneth C. Shyvers ==
  
[[Image:Image5.jpg|300px|right|thumb| Macintosh TV on the Cover of the January 1994 issue of Macworld [http://www.vectronicsappleworld.com/macintosh/mactv.html 1]]]
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[[Image:multiphone.jpg|300px|right|thumb| The post-war model of the Shyvers Multiphone [http://www.dyz.com/phones/multiphone.html]]]
  
Kenneth C. Shyvers, an inventor from Seattle, is best known for the creation of the Multiphone, an early version of a coin-operated restaurant jukebox that could hold up to 170 songs and required two telephone lines. He developed the product with his wife Lois in 1939, gaining a patent for its coin control device one-year prior. It was not until 1946/47 that he patented the music box itself. The product's design shows that Shyvers found inspiration from New York architecture, namely the Empire State Building. Although, the original Pre-War model of the music box (then called the "Music -Phone" more resembled a rocket ship. This design change might have been due to an increase in Shyvers' desire to show patriotism in the years after the war, or his ideas of what would appeal more to the costumers at the time. Shyvers is also known for his work on early interactive gaming machines. In 1936, he and fellow inventor Lyn Durrant designed one of the first "score totalizers," an aspect of gaming technology that is still prevalent today.  
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Kenneth C. Shyvers, an inventor from Seattle, is best known for the creation of the Multiphone, an early version of a coin-operated restaurant jukebox that played music through telephone lines from a central music library. He developed the product with his wife Lois in 1939, gaining a patent for its coin control device one-year prior. It was not until 1946/47 that he patented the music box itself.  
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 +
The product's design shows that Shyvers found inspiration from New York architecture, namely the Empire State Building. Although, the original Pre-War model of the music box (then called the "Music-Phone" more resembled a rocket ship. This design change might have been due to an increase in Shyvers' desire to show patriotism in the years after the war, or his ideas of what would appeal more to the costomers at the time.  
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Shyvers is also known for his work on early interactive gaming machines. In 1936, he and fellow inventor Lyn Durrant designed one of the first "score totalizers," an aspect of gaming technology that is still prevalent today.
  
 
== History of the Coin-Operated Phonograph ==
 
== History of the Coin-Operated Phonograph ==
  
The Multiphone played an important role in the evolution of the jukebox, an invention that grew to become a staple of its time and is still often used in cafes and restaurants to recreate the temporality of the mid 20th century. The first recorded coin operated phonograph was presented in 1889, in a public demonstration at the Palais Royal Restaurant in San Francisco. Louis T. Glass, the operator of this initial model, is credited as “the father of the concept,and went on to hold high offices at several telephone and telegraph companies.
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The Multiphone played an important role in the evolution of the jukebox, an invention that grew to become a staple of its time and is still often used in cafes and restaurants to recreate the temporality of the mid 20th century. The first recorded coin operated phonograph was presented in 1889, in a public demonstration at the Palais Royal Restaurant in San Francisco on November 23, 1889. Louis T. Glass, the operator of this initial model, is credited as “the father of the concept. Before delving into the phonograph world, Glass worked as a telegraph operator at Western Union, but then left the company with the advent of the telephone, investing in various telephone companies in Oakland and San Francisco.  He eventually became the general manager of the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Co.  After his successful investments, he then partnered with businessman William S. Arnold to further develop the coin-operated phonograph.  Though Glass is considered to be the "father" of the jukebox, he and Arnold only filed a patent for the "Coin Actuated Attachment for Phonographs," not a completely functional coin-operated phonograph in 1889.  In Britain, Charles Adams-Randall, an electrician, filed a patent for the "Automatic Pariophone" in 1888.  Despite this previous patent, Glass still receives the credit for the jukebox concept's inception.  
By 1891, the United States Patent Office had already registered 18 patents for phonograph coin control devices. Soon, Thomas Alva Edison gained business connections to the rising trend, and between 1900 and 1907 he released over 10 different models. The cafes, restaurants and bars that started housing the coin-operated phonographs became known as “juke-joints.” This term (along with the term “juke box”) started in the South, and was brought up with the northern migration of African-American workers in the early 20th century. It wasn’t until the late 1930s that the terms were released of the stigma of being considered ‘black’ terms and gained spots in the official vocabulary.
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By 1891, the United States Patent Office had already registered 18 patents for phonograph coin control devices. Soon, Thomas Alva Edison gained business connections to the rising trend, and between 1900 and 1907 he released over 10 different models.  
The music boxes developed before 1900 each offered only one song selection, but soon models such as the “Gomber Multiplex” which could hold up to 12 songs, reached the market. In 1925/26, electrically recorded 78rpm records were released, solving amplification issues and changing the market.
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In the late 1930s, the market for the jukebox grew as it acted a source entertainment to help the public escape the possibility of war and the effects of the great depression. Companies such as the Rudolph Wurlitzer Co. and the J.P. Seeburg Corp. became some of the primary competitors in jukebox production, creating new models and finding fiscal success in the process.
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The cafes, restaurants and bars that started housing the coin-operated phonographs became known as “juke-joints.” This term (along with the term “juke box”) started in the South, and was brought up with the northern migration of African-American workers in the early 20th century. It wasn’t until the late 1930s that the terms were released of the stigma of being considered ‘black’ terms and gained spots in the official vocabulary.
  
== The Multimedia Mac ==
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The music boxes developed before 1900 each offered only one song selection, but soon models such as the “Gomber Multiplex” which could hold up to 12 songs, reached the market. In 1925/26, electrically recorded 78rpm records were released, solving amplification issues and changing the market.
  
The Macintosh TV emerged during an intense interest in multimedia, visual computing and interactive programming within Silicon Valley, and it can be understood as a product of this larger paradigm. The fixation on multimedia by companies in Silicon Valley was the subject of a feature article in ''The Economist'' in September 1994, titled “Screen Test.” Its author, Peter Haynes, describes how a number of companies, such as Silicon Graphics, Intel, AT&T and Apple were researching and investing in new technologies, such as interactive TV (in the form of video-on-demand), PC and the TV combinations (like the Macintosh TV), and CD-ROM/online products (like Microsoft’s “Complete Baseball” which provided daily scores downloads of the latest stats along with static information on the disk), along with further expanding the infrastructure needed to deliver increased content, such as fiber-optic cable systems. Throughout the article, there is an acknowledgment that both the television and the personal computer would share more of each other’s qualities as they developed, a position Bill Gates himself declares in a conversation with Haynes. The Macintosh TV is but one moment in this history and, while it was unable to deliver the desktop and the television simultaneously, it did provide them within the same package.  
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In the late 1930s, the market for the jukebox grew as it acted a source entertainment to help the public escape the possibility of war and the effects of the great depression. Companies such as the Rudolph Wurlitzer Co. and the J.P. Seeburg Corp. became some of the primary competitors in jukebox production, creating new models and finding fiscal success in the process.
  
The Haynes article also quotes Apple representative Satjiv Chahil as stating that in 1994, after successfully developing a “desktop-publishing market” that the company aimed to create a “desktop-studio market.” (Haynes, 1994) The term “studio” recalls recording studio, television studio, and art studio – all spaces for the production of audio and visual material. In this quote, it seems that Chahil is signaling a shift from the word processing and accounting focus of personal computers in the 1980s to an environment that would encourage increased use of tools for graphic design, recording, and the moving image. This is not to say that these programs did not exist before, but rather that clearly, in the early 1990s, Apple wanted to expand these capabilities in their products.  
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Years later, in the 1960s/70s, audio/visual jukeboxes hit the market in France, known informally as "see-hear jukes." Models such as the 36-song "Scopitone ST-16" and the 28-song "Caravelle Tele-Box" found success in Paris and the surrounding suburbs, and acted as early examples of the music video. Several models were released in the United States, including the "Scopitone 450" and the "Cinebox," which was not very successful.
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The graphical user interface (GUI) was a key component in allowing a desktop environment to flourish, and the interactive approach it established underlies both desktop-publishing and a desktop-studio. Anne Friedberg in ''The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft'' argues that the graphical user interface (GUI) introduced a new visual system that obscured above, below, ahead and behind in way that challenges the depth of traditional Renaissance perspective and allows multiple perspectives in a single frame. (Friedberg, 2-3) Given the GUI design, one could understand why users of the Macintosh TV were frustrated by the fact that they could not view television in another window on their desktop, as they were accustomed to viewing applications within multiple, layered windows. Perhaps television had to be remediated as a window amongst many windows for the GUI environment, and it seems, in allowing television to be viewed in a window on the desktop, the Quadra 630 directly addressed this.
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[[Image:multigirls.jpg|300px|left|thumb| The all-female team of multiphone disc jockeys in downtown Seattle [http://www.dyz.com/phones/multigirls.jpg]]]
  
== Front Row and the Macintosh TV ==
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== Development of Telephone Line Broadcasting Systems ==
  
[[Image: FrontRow.jpg|300px|left|thumb|Front Row]]
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The Multiphone separated itself form the competition through its use of telephone lines, which allowed for a much greater selection of songs through connecting the device to a central music library. This technology was not new however at the time.  Before coin-operated music machine companies began to develop telephone line systems to be used with existing jukeboxes, telephone lines had already been used for similar purposes forty years earlier in France. Clement Agnes Ader invented the “Theatrophone” in 1881, which could broadcast and transmit sounds to 48 listeners at a time.   In the invention's demonstration, it was able to broadcast the Opera de Paris to those 48 listeners in the nearby Palais de l‟Industrie through various telephone lines running through the sewer systems, making it the first public broadcast entertainment system.  A few laters in 1895, the Universal Telephone Co. in London developed a British equivalent known as the “Electrophone.”  Coin slots were produced for both the Theatrophone and Electrophone and were placed in salons, hotels, and restaurants throughout several big cities in Britain and France just like jukeboxes at the time.  These two telephone line systems along with coin-operated phonographs allowed for the very idea of the multiphone to come into being.
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The Macintosh TV’s capacity to “switch” between a television and a desktop has not entirely disappeared. This “switching” mechanism is remediated in programs such as Front Row. The software was first introduced in the iMac G5 in 2005, and it allows the user to switch between programs such as iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie using a remote control or keyboard. When activated, it leaves the desktop and opens to a dark screen, where large icons represent programs that can be selected by a remote or keyboard.
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The original press release for Front Row emphasizes the fact that the program allows the user to access and navigate programs on the desktop from 30 feet away, using a remote control.[http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/oct/12imac.html 2] The Macintosh TV also came with a remote control, and perhaps this "switching" mechanism can be related back to the remote control as the primary motor for navigating amongst various programs. The remote control only allows movement back and forth, hence the paired down interface of Front Row, as well as the more crude switching between television and desktop in the Macintosh TV.
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== A Centralized Music Library ==
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[[Image:shyversmultiphonepatent.png|300px|right|thumb| Shyvers' 1947 patent for his music box design [http://www.google.com/patents?id=KH9vAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false]]]
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Riding off the success of the Theatrophone and Electrophone, several different music libraries were created on a similar infrastructure in many large European cities and capitals, utilizing telephone lines to broadcast music to several users from one central location.  Most of the time, the central music library would often be in the basement of the salon in which it broadcasted to the public.  These music libraries could be found in Copanhagen and France in the 1910s.  Eventually, this concept was adapted in the United States, when Kenneth Shyver created his "Multiphone" system in 1939, which went on to be the most successful of these various telephone line-based music libraries.
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 +
Shyver's Multiphone separated itself from these previous music telephone line systems through its much greater selection.  Users could pick from up to 170 different selections as opposed to the average coin-op automatic phonographs of the time, which could gave users only 24 choices at most. The system became popular throughout cafes and diners in cities in the Northwest including Shyver's home of Seattle.  Many diners and cafes installed the Multiphone either at the bar or on individual booths for customer use. 
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The Multiphone then required two leased phone lines: one for the machine itself, which connected to the Shyver library in Seattle, and one for the speakers. At the central music library in Seattle, a team of female disc jockeys managed all of the Multiphone user requests and put the records on manually. Once the customer inserted payment, the two lights on the Multiphone would light up, indicating that the telephone line was connecting to the library to get a disc jockey's services. The customer would actually speak to the disc jockey through the small speaker found at the top of the Multiphone, telling her his or her request through the system.  Each song was given a number, which was displayed on the Multiphone in a cylindrical case, which could be rotated to make room for all the possible selections.
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== Rise and Demise ==
 +
The success of the Multiphone coincides with the success of the jukebox.  In the 1930s, the United States was in the midst of major turmoil.  The Great Depression brought about intense unemployment due to the failure of thousands of banks and the stock market crash.  The people of America needed an escape from these hard times, and the jukebox was there to provide it for them.  As Gert J. Almind writes in his history of jukeboxes, "With nothing but a nickel in ones pocket, some popular music, and a little light effect, one could dream away for a brief moment in the ordinary daily life, and the jukebox could or should expect better times as a cultural phenomenon" (33).  The popularity of jukeboxes rose throughout the 1930s, and eventually became a sustainable industry in which manufacturers competed with each other due to a growing demand.  Diners, bars, and saloons looked closely at different models and their production years when purchasing a jukebox for their business. 
 +
 
 +
The jukebox and the Multiphone provided a communal listening experience.  Just as we, in the 21st century, have our own versions of communal listening through sharing music on the Internet and with iPods, the people of the 1930s and 1940s had coin-operated music players. The Multiphone and jukeboxes created a new “social practice” of listening to the same music together as media scholar Jose van Dijck says in his article “Record and Hold: Popular Music between personal and Collective memory.”  According to Dijck, a listener’s memory of music cannot be removed from the context in which it was experienced.  For the people during the age of the Multiphone and jukeboxes, the conversations at bars and diners about selecting a song to play made a special place in listeners’ minds.
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More importantly, this very practice of going to a public place to listen to music is the effect of the technology’s power to create new rituals and thinking as media scholar, Marshall McLuhan discusses in his pivotal work, “The Medium Is The Message.”  Regardless of what the jukebox or Multiphone is playing, McLuhan would argue that the fact that they are listening and using the machine is reconstructing the “scale and form of human association and action” (9).  For people using Multiphones and jukeboxes during the height of their popularity, new associations of entertainment and social activities were created with the technology.  For those people, it allowed them to at the time take a break from their struggles during the Great Depression through listening to music. 
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Though the Multiphone’s success did provide this type of communal experience just as much as jukeboxes, the jukebox eventually defeated the Multiphone as the preferred coin-operated music player.  When the Multiphone was created, its ability to give listeners a choice of 170 titles was much greater than the jukeboxes that were available, but eventually new technologies were developed that allowed jukeboxes greater song capacity.
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When 45rpm records were introduced in 1949, the Multiphone met its match.  This new format brought a wave of jukeboxes that could hold upwards of 100 song selections without the use of telephone lines. In 1959, Shyvers accepted defeat and took the Multiphone off the market.
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== Sound Cloud-Based Streaming: A Modern Application ==
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[[Image:music-cloud.jpg|300px|right|thumb| An artistic representation of sound cloud technology]]
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Today, the Internet has change the music industry irreversibly, record sales continue to decline and digital downloads are growing, but not at a high enough rate to satisfy many executives.  Due to this shifting landscape of musical consumption, many alternative ways of purchasing have been proposed.  One of these new purchasing methods, sound cloud-based streaming is very similar in concept to the Multiphone, Theatrophone and Electrophone's use of telephone lines to broadcast music from one centralized source.  New sound cloud-based streaming is essentially the same idea, but wireless and obviously with much greater capacity.  This new method would allow customers stream music on demand from a sound cloud onto a mobile device such as an iPhone, iPad, or Blackberrt, which would be enable them to tap a music library much larger than what can be stored on the device itself very similar to the way Multiphone users communicated with disc jockeys in the Shyvers music library in Seattle during the 1930s.  Industry executives hope that this method will enable users to continue to purchase content, as they feared that consumers would slow down their purchasing due to the limitations that come with downloading music directly to a mobile device.  Many different streaming services have been available for mobile devices such as Rhapsody, but most notably Apple was rumored to be creating a new cloud-based iTunes update this past summer, due to its acquisition of the music streaming website LaLa.  Despite these rumors, the latest update of iTunes does not feature a new cloud based-streaming feature for mobile devices.
  
 
== References ==
 
== References ==
  
Associated Press, "Apple tests market with computer-TV," ''The Windsor Star,'' Oct 26, 1993. pg. C.6, Final Edition
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Athitakis, Mark. "Riff Raff: Jukebox Hero and Gordon Dorsey." SF Weekly 01 Dec 1999: n. pag. Web. 3 Oct 2010. <http://www.sfweekly.com/1999-12-01/music/riff-raff/>.
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McLuhan, Marshall. "Medium Is the Message." Understanding Media; the Extensions of
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Man,. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Print.
  
Associated Press, "Apple unveils multimedia device Computer, TV, stereo combined," ''The Globe and Mail,'' Oct 26, 1993. pg. B.29
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Van Buskirk, Eliot. "Apple Rumor Watch Part Infinity: Cloud-Based iTunes on June 7." Wired.com. Web. 3 Oct 2010. <http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/apple-rumor-watch-part-infinity-cloud-based-itunes-on-june-7/>
  
Crotty, Cameron, "It's a Mac! It's a TV! Film at eleven!" ''Macworld,'' Jan 1994. Vol. 11, Iss. 1; pg. 34
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van Dijck, José. "Record and Hold: Popular Music between Personal and Collective Memory." Critical Studies in Media Communication 23.5 (2006): 357-374. Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 Oct. 2010.
  
Friedberg, Anne, ''The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft,'' Boston: MIT Press, 2006.
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http://coin-o-phone.com/history.pdf
  
Haynes, Peter, "Screen Test," ''The Economist,'' September 17 1994, v. 332 p. survey 17-20
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http://www.google.com/patents?id=eWkCAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA1&dq=shyvers&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1#v=onepage&q=shyvers&f=false
  
Heid, Jim, "Macintosh TV," ''Macworld,'' April 1994. Vol. 11, Iss. 4; pg. 57
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"Almind - Coin-Op Telephone Music." Danish Jukebox Archives. Web. 01 Oct. 2010. <http://juke-box.dk/gert-telephone-music.htm>.
  
Heid, Jim, "The Multimedia Mac," ''Macworld,'' September 1994, Vol. 11, p. 98-103
 
  
Mossberg, Walter S., "Personal Technology," ''Wall Street Journal,'' Nov 4, 1993. pg. PAGEB.1, Eastern edition
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"Shyvers Multiphone." Bill Hare Productions. Web. 01 Oct. 2010. <http://www.dyz.com/phones/multiphone.html>.
  
Video of the Macintosh TV in operation:
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"1939 Multiphone by Shyvers." Antiques, Art, Collectibles & More - GoAntiques. Web. 03 Oct. 2010.
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<http://www.goantiques.com/detail,1939-multiphone-shyvers,1167164.html>.
  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KORsVELvS0
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"Shyvers Jukeboxes Multiphone Selector Speaker." Jukebox Stamann Musikboxen Jukebox-World: Wurlitzer Jukebox
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Parts Ersatzteile Jukeboxparts Musikbox Anzeigenmarkt Forum AMI Rowe Rock-Ola Seeburg NSM Wiegandt Tonomat.
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Web. 01 Oct. 2010. <http://www.jukebox-world.de/Forum/Archiv/USA/Shyvers.htm>.
  
[[Category:Visuality]]
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"What's New in iTunes?." Apple.com. Web. 03 Oct 2010. <http://www.apple.com/itunes/whats-new/>
[[Category:Computation]]
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[[Category:Dossier]]
 
[[Category:Dossier]]
  
[[Category:Spring 2010]]
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[[Category:Fall 2010]]

Latest revision as of 08:27, 24 November 2010

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination
The pre-war model of the Multiphone, then called the "Music-Phone"


The Shyvers Multiphone, released in 1939 by Kenneth C. Shyvers, was an early model of a coin-operated phonograph (also known as a jukebox). It allowed patrons at restaurants, cafes and bars to play music at their table, and worked through telephone lines. The user inserted the necessary amount of coins, and was connected to a team of all-female disc jockeys in Seattle, who manually put on the selected song on a phonograph, playing the music through the telephone connection. At the height of the product's popularity, the 8,000 Multiphones were used in various establishments primarily on the west coast.

Kenneth C. Shyvers

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination
The post-war model of the Shyvers Multiphone [1]

Kenneth C. Shyvers, an inventor from Seattle, is best known for the creation of the Multiphone, an early version of a coin-operated restaurant jukebox that played music through telephone lines from a central music library. He developed the product with his wife Lois in 1939, gaining a patent for its coin control device one-year prior. It was not until 1946/47 that he patented the music box itself.

The product's design shows that Shyvers found inspiration from New York architecture, namely the Empire State Building. Although, the original Pre-War model of the music box (then called the "Music-Phone" more resembled a rocket ship. This design change might have been due to an increase in Shyvers' desire to show patriotism in the years after the war, or his ideas of what would appeal more to the costomers at the time.

Shyvers is also known for his work on early interactive gaming machines. In 1936, he and fellow inventor Lyn Durrant designed one of the first "score totalizers," an aspect of gaming technology that is still prevalent today.

History of the Coin-Operated Phonograph

The Multiphone played an important role in the evolution of the jukebox, an invention that grew to become a staple of its time and is still often used in cafes and restaurants to recreate the temporality of the mid 20th century. The first recorded coin operated phonograph was presented in 1889, in a public demonstration at the Palais Royal Restaurant in San Francisco on November 23, 1889. Louis T. Glass, the operator of this initial model, is credited as “the father of the concept.” Before delving into the phonograph world, Glass worked as a telegraph operator at Western Union, but then left the company with the advent of the telephone, investing in various telephone companies in Oakland and San Francisco. He eventually became the general manager of the Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Co. After his successful investments, he then partnered with businessman William S. Arnold to further develop the coin-operated phonograph. Though Glass is considered to be the "father" of the jukebox, he and Arnold only filed a patent for the "Coin Actuated Attachment for Phonographs," not a completely functional coin-operated phonograph in 1889. In Britain, Charles Adams-Randall, an electrician, filed a patent for the "Automatic Pariophone" in 1888. Despite this previous patent, Glass still receives the credit for the jukebox concept's inception. By 1891, the United States Patent Office had already registered 18 patents for phonograph coin control devices. Soon, Thomas Alva Edison gained business connections to the rising trend, and between 1900 and 1907 he released over 10 different models.

The cafes, restaurants and bars that started housing the coin-operated phonographs became known as “juke-joints.” This term (along with the term “juke box”) started in the South, and was brought up with the northern migration of African-American workers in the early 20th century. It wasn’t until the late 1930s that the terms were released of the stigma of being considered ‘black’ terms and gained spots in the official vocabulary.

The music boxes developed before 1900 each offered only one song selection, but soon models such as the “Gomber Multiplex” which could hold up to 12 songs, reached the market. In 1925/26, electrically recorded 78rpm records were released, solving amplification issues and changing the market.

In the late 1930s, the market for the jukebox grew as it acted a source entertainment to help the public escape the possibility of war and the effects of the great depression. Companies such as the Rudolph Wurlitzer Co. and the J.P. Seeburg Corp. became some of the primary competitors in jukebox production, creating new models and finding fiscal success in the process.

Years later, in the 1960s/70s, audio/visual jukeboxes hit the market in France, known informally as "see-hear jukes." Models such as the 36-song "Scopitone ST-16" and the 28-song "Caravelle Tele-Box" found success in Paris and the surrounding suburbs, and acted as early examples of the music video. Several models were released in the United States, including the "Scopitone 450" and the "Cinebox," which was not very successful.


The all-female team of multiphone disc jockeys in downtown Seattle [2]

Development of Telephone Line Broadcasting Systems

The Multiphone separated itself form the competition through its use of telephone lines, which allowed for a much greater selection of songs through connecting the device to a central music library. This technology was not new however at the time. Before coin-operated music machine companies began to develop telephone line systems to be used with existing jukeboxes, telephone lines had already been used for similar purposes forty years earlier in France. Clement Agnes Ader invented the “Theatrophone” in 1881, which could broadcast and transmit sounds to 48 listeners at a time. In the invention's demonstration, it was able to broadcast the Opera de Paris to those 48 listeners in the nearby Palais de l‟Industrie through various telephone lines running through the sewer systems, making it the first public broadcast entertainment system. A few laters in 1895, the Universal Telephone Co. in London developed a British equivalent known as the “Electrophone.” Coin slots were produced for both the Theatrophone and Electrophone and were placed in salons, hotels, and restaurants throughout several big cities in Britain and France just like jukeboxes at the time. These two telephone line systems along with coin-operated phonographs allowed for the very idea of the multiphone to come into being.

A Centralized Music Library

Shyvers' 1947 patent for his music box design [3]


Riding off the success of the Theatrophone and Electrophone, several different music libraries were created on a similar infrastructure in many large European cities and capitals, utilizing telephone lines to broadcast music to several users from one central location. Most of the time, the central music library would often be in the basement of the salon in which it broadcasted to the public. These music libraries could be found in Copanhagen and France in the 1910s. Eventually, this concept was adapted in the United States, when Kenneth Shyver created his "Multiphone" system in 1939, which went on to be the most successful of these various telephone line-based music libraries.

Shyver's Multiphone separated itself from these previous music telephone line systems through its much greater selection. Users could pick from up to 170 different selections as opposed to the average coin-op automatic phonographs of the time, which could gave users only 24 choices at most. The system became popular throughout cafes and diners in cities in the Northwest including Shyver's home of Seattle. Many diners and cafes installed the Multiphone either at the bar or on individual booths for customer use.

The Multiphone then required two leased phone lines: one for the machine itself, which connected to the Shyver library in Seattle, and one for the speakers. At the central music library in Seattle, a team of female disc jockeys managed all of the Multiphone user requests and put the records on manually. Once the customer inserted payment, the two lights on the Multiphone would light up, indicating that the telephone line was connecting to the library to get a disc jockey's services. The customer would actually speak to the disc jockey through the small speaker found at the top of the Multiphone, telling her his or her request through the system. Each song was given a number, which was displayed on the Multiphone in a cylindrical case, which could be rotated to make room for all the possible selections.


Rise and Demise

The success of the Multiphone coincides with the success of the jukebox. In the 1930s, the United States was in the midst of major turmoil. The Great Depression brought about intense unemployment due to the failure of thousands of banks and the stock market crash. The people of America needed an escape from these hard times, and the jukebox was there to provide it for them. As Gert J. Almind writes in his history of jukeboxes, "With nothing but a nickel in ones pocket, some popular music, and a little light effect, one could dream away for a brief moment in the ordinary daily life, and the jukebox could or should expect better times as a cultural phenomenon" (33). The popularity of jukeboxes rose throughout the 1930s, and eventually became a sustainable industry in which manufacturers competed with each other due to a growing demand. Diners, bars, and saloons looked closely at different models and their production years when purchasing a jukebox for their business.

The jukebox and the Multiphone provided a communal listening experience. Just as we, in the 21st century, have our own versions of communal listening through sharing music on the Internet and with iPods, the people of the 1930s and 1940s had coin-operated music players. The Multiphone and jukeboxes created a new “social practice” of listening to the same music together as media scholar Jose van Dijck says in his article “Record and Hold: Popular Music between personal and Collective memory.” According to Dijck, a listener’s memory of music cannot be removed from the context in which it was experienced. For the people during the age of the Multiphone and jukeboxes, the conversations at bars and diners about selecting a song to play made a special place in listeners’ minds. More importantly, this very practice of going to a public place to listen to music is the effect of the technology’s power to create new rituals and thinking as media scholar, Marshall McLuhan discusses in his pivotal work, “The Medium Is The Message.” Regardless of what the jukebox or Multiphone is playing, McLuhan would argue that the fact that they are listening and using the machine is reconstructing the “scale and form of human association and action” (9). For people using Multiphones and jukeboxes during the height of their popularity, new associations of entertainment and social activities were created with the technology. For those people, it allowed them to at the time take a break from their struggles during the Great Depression through listening to music.

Though the Multiphone’s success did provide this type of communal experience just as much as jukeboxes, the jukebox eventually defeated the Multiphone as the preferred coin-operated music player. When the Multiphone was created, its ability to give listeners a choice of 170 titles was much greater than the jukeboxes that were available, but eventually new technologies were developed that allowed jukeboxes greater song capacity.

When 45rpm records were introduced in 1949, the Multiphone met its match. This new format brought a wave of jukeboxes that could hold upwards of 100 song selections without the use of telephone lines. In 1959, Shyvers accepted defeat and took the Multiphone off the market.

Sound Cloud-Based Streaming: A Modern Application

An artistic representation of sound cloud technology

Today, the Internet has change the music industry irreversibly, record sales continue to decline and digital downloads are growing, but not at a high enough rate to satisfy many executives. Due to this shifting landscape of musical consumption, many alternative ways of purchasing have been proposed. One of these new purchasing methods, sound cloud-based streaming is very similar in concept to the Multiphone, Theatrophone and Electrophone's use of telephone lines to broadcast music from one centralized source. New sound cloud-based streaming is essentially the same idea, but wireless and obviously with much greater capacity. This new method would allow customers stream music on demand from a sound cloud onto a mobile device such as an iPhone, iPad, or Blackberrt, which would be enable them to tap a music library much larger than what can be stored on the device itself very similar to the way Multiphone users communicated with disc jockeys in the Shyvers music library in Seattle during the 1930s. Industry executives hope that this method will enable users to continue to purchase content, as they feared that consumers would slow down their purchasing due to the limitations that come with downloading music directly to a mobile device. Many different streaming services have been available for mobile devices such as Rhapsody, but most notably Apple was rumored to be creating a new cloud-based iTunes update this past summer, due to its acquisition of the music streaming website LaLa. Despite these rumors, the latest update of iTunes does not feature a new cloud based-streaming feature for mobile devices.

References

Athitakis, Mark. "Riff Raff: Jukebox Hero and Gordon Dorsey." SF Weekly 01 Dec 1999: n. pag. Web. 3 Oct 2010. <http://www.sfweekly.com/1999-12-01/music/riff-raff/>.

McLuhan, Marshall. "Medium Is the Message." Understanding Media; the Extensions of Man,. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Print.

Van Buskirk, Eliot. "Apple Rumor Watch Part Infinity: Cloud-Based iTunes on June 7." Wired.com. Web. 3 Oct 2010. <http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/apple-rumor-watch-part-infinity-cloud-based-itunes-on-june-7/>

van Dijck, José. "Record and Hold: Popular Music between Personal and Collective Memory." Critical Studies in Media Communication 23.5 (2006): 357-374. Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 Oct. 2010.

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"1939 Multiphone by Shyvers." Antiques, Art, Collectibles & More - GoAntiques. Web. 03 Oct. 2010. 

<http://www.goantiques.com/detail,1939-multiphone-shyvers,1167164.html>.

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"What's New in iTunes?." Apple.com. Web. 03 Oct 2010. <http://www.apple.com/itunes/whats-new/>