--- description: Alexander Graham Bell, as you probably know, invented the telephone. What you may not know, is that he also made crucial refinements to the first... title: LISTEN: What Did Alexander Graham Bell Sound Like? image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd0a9568311215400/6998bab29fbc7c33a8d98c15/alexander-graham-bell.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Business](/section/business/) * [Tech](/tag/time-section-tech/) # LISTEN: What Did Alexander Graham Bell Sound Like? by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Apr 26, 2013 5:08 PM CUT  Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell ( 1847 - 1922 ) who invented the telephone. Bell, born in Edinburgh, worked with his father, Scottish educator Alexander Melville Bell, before emigrating to North America in 1871\. In 1873 he became Professor of Vocal Phisiology at Boston University. He experimented with various devices for transmitting sound until he sent the first acoustic message to his assistant in 1875\. Bell patented the telephone the next year and went on to invent the photophone and gramophone. He also founded the journal 'Science' and invented the tetrahedral kite. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images) Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell ( 1847 - 1922 ) who invented the telephone. Bell, born in Edinburgh, worked with his father, Scottish educator Alexander Melville Bell, before emigrating to North America in 1871\. In 1873 he became Professor of Vocal Phisiology at Boston University. He experimented with various devices for transmitting sound until he sent the first acoustic message to his assistant in 1875\. Bell patented the telephone the next year and went on to invent the photophone and gramophone. He also founded the journal 'Science' and invented the tetrahedral kite. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)Getty Images by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Apr 26, 2013 5:08 PM CUT Alexander Graham Bell, as you probably know, invented the telephone. What you may _not_ know, is that he also made crucial refinements to the first techniques used to record and play back sound. And yet contemporary listeners have never been able to hear Bell’s voice — until now, thanks to researchers at at the Smithsonian, Library of Congress and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The first recording device — Thomas Edison’s phonograph — used tinfoil-covered cylinders to encode sound waves. Bell (Edison’s rival) and his associates came up with the more commercially viable idea of coating cardboard tubes or discs with wax to do the job. But wax recordings were incredibly fragile, capable of only limited playback and prone to deterioration over time. So when researchers at the Smithsonian discovered a piece of paper in a collection of the earliest audio recordings ever made that transcribed an 1885 recording ostensibly made by Bell, then matched _that_ to an actual wax-on-cardboard disc sporting the initials “AGB” and the same date, April 15, 1885, they couldn’t just drop it into an old-school player and crank away. How to validate the awesome possibility that they’d discovered an actual recording of one of America’s most famous inventors? [According to](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/We-Had-No-Idea-What-Alexander-Graham-Bell-Sounded-Like-Until-Now-204137471.html# "undefined") Bell [biographer](http://www.amazon.com/Reluctant-Genius-Passionate-Inventive-Alexander/dp/0006394760/ref=sr%5F1%5F3?ie=UTF8&qid=1366992117&sr=8-3&keywords=charlotte+gray+bell "undefined") Charlotte Gray: --- > “” --- Stephens then learned of a possible solution to her problem via the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which had developed technology capable of extracting computer audio from legacy mediums using optical scans. Working through the Volta Lab collection, the Smithsonian eventually discovered and submitted the 128-year-old wax disc believed to contain Bell’s voice to the Library of Congress. The LoC then used Berkeley’s technology to scan and create a digital map of the disc’s surface — all without disturbing the disc itself. The recording’s contents were checked against the transcript on June 20, 2012, allowing the Library to positively identify the voice as Bell’s. You can hear the definitive, awe-inspiring moment in the audio selection below, as Bell identifies himself for posterity at the end of the recording, speaking to us from the 19th century: “Hear my voice — Alexander Graham Bell.” The complete recording, which includes Bell reciting numbers and other phrases, [is available here](http://americanhistory.si.edu/press/releases/“hear-my-voice”-smithsonian-identifies-130-year-old-recording-alexander-graham-bell’s "undefined") (including a scan of Bell’s handwritten transcript). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7231960/listen-what-did-alexander-graham-bell-sound-like/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7231960/listen-what-did-alexander-graham-bell-sound-like/"},"headline":"LISTEN: What Did Alexander Graham Bell Sound Like?","datePublished":"2013-04-26T17:08:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T10:48:06.143Z","description":"Alexander Graham Bell, as you probably know, invented the telephone. What you may not know, is that he also made crucial refinements to the first...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7231960/listen-what-did-alexander-graham-bell-sound-like/","keywords":["Tech"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd0a9568311215400/6998bab29fbc7c33a8d98c15/alexander-graham-bell.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd0a9568311215400/6998bab29fbc7c33a8d98c15/alexander-graham-bell.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Alexander Bell","caption":"Alexander Bell","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7231960/listen-what-did-alexander-graham-bell-sound-like/","name":"LISTEN: What Did Alexander Graham Bell Sound Like?"}}]}] ```