John Sousa, the great aphorist

These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy... in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape. - A submission to a 1906 congressional hearing. @

Also, Sousa on music piracy (a letter to the editor).

I also stumbled on a lengthy article how Victor, makers of the "talking machines," created its own audience - on the social construction of listening to recorded music. Good stuff; did not finish it yet though.