Korean Wax Cylinder Recordings

The Alice Fletcher Collection

Alice Cunningham Fletcher, anthropologist and ethnologist, is most known for her work with Native American groups and her early field recordings of Native American culture. These Korean cylinders are a small group of rare and invaluable recordings of traditional Korean music, which Alice Fletcher made on July 24, 1896. These cylinders contain the earliest known recordings of Korean music in the world, and predate the next documented recording of Korean song by 11 years. Specifically, they contain songs sung by Korean students whose names are often transliterated today as Ahn Jeong-sik, Lee Hee-Cheol and Son Rong.

Available for educational purposes, this collection contains the CK Jung Korean CD collection of wax cylinder recordings 'July 24 1896 the First Sound Source of the Korean People,' 4 selected tracks from the Library of Congress website, as well as an additional 3 versions of of the important folk song, 'Arirang' and a test copy of an 1896 Korean cylinder transfered by the Victrolaguy. The collection also includes transcripts and a video lecture entitled 'Revolutionaries Nursery Rhymes and Edison Wax Cylinders - The Remarkable Tale of the Earliest Korean Sound Recordings.' by Dr Provine held at the Library of Congress 2009, and 'Korea on Record - Korea's First Encounter with Sound Recordings 1889-1906' presented by Jihoon Suk for ARSC.

The collection is owned by the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress Website

Association for Recorded Sound

The Gugak CD Website Korea

The Alice Fletcher Collection

(MP3 Googledrive Access)