'Researchers unveil imprints made 20 years before Edison invented phonograph.'

'A bunch of wavy lines scratched by a stylus onto fragile paper that had been blackened by the soot from an oil lamp date from 1857. That’s 20 years before Edison invented the phonograph.'

'Parisian inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville never intended for the soot-lined imprint of the sound waves to be played back, the historians reported. But the inventor hoped the visual patterns of the sound waves he had recorded using a hornlike device with the stylus attached resembling an artificial ear — called a phonautograph — might one day be read like sheet music to recreate a singer’s voice or the timbre of a musical instrument.'

Link - http://www.usnews.com/articles/science/2009/06/01/earliest-known-sound-recordings-revealed.html

There are mp3's of the recordings in the link. Just thought you music guys might find it interesting.