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Story summary
- In 1919, two music conservatory students, David and Lionel, traveled to rural Maine to record folk songs on wax cylinders.
- The journey prompts reflection on sound history, tracing origins to the phonautograph (1850s) and phonograph (1877).
- The author, who has worked with sound, recalls a recording of their father, a government lawyer who argued a 1963 Supreme Court case.
- Hearing his younger voice again highlights the emotional impact of preservation.
