From Live Stage to Your Headphones

In the picture

1. 1Microphone: turns the sound waves of the instruments into an electrical signal
2. 2Tape recorder: stores the signal as a magnetic pattern on moving tape
3. 3Vinyl record: the performance copied into grooves that can be sold and shared
4. 4Headphones: turn the stored signal back into sound for one listener at home

Examples

• Streaming a concert album recorded decades before you were born
• Recording your band’s rehearsal on a phone and listening back on the bus

Quiz: From Live Stage to Your Headphones (Age 15)

1. 1

   What job does a microphone do when a performance is recorded?

   • It turns the sound waves of the instruments into an electrical signal
   • It turns a stored signal back into sound for a listener
   • It stores the sound as a magnetic pattern on moving tape
2. 2

   What is true of a live performance that nobody records?

   • It can still be heard later by people who were not there
   • It exists only in the moment and place where it is played
   • It sounds exactly the same every time the band plays it
3. 3

   A friend in another country wants to hear the exact concert you attended years ago. What makes this possible?

   • Turning the concert speakers up so the sound travels further
   • The band playing the same songs again in her city
   • A recording that captured the performance so it can be replayed

The answers, each with its explanation, are in the app. This quiz is free there while the lesson is in the free week.