Thomas Edison's work on the phonograph began with his previous work on the telegraph and telephone. In 1877, Edison believed that a telephone message could be recorded the same way a telegraph message could be recorded onto paper tape. His experiments led to the first phonograph, and on December 24, 1877, he filed for the patent.
Edison's first version of the phonograph used paraffin paper and an embossing point to record sound, but he soon moved onto the final structure: a two-unit system (one for recording and one for playback) using a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. Words spoken into one unit used the sound vibration to scratch grooves into the foil with the needle. The foil could then be played back on the other unit.
The first words Thomas Edison spoke and recorded with the phonograph were the words to "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
Many inventions in sound recording stemmed from Edison's work. Inventions such as the graphophone and gramophone improved on Edison's design, while some of the first record players began to turn out around the turn of the 20th century with the "Victrola" disc player. Eventually, modern tape and CD players became the new generation of Edison-inspired technology.