Today, just about anyone can record a song with technology common in almost every household, but it wasn’t always so easy. If you’ve ever wondered how music was recorded before the age of computers or what the earliest known music recordings sounded like, these amazing websites will be music to your ears. 

National Jukebox
The Library of Congress’ National Jukebox is a comprehensive list of historical recordings that anyone can access online completely free of charge. Historians painstakingly took each of these songs and sounds off of their original 78 rpm discs and put them on online for preservation, including recordings from as early as 1900.

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
This impressive project, an initiative of the UC Santa Barbara Library, created a digital collection of over 8,000 cylinder recordings obtained by the Department of Special Collections. Cylinder recordings were the first commercially produced sound recordings, and this website uses them to attempt to give listeners insight into popular American music at the turn of the 20th century.

Ragtime
Another initiative from the Library of Congress, this website features historical information and recordings of popular American ragtime music. Explore essays discussing ragtime’s history and culture, biographies of artists like Scott Joplin and James Scott, and even listen to original recordings of some of the most influential ragtime songs.