Tunes with teeth: Edison might have left his mark on piano

By MICHAEL HILLtoday

WOODSTOCK, N.Y. (AP) — Hard of hearing, Thomas Edison found a unique way to appreciate piano music. As someone played, the great inventor would lean in close to the instrument, right above the keys, and he’d bite the piano.

Pressing his teeth into the wood of phonographs and pianos helped Edison experience the vibrations in his skull. Or in his own words, it allowed him to “hear through my teeth.”

Robert Friedman recently showed off marks on a Steinway grand piano once owned by Edison — a cluster of shallow indentations roughing up the black lacquer above the keyboard. Friedman, who buys and sells Steinways, purchased the piano last year and says he was surprised by the toothy signatures left by the inventor of the phonograph. He’s now looking for the right home for the novel historical artifact.

“I believe that it belongs somewhere where many, many, many people can see it,” Friedman said.

Edison bought the Model “B” Ebony from Steinway & Sons in 1890 for $725. Paperwork with the sale includes the handwritten notation “office furniture,” indicating it was sent to his lab in New Jersey. The piano “for some reason unknown to me it gives better results than any so far tried,” Edison wrote the company. “Please send bill with lowest price.”

Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. When he bought the piano 13 years later, he was experimenting with sound recording. Edison owned the instrument for decades, so it’s possible it was used in early recordings.

So did Edison’s teeth make those marks?

There’s no known old black-and-white photo of Edison chomping this piano to prove it. But he was known to bite into phonographs and pianos to help him experience music as his hearing faded. His daughter once recalled a guest weeping at the sight of Edison clamped on to a piano as someone played it.

“I hear through my teeth, and through my skull,” said Edison, as quoted in Edmund Morris’ 2019 biography. ”I bite my teeth into the wood and then I get it good and strong.”

The formulation is simple for Friedman: Those are tooth marks, and who else would have bit the piano?

“I’ve probably had my hands on a few thousand Steinways in the last 50 years,” Friedman said. “I’ve never seen that anywhere.”