In 1885, Thomas Edison wrote, I have not heard a bird sing since I was twelve.. No one is really sure just how Edison lost most of his hearing. Yet this man invented the first machine that could capture sound and play it back. In fact, the phonograph was his favorite invention. The first phonograph was invented in 1877 at the Menlo Park lab. A piece of tin-foil was wrapped around the cylinder in the middle. You shouted a short message into the piece on one side of the cylinder while you turned the handle. Inside this piece was a needle.