michael coleman, probably the most influential irish musician of the 20th century. wax cylinders and 78s that he made here in new york-- they traveled back to ireland, and they changed fiddle playing style. people tried to imitate coleman whether they were from sligo or whether they're from cork or donegal. it no longer was the case that you could tell where somebody was from by listening to them. that was the beginning that this was starting to be homogenized. in a positive way, technology has helped this music in that there's an awful lot of recordings of very good music out there. so it's brought it to a wider listening public. (tesar) very, very early days, some phonograph recordings were cut right to wax. they'd stand in the room and the cutting lathe would cut the original master right into wax, which, by the way, had to be very soft, so it had to be very hot. so a lot of the old-time musicians will tell stories about the early days of recording like almost stripping down in their underwear and going in this room and recording for three minutes. it's 130 degre