The phonograph is a device for the mechanical recording and reproduction of sound. It was the most common device for playing recorded music from the 1870s through the 1980s. It was invented by Thomas Edison, after other inventors had studied the idea. Early phonographs recorded sound on cylinders, in addition to playing sound. In its later forms, it is also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or, since the 1940s, a record player. 