Research into the geographies of sound and music has developed over the last 20 years, yet such work largely remains reliant on conventional verbal-textual methods of data collection and dissemination. In this paper, we conduct a review of current approaches to sonic research, demonstrating that the erasure of audio media within geography silences a rich seam of empirical data. As a result, we propose that phonographic methods – including listening, audio recording and playback – need to be developed further. We consider a range of epistemological implications of phonographic methods, and possible future directions for their development in human geography.