A vinyl record has only one single groove that spirals for about 1,500 feet on each side.

A standard 12-inch record is made of a plastic called polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. When you look at it, you see many circles, but it is actually one continuous spiral path. On a 20-minute side, this path can stretch between 1,500 and 2,500 feet. That is longer than five football fields!The groove is shaped like the letter V with two walls. In a stereo record, the left side of the music is on the inner wall and the right side is on the outer wall. A tiny diamond-tipped needle sits in this V-shape. As the record spins at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute, the needle bumps into microscopic hills and valleys on the walls.These bumps make the needle shake back and forth very quickly. A magnet inside the record player turns these shakes into electrical signals. These signals then travel to your speakers and turn back into sound waves. Because the outside of the record is bigger, it moves faster than the inside. This means the music often sounds a little bit clearer at the beginning of the record than at the very end.