Well actually I never left it, but a this is a musing on my history with music and how a new piece of kit has changed my habits again.
Like others of a certain age, I started in music with records, vinyl mainly, though my grandfather had some old shellac 78s which I used to play on his radiogram. For the benefit of younger readers, a radio gram was a huge piece of furniture like a sideboard, containing a radio with exotic names on its dial like Hilversum, and a turntable with actual needles used in the tracking arm to play.
Anyway, I actually never had a record player, so never bought 45 rpm singles, in the days when the top twenty was a Sunday religious experience on the radio, rather I had a tape recorder, with reels of tape, this was long before cassettes, and I used to record the top twenty and other music off the radio or TV, often by sticking the microphone against the speaker ..........hifi this wasn’t.
I progressed via a proper hifi a very expensive at the time, Bang and Olfusen, (still with record deck but much slicker than Granddad’s) an early CD player and various makes and models of hifi separates. I made the transition from LPs to Cassettes, especially in the car and then to CDs. As I recall I spent most of my music listening using the car equipment, even back in the 70s and 80s, car audio systems were better than home ones a lot of the time, and the enclosed space made it all sound finer anyway.
At home my late wife used CDs for her music teaching, but we gradually seemed to not just sit down and listen for pleasure. Around this time of course the artistes of popular music gradually became unknown to me and after “top of the pops” on TV, finished I never really kept up.
Then came digital, I was given an IPOD by my daughter and converted my CDs to this new format, the sheer disbelief that you could have on a small metal device, days worth of music, gave way to regular use, again mainly through connectivity in the car or via headphones. Though an IPOD dock was added, it didn’t take mainstream place in the lounge for some reason.
Several generations of IPOD later and with a reasonable mastery of ITunes, I had also now bought both old and new music. Its so easy, one click and its yours there and then. No trotting down to the record shop and listening to a track in a sound proofed booth then.
What I bought was old stuff I had lost over the years but also new artistes on a fairly random basis but chosen because I just liked them. The ITunes ‘most popular’ section is not and never will be the same as the Top Twenty.
Another little piece of technology of aid to the music buyer, is an IOS app called Soundhound. You hear some music on the TV or on someone else's system, you kick in Soundhound which samples it and then tells you with reasonable accuracy what the track and artist is.......... and of course then offers a direct link to ITunes to buy it.
What Digital does especially, as well as quality, is however, to free you from playing albums, on records you couldn’t, on tapes, it was only fast forward, on CD you could skip or repeat tracks, but on a digital device you can construct your own playlist and mix up a selection to suit your mood or occasion.
In car use, via IPOD connectivity to the car system, continued to be my predominant channel though adding podcasts to the audio mix as well as music..........but then I bought myself an early Christmas present and invested in a Sonos digital music streaming system. (http://www.sonos.com/).
This connects the music on my computer, which already has some amplified monitor speakers so music can be played whilst doing other computery things but Sonos takes the music on the computer and streams it via wireless to, in my case two, Sonos units, ............many others can be added dependent on the size of your house.
Cleverly controlled from the computer and by a free app which runs on the IPad, (also working on IPhone and IPod Touch and I believe Android phones) , means I now listen to music and radio in the lounge and in the bedroom. The system can play the same on both units or on one only or different things in every location. I can set up a list, set the sleep timer and drift off with personally selected music or I can sit in comfort in the lounge and listen to an album or two or a podcast as I desire.
The sound is clear, bright and powerful even from a relatively small box containing amplifier, software and 5 speakers. However this is not an advert for Sonos, though I do recommend it, but merely to show how technological change makes things different, sometimes better, sometimes not, but music is something most people value, whether you are a folk, rock, jazz or classical aficionado, its about choice what you want where you want it. I’m glad I have rediscovered actually listening to music as well as just having it as a soundtrack to driving, cooking or cleaning.
The next steps are to further explore Internet Radio, there is something tantalisingly exotic in listening to a South American oe even Antarctica station.......... I wonder if Hilversum is still there ? ..........and to experiment with services like Spotify which means you don’t actually have the music on any device in your home or car, it just gets pushed down via the Internet to a computer, smart phone or IPad, you effectively rent it and have access to millions of tracks 24/7.
I just wonder whether not ‘owning’ music is a concept that I will have to learn, unlike the racks of LPs you can’t actually see and touch it...........who knows.
