From my Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/TrueStartMusic)post:
Today in History: In 1955, The Chrysler Corporation launched high fidelity record players for their 1956 line-up of cars. The seven inch discs spun at 16 2/3 rpm and required almost three times the number of grooves per inch as an LP. The players were discontinued in 1961.
Credit:
http://www.thisdayinmusic.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/desoto1961
It was Spring of 2007. I had Ultimate Frisbee practice that day, a coaching endeavor that I took on at the charter school I taught at. Awesomeness. Anywho, I was getting ready to drive over to the field in my '96 Explorer when two students ran up and asked if they could be late due to tutorials. As they reached the window, one says, "Nice tape deck, Smith." I suddenly felt like I was the proud owner of an 8 track. Granted, I rarely listened to said cassettes, but I did have a console full of them. I had clearly been dated. I was so comfortable about having the device, I had not noticed the shift where everyone had pretty well moved on to CDs.
Music is constantly with us. Everywhere we go. As a music teacher, it is difficult to give the impression of a time without music. It is sort of like imagining going outside and hearing nothing, no planes, trains, automobiles, AC units, lawn mowers and blowers, and on goes the noise list. However, it is in this absence of music that we find value of the greats. Bach did not have a USB plug in his carriage up to the chapel. The people walking into the church did not arrive with their iPod playlist on shuffle. They heard very little in the medium of music. Maybe someone humming or whistling a popular tune or a singing a popular song they heard the night before at the pub. We imagine them sitting in a grey, dull church, everyday unable to understand the latin words spoken to them. Yet when they walked through the doors though and were faced with the sounds from a large choral, a few instruments playing music that they could relate to immediately as well as any moving line of scripture. The sound of the blasting organ... Surely this had to be as close to communicating to God as the Western people could have imagined.
So, is the magic gone? Are we over stimulated by music? Maybe. I know I love being able to listen to nearly anything I want on a whim. I often appreciate listening to things I did not necessarily want to listen to. However, there are those times that I like to quiet everything around me, put on Bach, Mozart, Chopin, choose my flavor, close my eyes, and just listen. Allow the music to move in ways we often neglect to let it.
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| My Kenwood Dual Cassette Deck from High School, recently relegated to the garage. I couldn't let go of the 5 disc CD player yet. |
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