Music and How We Listen

Music and How We Listen

By Jack Dallas

While music, with its seemingly endless styles and genres has certainly evolved over the centuries, the actual way we listen to that music has also changed.  During a recent evening cocktail hour, that lasted beyond its scheduled period, I came to realize not only how much I appreciated the music of my time but also how I am able to listen to my favorites.  In my seven decades of enjoying music, no time has been quite as enjoyable as the present.  The reason for that analysis can be understood by a brief look back.

My formative years offered some limited access to music via the tabletop radio in the living room and a small child’s record player that spun seven-inch platters at 78 revolutions per minute.  The quality was marginal but it was all we knew.  Eventually cars had radios so the family’s four-hour trips to Key West from Miami were filled with music and radio shows.  For my younger audience, radio shows were like television but without the pictures.

Push-button AM Car Radio

By the time I entered high school the transistor had been invented and placed inside a plastic box about the size of a deck of cards.  This revolutionary device was the portable AM radio whose main function seemed to be to deliver scratchy music through a single earpiece or a small front speaker and gobble 9-volt lead acid batteries like they were Jujubes.  While the sound quality sucked, we loved these little guys.  A day at the beach was not the same when your battery died.

We could listen to both WQAM 560 and WFUN 790 where “our kind of music” was played.  If you were really lucky and the radio gods were kind, you could even get WABC 770 out of New York.  This was only late at night when the ionosphere bounced the signal back to earth just so we could listen to Cousin Brucie (Bruce Morrow).  We also had Bob Smith, “The Wolfman” aka “Wolfman Jack” (no relation), who broadcast from XERF 1570.  This was a 250,000 watt “border-blaster” station located in Acuña, Mexico that could be heard nationwide, if you were lucky.

Bob Smith, aka Wolfman Jack

During this same period, long playing (LP) records came out along with the big-holed 45’s.  These were played on record players or, drum roll here, the hi-fi.  This latter term stood for high fidelity to indicate that before its invention we were listening to crap.  Who knew?  This so-called hi-fi was generally a large piece of furniture with a combination AM-FM radio tuner and a turntable to play your 78’s, 33 1/3’s and 45’s.  Yes, FM radio eased in here to finally provide better quality music.  The hi-fi had stereo speakers and an amplifier to finally fill a room with music.

Console Hi-Fi Stereo

The automobile also evolved with various music delivery systems.  In addition to the AM radio in the dash, we also had a series of tape-based systems, which we bolted under the dash and wired to new speakers we put in the front doors and rear window decks.  I have personally installed 4-track players, 8-track players, and cassette players in my vehicles over the years.

You haven't lived until you've "fixed" one of these.

Bolt under your dash, wire your speakers, enjoy

This also meant that the music industry made money by selling me the same song I originally purchased on a 45-RPM record on each iteration of delivery platforms.  I bought it on the 45, on the compilation LP, 4-track cassette, 8-track cassette, compact cassette, and eventually on a CD.  I could have literally paid for that song six times.  Seven times if you consider my reel-to-reel tape player.  However, truth be told, I never purchased music on reel-to-reel tapes.  I only recorded music on my reel tapes, or stole it to use the RIAA term.

This is not a Compact Disc

Yes, if you noticed carefully in the above paragraph, I slipped in the CD or compact disc.  The CD finally provided music without the usual hiss and pops we had grown to know and love.  Some audiophiles currently still seem to think that tube amplifiers and vinyl discs provide better sound than the more sterile output of a compact disc.  I must be missing something here; perhaps it’s the hiss and pops.

Lots of CDs

The CD has enjoyed a long run now and this presents me with my current dilemma; what to do with the boxes and boxes of CD’s.  I no longer listen to CD’s, not directly anyway.  I have long since ripped them to MP3 files where I can move them anywhere I want.  I can play them while listening on my computer.  I can stream them to my family room entertainment center.  I can put them on a thumb drive that I can play on either of the two amplifiers I have that play in the two seating areas of my backyard.  I can play the thumbdrive in my car.  I can load them on my smartphone to stream wirelessly to my Bluetooth headphones and speakers.  I can upload them to the Amazon Cloud to play virtually anywhere with Internet access.  The music delivery options seem endless.  I now rent my music as part of my Amazon Prime membership, Spotify membership, and DirecTv subscription.

This brings us to my recent cocktail “hour” with my wife, Sue.  We sat in our kitchen/family room at our bar/island where we literally asked our “friend” Alexa to play any artist or song we could think of.  Alexa played “every song that driver knew.”  You see Alexa lives in a small tower on a shelf between our kitchen and family room.  She awaits our every command.  Just speak, “Alexa, play Barry White.”  Within seconds you are hearing “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe”, streaming from Alexa’s speakers.  Her music library exceeds 30 million songs.  She links to my Spotify library, which also has over 30 million songs.  I’ll assume there are a few duplicates in those two sources.  If songs average 3 minutes it would take me over 170 years to listen to them all, or 130 years if we eliminate Rap, Punk, Hip hop, Techno and Electronica.  Even at 130 years, that’s a very long cocktail hour.  I might need to make another run to Total Wine and Spirits to restock. 

Amazon Echo, the home of Alexa

 

Yes, we love our Amazon Echo and the young lady, Alexa who resides therein.  She understands us.  It still amazes me how far we’ve come in the way we now listen to music.  I still remember a time when it wasn’t so easy.