Losing our past
It’s snowing today and as I sit here deciding what I wanted to write about I hit my play button on my computers Windows Media Player. I sat here for awhile listening to songs from my past and enjoying the beat and different styles I have enjoyed for many years now.
I started thinking about how music has changed since the 60’s as I grew up and became aware of how much music is integrated into our brains multilayered memory. We remember things by what song or music was playing in the background in the events of our lives. That first kiss or maybe when you graduated from high school or college. What tunes were associated to those events in your life? Events of our times that burned into our conscientious like the first moon walk or the tragedy of 9/11 are held in our memories by music or video clips from our past.
Things have changed over the last 50 years and in our headlong rush to go digital, much of our past are becoming just meaningless code of 0's and 1's. A substantial amount of material is now stored on computers, magnetic tape and even CDs and is no longer accessible due to rapid deterioration and obsolescence. The average life of a tape is fifteen years, a CD twenty, computer systems and software far less.
Where did it all go?
I once had a pristine copy of “Meet the Beatles” on the now defunct 33 1/3 Long Play (LP) vinyl record. I had a vast collection of music from the 60’s and 70’s in the various formats of the day. I started out with old 78 rpm records and had the single song format 45 rpm that had that little red or yellow plastic spindle adapter. Do you remember those? I had quite a few of those little pieces and my sister even more as she had a ton of old 45’s. I moved to reel-to-reel tapes in the 60’s and had a nice collection but it was big and bulky and could not travel well so it was quickly put away as the next generation format hit the streets of Atlanta.
That was the 8-track tape and they were sold everywhere. You could find them not only at the record stores around town but at every flea market, garage sale, and what is now the “big box stores” like WalMart. We had a player in our homes and in our cars with these boxes stuffed full of tapes. Did you have your collection in several boxes by artist or by style of music? I usually had three boxes in my car. The first tapes were mono but after several years 8-track went stereo and a little later the first attempt for “surround sound” was put out with Quadraphonic in 2 channels, then 4 channel audio sounds. Quadraphonic failed during its time but set the way for the home theater systems of today with excellent surround sound systems at affordable prices.
Vinyl plastic records were lost and the 8-tracks filled landfills all over
Technology has made big changes for both music and video. It has gone into various formats as old systems and older technology slowly fade or become destroyed over time. Valuable music recordings can't be played anymore because of tape damage. For example, the master tapes of rock classics like the Eagles' Hotel California, or REM's Automatic for the People have fallen victim to "sticky shed syndrome", which means the tape is literally sticking together as its chemical constituents come apart. Other recordings are in better shape, but are still at risk of being lost as the technology has become obsolete, and so the machinery to play them is becoming increasingly rare.
Another “Fad” technology during its day was ‘Laser disc’. Phillips and Sony were developing them and you could buy them for music and video for a short time. Before it could take off and become a world standard the Japanese pushed the CD into the marketplace.
Once again our past has slowly slipped away from us as CD’s and not the latest generation of music the MP3 players and format is now here. Again, with this new technology of ipods and all of the players that you can have to hear your music anywhere, in the car, the bathroom or bedroom it is easy now to plug in and hear what you want.
New formats and newer technology has made things easier to carry your music with you or have the sound come from a variety of sound producing systems like the Bose or home theater that are on the market today but I kind of miss those days when I would search the AM or FM stations wanting to hear that special song.
It has almost quit snowing now and I can see the pink glow on the trees outside my window as the daylight quickly fades into the darkness of night. I have gone through several play lists of my favorite music remembering those past times and the events that were associated with those tunes.
I still miss the old 45’s and some of my father’s old 78 LP’s which I think my sister ended up with for many years now.
Music is such a large part of our being and who we are, it is a shame that we are slowly losing our past to ‘new’ technology and the never ending search for a ‘better mousetrap’.
Enjoy your music, remember your past and do not let it slip away in the name of newer innovations.
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