Life Like Vinyl
With most things, we get what we put into them. For things are really matter, there aren’t shortcuts. But if we make the incremental steps, like inspecting our vinyl collection, dusting off a cherished album, adjusting the weights and counterbalances and place the record on the spindle with care, we can have such a rich experience that is enhanced by our knowledge that we had a hand in making it possible.
I have a confession to make: I listen to music on actual records. I know in my neck of the woods in the Pacific Northwest it’s maybe not so unusual to enjoy a real record with a glass of Diet Coke (in the case of most of my neighbors I know their beverage of choice would probably be dark ale from a micro brewery, but you get the idea). But outside of the PNW, these days we don’t do a lot of listening to anything that requires any physical player or item to play.
It’s kind of an odd thing to be in the generation that remembers when they got their first CD, iPod and iTunes account, smartphone capable of playing thousands of songs to now where practically everything has a Bluetooth connection from my refrigerator to my toothbrush capable of playing tunes no matter where I am or what I’m doing.
This always available feature these days, I would absolutely admit, is incredibly convenient. And I have dozens of digital Bluetooth-enabled devices for every room and every occasion too. As I’ve contemplated about the various ways I consume music today, I realize there are two main settings where I consistently “flip on the tunes” (a.k.a Hey, Alexa!). One is for every day use where I’m mainly listening to the music to distract or keep me company while doing house work or other projects where I just enjoy having some music running in the background. The other is quite different.
This is where I’ve grown to love my turntable and slowly accumulating collection of vinyl. You see, for me, putting on a record is an event in and of itself. It’s not really complicated to start a song on a record player, but it takes much more though and effort than just asking Alexa to play something. I get to sort through my collection, weigh my mood against the right tone of music, pull our the large black disk from it’s cover, blow the dust and inspect for scratches or smudges, open the turntable and gently place the record on top of its pin, select the speed and adjust the weight of the needle and then watch with delight after push the start button, the needle mechanism be released and slide into place. And only after all of those actions does the music start with a slight reediness that I’m really starting to dig.
Beyond all of those steps, the average record only holds maybe 30 minutes worth of music per side, so we can’t just out it on the background for long unlike my Pandora music mixes. So I focus more on the actual songs when they’re playing. Buying a record is much more of a event than grabbing an album from the iTune store on my phone. Again, I do a lot of that too. But it’s a different type of experience. One is a fairly passive background type of experience. The other places the music and the mechanism by which that music comes itself front and center. I’m certainly no audiophile. I haven’t waded into the world of tweeters and subwoofers or copper wires. But even I get a thrill out of understanding where that music comes from and my role that I played in creating the music.
With most things, we get what we put into them. For things are really matter, there aren’t shortcuts. But if we make the incremental steps, like inspecting our vinyl collection, dusting off a cherished album, adjusting the weights and counterbalances and place the record on the spindle with care, we can have such a rich experience that is enhanced by our knowledge that we had a hand in making it possible.