2009
it’s all here in writing
maura @ 9:42 pm
I am ripping my very first LP to MP3 right this very minute: Thomas Dolby’s second record “The Flat Earth.” So far it’s been a pretty easy process, though you have to press a button to indicate the start of a new track, which is kind of a drag (Jonathan swears that there’s software that senses the silence between tracks automatically, so we will probably look into that). But really the simplicity is amazing — huzzah for USB!
I’ve been thinking a lot about music lately, spurred mostly by turntable acquisition and following the prolific Kristin Hersh on Twitter. Throwing Muses are playing here in mid-March. We’re not going. It’s on a weeknight and our babysitter’s in high school and my mom is busy and it’s expensive and late and loud and…
And in some ways I am sad about that. They’re one of my favorites and don’t tour together much anymore. But I’m not as sad as I thought I would be, which is kind of interesting. You’ve heard me moan & groan here about not being able to keep up with music, not being able to go to shows, blah blah blah. Where has the time gone, why don’t I feel the same drive to go find the new stuff, etc.
The other day I was reading a post on Easily Distracted, historian Timothy Burke’s blog, about mass consumption and the economic crisis. In the middle of the post (reason #5) he writes about “saturation of personal ownership,” and one of his examples is music. Maybe one of the reasons that music sales are slow is that the old folks (i.e., me) are buying less music than they used to. And one reason for that is that we already have so much music, all of the music that we’ve bought over our lives thus far.
I don’t know, it’s not news or anything that I have a lot of music (and only listen to a fraction of it). But for some reason just reading that paragraph made me feel a whole lot better about my relationship with music these days. It’s no big deal if I’m not as hungry for new music as I used to be. I’m having a big birthday this year and I’m too old to worry about whether I’m cool (and I never have been, anyway, so why would I start now?). And just like everything else that there’s not a ton of time for now (hello, video games), I’ll have more time for them again in the future, I’m sure.
And as I slowly digitize my records, all of this old stuff will be new to me, anyway.
6 comments on “it’s all here in writing”
Please keep us updated if Jonathan finds that magic software–it would be enough to get me motivated to do another round of ripping.
CD Spin Doctor (came with Toast); it looks for the lowest local levels and marks the track break accordingly. It is set up to record a side at a time, and makes light edits of the tracks very easy (e.g. tweaking that track break a bit). While not ideal, it is probably what we’ll use.
Yeah, I hope it works, because it turns out that the stuff that came with the turntable didn’t work with our old laptop. I still haven’t tried it with the new laptop yet.
“Saturation of personal ownership” is my new most favorite phrase. It’s only a few months until our annual building stoop sale and this is when the SPO really starts to get to me, aiieee!
[…] so it turns out that I was kind of lying when I said I wasn’t all that disappointed not to be going to this show. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’ve had the 50 Foot Wave […]
[…] got records: 12″, 7″, even a couple of 10″ EPs, some in fun, transparent colors. I’ve had a USB turntable for a while now but hadn’t made much headway on ripping the records to MP3. It was somewhat onerous and […]
I love going to shows, but the hassle is tremendous. I can only imagine that the freedom to see anyone you want in NYC also makes it harder to commit to go, while in B-lo people come so infrequently that it helps motivate me.
I think most people’s interests ebb and flow throughout their lives. Something really good may come along and suddenly music will seem worthy of your attention again. My interest in reading has suffered since Henry was born, but I hope someday to feel the way I used to about books.
Is there a point of “saturation of personal ownership” for shoes and vintage Vera scarves? I suppose there is.