Analog recording-- which is the source of most used vinyl sold at moneyblows books and music-- can be thought to essentially reflect the Victorian scientific imagination, in which sound is mechanically inscribed, rather than digitally encoded.
By contrast, the pitch, tone color, and loudness of a digital playback starts out as binary numbers intelligible to computer circuits. In other words, the presence or absence of an electric pulse (“1” or “0”) is detected and digitially converted in the original reproduction.
The waveform of the sound, as a human might hear it at this point, becomes a representation of the audio frequency, possibly encompassing more than half a million bits per second. For more than a quarter century now, this torrential bit stream has become audible when a digital recording is played back.
It all begins when a musical waveform is "sampled" at least 40,000 times per second. Each sample represents a point in time as the music unfolds. Then, the height of the sound wave at each of these 40,000 sampling points is numerically expressed. Together, these two factors accurately describe the sound wave so that it can be recorded as a series of numbers.
In playback, those numbers are fed into a device called a digital-to-analog converter which produces voltages corresponding to each number at precisely defined points in time. In this way, the digital signal is reconstituted as a waveform.
Once it is digitally encoded, the music’s fidelity is undisturbed—whether it’s on vinyl or CD, or played via a computer's own file or an internet stream, theoretically makes no difference.
A moment of digital silence—or an analogous very faint pianissimo, is preserved without tape or vinyl noise. An explosion of musical loudness needn’t be intentionally (though expertly) distorted for the putative convenience of the end user, or the delicate constitution of a record stylus.
In a digital recording, bass response is extended from 30 to 20 Hz to encompass the very lowest notes of the musical spectrum. Frequency deviation over the entire range from 20 to 20,000 Hz is reduced from ± 2 db to ± 0.5 db, resulting in clarification of tonal timbres and textures thanks to greater linearity in the crucial overtone range.
Dynamic range, i.e. the maximal span between loud and soft, is enlarged to 90 db, closely approximating the natural loudness range of live music. Distortion at maximum loudness shrinks from the traditional norm of 1% to an amount too small to be measured, resulting in the added clarity of loud passages. Finally, flutter and wow - those marginal wobbles of pitch that cause a sense of false vibrato in some conventional recordings - also reduced from the usual 0.050/0 to the point of unmeasurability.
A vinyl record, though, remains the manufactured product of its Victorian heritage—a representation of the musical waveform in inscribed (actually stamped) grooves. It’s necessarily imperfect compared with computer playback, and presents the listener with a Hobson’s choice of whether one should listen with digital ears or analog ears.
Ears are the definitive equipment for listening. The ultimate choice of digital or analog, I think, is cryptically (though oddly appropriately) laid out in the movie “Pulp Fiction,” when (I’m paraphrasing here) Uma Thurman asks John Travolta, “Do you spend your time listening, or waiting to talk?” Travolta hesitates for a moment and says, “I guess I spend most of my time waiting to talk…. But I’m working on listening.”
In listening there invariably is background noise, whether or not it disturbs the foreground intent. A truism of hearing loss is that the two eventually blend, so that the person suffering some auditory loss will say, “I can’t hear you,” particularly in a crowded room.
Using this standard, I don’t mind listening to the background noise in a vinyl record, until it gets so bad I might say to the music, “I can’t hear you.”
Digital techniques can fix that, too. People buy HD TVs so that can get better resolution of a lousy show. The greatest invention of modern culture, television, is about to be bumped off the analog spectrum as of February 2009. You are already being asked to give it up.
I have VHS tapes and records to play. Judge for yourself who is better equipped-- the digital only consumer, or the one the one who admits the imperfections wrought by Thomas Edison when he lit the known world.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
R.I.P. Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley made page one of the New York Times, Tuesday, June 3, 2008. Both there and on page B1, times critic Ben Ratliff wrote insightfully as suggested by the page one headline, "Bo Diddley, who Gave Rock His Beat, Dies at 79." Here's what we have in our store:
La Bamba soundtrack with Bo Diddley on it
Black label Go Bo Diddley on Checker
1958 black label on Chess debut album
It was what we called the Bo Diddley Beat and it does have a sibling resemblance to the Latin clave. The beat can be found in songs from then til now. As a founding father, he was revered by many rock'n roll fans, musicians, and students of popular culture. Like Chuck Berry, he brought a different kind of rhythm/lead guitar to the fore. Here's the times obit from 6/3/08.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Makin' Tracks by The Fivepenny Piece
Like finding a needle in a haystack, sometimes we don't fully appreciate a treasure we have in our online store-- until it's SOLD! I remember never taking a second look at this album, with its early 1970s hairstyles and the group posing in front of a big steam locomotive. Folkies posing in front of trains-- well, it just didn't stand out. Then we sold it and by tomorrow it will be gone; but thank heavens we dropped the needle on this baby!
If you, like me, often wonder how such immense musical genius can go unrewarded by the consuming public, you would like this vintage 1973 album too. And, you might like the group, which does have a website. The group is called The Fivepenny Piece, or just Fivepenny Piece, and the album we have/had is called "Makin' Tracks." The music speaks for itself, and rather than bore you further with my take on it, I will just reproduced the liner notes, by a fellow named Peter Pilbeam:
"Fivepenny Piece, a coin value 5np, which could equally well stand for 'five nice people': Lynda and John Meeks, Eddie Crotty and Colin and George Radcliffe who make up one of my favourite groups. I've been listening to them for a while now and, having heard this, their latest LP, I think it can be described as definitely one for your collection.
Our Fivepenny Piece has three faces, and all are here. For example, Side One begins with Lou-Lay-Lye, words by Colin Radcliffe and music by John Meeks, a combination of talents that occurs throughout any program by Fivepenny Piece. In contrast to this plaintive song, the nonsense lyrics of Land of the Musical Telephone have distinct overtones of Edward Lear. Lynda, with assistance from John and Eddie, sings about Winter Sun and then, again in complete contrast, Eddie holds forth about those ever-popular evening classes where gallons of Homemade Brew are made.
Emerald Dew brings Lynda and brother John together again with thoughts similar to those you must have had on a summer's morning, whereas John's The Old Tyrant bemoans the cold of winter. The tempo quickens with He Willy Nilly, the man who lives in the warm, warm sun and then we are at the end of Side One with The Journeys of My Mind; but don't despair, there's more on the other side . . .
. . . beginning with The Time is Now, in which our three vocalists take an inward look at themselves. A Gradely Prayer is one of three dialect songs included in this album; Eddie takes the solo part. An old Lancashire prayer provided the words, which still make a lot of sense.
The Passing of Today poses a question for all of us as members of the human race, whereas in The Day of the Rain John tells about . . . - but I'll not spoil the end for you. It's comedy time again folks, with a brand new song from our prolific pair, as Eddie complains I'm Henpecked! Last song but one is Rembrandt; it tells how that famous Dutch painter ended his days. Leaving you on a happy note, which is the way Fivepenny Piece always leave me, we have another nonsense song, a catchy tune with lyrics to match in See-Saw Song.
I can't leave these notes without mentioning the sympathetic backing of Colin and George on guitar and bass guitar; to me they help tremendously in the enjoyment of all these songs. Well, there it is, all "homemade brew" (to pinch one of their titles), and if this is your first experience of the music of Fivepenny Piece, I guarantee you'll come back time and time again to this disc and fifteen songs that are different. In this day and age that's saying something!"
A few other quick notes before I send this album out to the lucky buyer: A couple of familiar British musical stars are credited: Kevin Godley on drums and Alan Parsons as recording engineer (along with Dave Fleming.) Producer was Bob Barratt. The front cover photo was taken at the Dinting Railway Centre, Glossop, Derbyshire. The label is Columbia / EMI and the record number is SCX 6536. If you ever see this record in a bargain bin, don't let it escape your clutches!
If you, like me, often wonder how such immense musical genius can go unrewarded by the consuming public, you would like this vintage 1973 album too. And, you might like the group, which does have a website. The group is called The Fivepenny Piece, or just Fivepenny Piece, and the album we have/had is called "Makin' Tracks." The music speaks for itself, and rather than bore you further with my take on it, I will just reproduced the liner notes, by a fellow named Peter Pilbeam:
"Fivepenny Piece, a coin value 5np, which could equally well stand for 'five nice people': Lynda and John Meeks, Eddie Crotty and Colin and George Radcliffe who make up one of my favourite groups. I've been listening to them for a while now and, having heard this, their latest LP, I think it can be described as definitely one for your collection.
Our Fivepenny Piece has three faces, and all are here. For example, Side One begins with Lou-Lay-Lye, words by Colin Radcliffe and music by John Meeks, a combination of talents that occurs throughout any program by Fivepenny Piece. In contrast to this plaintive song, the nonsense lyrics of Land of the Musical Telephone have distinct overtones of Edward Lear. Lynda, with assistance from John and Eddie, sings about Winter Sun and then, again in complete contrast, Eddie holds forth about those ever-popular evening classes where gallons of Homemade Brew are made.
Emerald Dew brings Lynda and brother John together again with thoughts similar to those you must have had on a summer's morning, whereas John's The Old Tyrant bemoans the cold of winter. The tempo quickens with He Willy Nilly, the man who lives in the warm, warm sun and then we are at the end of Side One with The Journeys of My Mind; but don't despair, there's more on the other side . . .
. . . beginning with The Time is Now, in which our three vocalists take an inward look at themselves. A Gradely Prayer is one of three dialect songs included in this album; Eddie takes the solo part. An old Lancashire prayer provided the words, which still make a lot of sense.
The Passing of Today poses a question for all of us as members of the human race, whereas in The Day of the Rain John tells about . . . - but I'll not spoil the end for you. It's comedy time again folks, with a brand new song from our prolific pair, as Eddie complains I'm Henpecked! Last song but one is Rembrandt; it tells how that famous Dutch painter ended his days. Leaving you on a happy note, which is the way Fivepenny Piece always leave me, we have another nonsense song, a catchy tune with lyrics to match in See-Saw Song.
I can't leave these notes without mentioning the sympathetic backing of Colin and George on guitar and bass guitar; to me they help tremendously in the enjoyment of all these songs. Well, there it is, all "homemade brew" (to pinch one of their titles), and if this is your first experience of the music of Fivepenny Piece, I guarantee you'll come back time and time again to this disc and fifteen songs that are different. In this day and age that's saying something!"
A few other quick notes before I send this album out to the lucky buyer: A couple of familiar British musical stars are credited: Kevin Godley on drums and Alan Parsons as recording engineer (along with Dave Fleming.) Producer was Bob Barratt. The front cover photo was taken at the Dinting Railway Centre, Glossop, Derbyshire. The label is Columbia / EMI and the record number is SCX 6536. If you ever see this record in a bargain bin, don't let it escape your clutches!
Friday, April 18, 2008
Record Store Day, April 19, 2008
According to an industry association, tomorrow, April 19, is "Record Store Day," celebrating the fast-fading breed of retailers who sell hard copies of digital music as well as the more specialized product of analog hard copies, otherwise known as vinyl records. Actually, the latter are more than "hard copies," they are actual music reproductions from performances captured on acetate, wire, tape, or more recently, hard drives.
According to an article in a national newspaper, record stores are closing at a record pace. For whatever reason, today's music consumers plug themselves into their digital sources rather than physically engage in playback activities. The most common exceptions to this rule are DJ's, who maintain the culture by spinning records and adding some twists of their own.
At moneyblows books and music, our storefront is complete virtual, but we agree with what performer Regina Spektor had to say recently about record stores: "They have their own art form." Anyone who read the book or saw the movie "High Fidelity" is familiar with the all-knowing record store clerk, who can still be found in big urban centers and strategically located stores such as the Princeton Record Exchange in New Jersey.
Former record store employees are now a big fixture on the world wide web, using their knowledge to sell records all over the planet from their home offices. Where we write this blog from-- in New Hampshire-- the online sellers are often former record store know-it-alls, such as the guy who calls himself "wingo" on ebay. Another longtime online seller, up in Conway, New Hampshire, actually opened a physical location in 2007, a gutsy thing to do in a declining business. Yes, he is struggling to stay open, working part-time at a convenience store selling lottery tickets, since he has figured out what people in his market area really want to buy. Yes, there are a few record buyers, and they know where to go-- to his store on Main Street, in a quaint old building with a brick storefront, and they know he has irregular hours, and they know to make an appointment if they're really serious about buying-- or, more often than not-- selling the records they haven't played in years.
As I celebrate record store day-- our online store does indeed fall into Regina Spektor's definition of an "art form," I think of how record buying began for me. It wasn't record stores! I remember browsing through all the records every week at Birnbaum's Furniture on Main Street in New Britain, Conn. They all had list prices of $3.98 or so-- too much for a guy saving up for a bicycle with his paper route money-- but at least you could see what was coming out from week to week. Then there was Warren's Music on West Main Street-- he is still there, I saw him last week standing like a mummy in front of his cash register, same as in 1962, where the 45 rpms were kept in neat bins, from 67 to 98 cents each, and Warren would shoo you away if you were just browsing. That was a true record store and it was not for the faint of heart.
The affordable records were at Woolworth's, also on Main Street in New Britain. From the 1960s until the 1980s, a half hour spent in Woolworth's could yield any number of treasures from the 99 cent discount bin. This is where I cultivated record browsing; no one at Woolworth's cared how much time you spent in their bins. Then, as downtown New Britain fell victim to white flight, strip shopping centers flowered in the suburbs; just as disposable income began to come more freely to a young teenager with a paper route, a summer job in the tobacco fields, and the occasional garage band gig.
We started our after-school sessions at Sears, the anchor store at Corbins Corner, which had several price points for records, using color codes. Then we moved to the Neisners discount store, which had the kind of stock that Woolworth's had pioneered-- records that were out of date by as little as a couple months.
As indoor malls took over the shopping addicts from strip centers, the creature called a "record store," flowered in the form of chain stores too numerous to mention-- all gone now. Frankly, most of them were boring to a young person conditioned to treasure hunt for records. Their neat classifications and rapacious pricing took all the fun out of record shopping. In the long run, those stores paved the way for CDs.
The next big record store in my life was Record Town in Fort Worth, Texas. It was a family run cubbyhole on the campus strip on University Drive, with a know-it-all owner who would give you an informal Ph.D in popular music, but an unspoken rule was, you had to buy something; he didn't stay in business by either talking or listening. It was there I learned about some of the great Texas artists in jazz, blues and r&b, and later played with the owner's son in the blues band that formed my own playing style on tenor sax.
The family-owned operation couldn't afford too many discounts, though. They specialized in service, getting you anything you wanted in the Schwann catalog if it wasn't in stock. By this time, it was back to Woolworth's, which still held court in downtown Fort Worth. And, you never knew what department store might try a discount record bin for awhile-- the medium was fading fast and "unwanted" vinyl treasures got cheaper and cheaper.
Finally a person has all the records they need. Already having an online bookstore, I added records to it. And, record needles, in honor of the wonderful product line that accompanies records from Warren's to Record Town. You would never find record needles at a discount or department store; the provenance of my own stock is Radio Shack stores which discontinued the items in the mid-1990s.
What makes us stick with records? Things like this: today I have an order for Bob Dylan's album "Self Portrait." A little research reveals that the buyer is ordering from Italy.... a little more research reveals he is buying up every copy of this album he can find.... a little more research reveals that some sellers are refusing to sell to him, thinking he is a scammer because of ordering so many copies....a little more research suggests he is driving up the price of the Bob Dylan Self Portrait gatefold album.....a little more research reveals that..... he's a Bard College art professor working on a sculpture constructed out of these gatefold album covers!
That kind of thing happens more often than you might think in the strange world of record selling.
Even stranger is knowing that probably no one, or certainly a very few, humans will ever lay eyes on this blog entry. In that respect, it makes me not much different from the spectral portrait I viewed last week, standing on the sidewalk on West Main Street in New Britain, Conn., peering through the window at Warren's Music Centre. Standing at the cash register, his hawkish chin and prominent nose in clear profile, staring straight ahead at the wall; it's Warren himself.... waiting for a record buyer.
According to an article in a national newspaper, record stores are closing at a record pace. For whatever reason, today's music consumers plug themselves into their digital sources rather than physically engage in playback activities. The most common exceptions to this rule are DJ's, who maintain the culture by spinning records and adding some twists of their own.
At moneyblows books and music, our storefront is complete virtual, but we agree with what performer Regina Spektor had to say recently about record stores: "They have their own art form." Anyone who read the book or saw the movie "High Fidelity" is familiar with the all-knowing record store clerk, who can still be found in big urban centers and strategically located stores such as the Princeton Record Exchange in New Jersey.
Former record store employees are now a big fixture on the world wide web, using their knowledge to sell records all over the planet from their home offices. Where we write this blog from-- in New Hampshire-- the online sellers are often former record store know-it-alls, such as the guy who calls himself "wingo" on ebay. Another longtime online seller, up in Conway, New Hampshire, actually opened a physical location in 2007, a gutsy thing to do in a declining business. Yes, he is struggling to stay open, working part-time at a convenience store selling lottery tickets, since he has figured out what people in his market area really want to buy. Yes, there are a few record buyers, and they know where to go-- to his store on Main Street, in a quaint old building with a brick storefront, and they know he has irregular hours, and they know to make an appointment if they're really serious about buying-- or, more often than not-- selling the records they haven't played in years.
As I celebrate record store day-- our online store does indeed fall into Regina Spektor's definition of an "art form," I think of how record buying began for me. It wasn't record stores! I remember browsing through all the records every week at Birnbaum's Furniture on Main Street in New Britain, Conn. They all had list prices of $3.98 or so-- too much for a guy saving up for a bicycle with his paper route money-- but at least you could see what was coming out from week to week. Then there was Warren's Music on West Main Street-- he is still there, I saw him last week standing like a mummy in front of his cash register, same as in 1962, where the 45 rpms were kept in neat bins, from 67 to 98 cents each, and Warren would shoo you away if you were just browsing. That was a true record store and it was not for the faint of heart.
The affordable records were at Woolworth's, also on Main Street in New Britain. From the 1960s until the 1980s, a half hour spent in Woolworth's could yield any number of treasures from the 99 cent discount bin. This is where I cultivated record browsing; no one at Woolworth's cared how much time you spent in their bins. Then, as downtown New Britain fell victim to white flight, strip shopping centers flowered in the suburbs; just as disposable income began to come more freely to a young teenager with a paper route, a summer job in the tobacco fields, and the occasional garage band gig.
We started our after-school sessions at Sears, the anchor store at Corbins Corner, which had several price points for records, using color codes. Then we moved to the Neisners discount store, which had the kind of stock that Woolworth's had pioneered-- records that were out of date by as little as a couple months.
As indoor malls took over the shopping addicts from strip centers, the creature called a "record store," flowered in the form of chain stores too numerous to mention-- all gone now. Frankly, most of them were boring to a young person conditioned to treasure hunt for records. Their neat classifications and rapacious pricing took all the fun out of record shopping. In the long run, those stores paved the way for CDs.
The next big record store in my life was Record Town in Fort Worth, Texas. It was a family run cubbyhole on the campus strip on University Drive, with a know-it-all owner who would give you an informal Ph.D in popular music, but an unspoken rule was, you had to buy something; he didn't stay in business by either talking or listening. It was there I learned about some of the great Texas artists in jazz, blues and r&b, and later played with the owner's son in the blues band that formed my own playing style on tenor sax.
The family-owned operation couldn't afford too many discounts, though. They specialized in service, getting you anything you wanted in the Schwann catalog if it wasn't in stock. By this time, it was back to Woolworth's, which still held court in downtown Fort Worth. And, you never knew what department store might try a discount record bin for awhile-- the medium was fading fast and "unwanted" vinyl treasures got cheaper and cheaper.
Finally a person has all the records they need. Already having an online bookstore, I added records to it. And, record needles, in honor of the wonderful product line that accompanies records from Warren's to Record Town. You would never find record needles at a discount or department store; the provenance of my own stock is Radio Shack stores which discontinued the items in the mid-1990s.
What makes us stick with records? Things like this: today I have an order for Bob Dylan's album "Self Portrait." A little research reveals that the buyer is ordering from Italy.... a little more research reveals he is buying up every copy of this album he can find.... a little more research reveals that some sellers are refusing to sell to him, thinking he is a scammer because of ordering so many copies....a little more research suggests he is driving up the price of the Bob Dylan Self Portrait gatefold album.....a little more research reveals that..... he's a Bard College art professor working on a sculpture constructed out of these gatefold album covers!
That kind of thing happens more often than you might think in the strange world of record selling.
Even stranger is knowing that probably no one, or certainly a very few, humans will ever lay eyes on this blog entry. In that respect, it makes me not much different from the spectral portrait I viewed last week, standing on the sidewalk on West Main Street in New Britain, Conn., peering through the window at Warren's Music Centre. Standing at the cash register, his hawkish chin and prominent nose in clear profile, staring straight ahead at the wall; it's Warren himself.... waiting for a record buyer.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Ferrari in the news? If you have a Ferrari, you probably make your own news. Ferrari owners, true to their income brackets, are a clannish lot and have long reported their doings in publications not only authorized by Ferrari, but also through owners clubs and the king of all Ferrari publications, Cavallino.
In the bigger world of grand prix motor racing, Ferrari is also a force. Recent "racy" news stories have quoted the legendary Ferrari champion Jody Scheckter, who won the Formula One world driver's title for the marque in 1979.
Perhaps not content for Cavallino to solely report on Ferrari activities in the glossy magazine world, the car company announced in March 2008 that they will partner with Conde Nast to co-publish a quarterly slick beginning at the end of September at the 2008 Paris Auto Show.
That's a nod to the longstanding authority of Cavallino among Ferrari owners, who collect scarce copies of the magazine and have driven back issue prices up continuously for almost a quarter century. In our store we now have some selected back issues from 1984 to 2006. We also offer the Ferrari tribute publication from the Monterey Historic Automobile Races and Ferrari Concours d'Elegance International Meet in 1984. Also, Testa Rossa Number 3 (covering the retirement of Jody Scheckter); and Ferrari Market Letter Volume 31 Number 11 covering the 2006 Mille Miglia.
To see any or all of these items, click the links above or type in "Ferrari" or "Cavallino" in our search box. All the items come from one collector who hasn't owned a Ferrari in a while. Why do some of them seem so scarce? The scarcity derives from so many Ferrari collectors being the "buy and hold" types. Chances are, any of these publications you buy from us today will resell for more in the days and months to come. It's certainly not a promise or even a suggestion, but if past history holds true, scarce copies of Cavallino almost never go down in price. If you would like to compare prices, we suggest going to Cavallino's own website, where they also provide back issues and pretty much set the market price for them. Happy racing!
Monday, March 17, 2008
If the "60s" means anything to you, it might be because you're pushing 60, and also grew up in the "1960s." We have just databased dozens of Boys' Life magazines from 1960 through 1966, now offered in our store. If you'd likely to quickly cruise through some examples of the table of contents of this magazine, here are links to 1966 and 1964-65. Many other TOCs are provided in text form with the listings for the individual issues. Boys' Life Magazine was a repository for both some of the most famous and most obscure contributors that people admire. Now, when you search Norman Rockwell on our site, you will see not only Life and Saturday Evening Post covers but also Boys' Life magazine covers. When you search Isaac Asimov, Pearl S. Buck, Margaret Mead, you will now see some of their Boys' Life Magazine contributions in the search results on moneyblows.com.
Science fiction, prehistoric fiction, cartoons, photo features, and how-tos all intermingled with essential Boy Scout propaganda messages, such as wearing your uniform as often as possible, owning as many accessories as possible, and working your way up the ranks so you will be ready for athletic or military society, or even higher education, as fate will have it.
In the time frame of these issues, the table of contents page changed its layout around three times. The back cover soft drink ads morphed from 1950s activity scenarios to 1960s image advertising (show a huge bottle). There was nary a hint of impropriety or rebellion within its pages, and pleasing authority was considered more important than pleasing a girl. The magazine contains hidden gems for those willing to look, such as multi-part adventure stories and interviews with luminaries such as Yogi Berra and Willie Mays, and photo features by Ansel Adams and Philippe Halsman. Many collectors have gotten hooked on Boys' Life Magazine; one has even indexed all the "Think and Grin" and "Daffynition" entries that refer to the Beatles ("What do you call longhair music? Anything by the Beatles.")
Having added this Boys' Life Magazine selection to our store, we feel the sense of ennui that accompanies the fatigue of having worked very hard on something profoundly useless. Reason enough for a new merit badge.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
"Listening to a gramophone used to be an irksome business. Nowadays, however, it is possible to be altogether as absorbed in a fine piece of music.... as one would be in the concert hall."
Frank Swinnerton wrote the above in 1923.
"At last an orchestra really sounds like an orchestra; we get.... what we rarely had before-- the physical delight of passionate music in the concert room or opera house."
Ernest Newman wrote the above, about the advent of electrical recording, in 1926.
"Of greatest significance is the replacement of a conventional stylus with a laser beam that scans the record, thus eliminating not only end-of-side distortion but also the friction that generates record wear."
Mortimer H. Frank wrote the above in 1983, about the advent of CD playback.
Since the early 1980s, other things have also changed. Broadcast radio. Music in popular culture. What the eye sees when it hears music. Sheet music. Big hole records. LP records, tapes, CDs. The recipes for making the music: playing an instrument....turning on a radio....spinning a record......popping in a CD. The recipes for care of the artifact.... keep it clean.... put it back in its container..... etc. etc.
Now, similar to when the music industry once deemed the CD would replace the vinyl record, and with popular demand for live music performances less than ever, computerized music is flourishing in its newly miniaturized form, as bits and bytes on inter-networked computers and computer-like appliances. Freed from the irrelevant fetish you hold in your hand-- that record album, that digital storage disc-- music can just be its wonderful invisible self and show off its variety, its border-crossings, its moods, glow,the genius of its practitioners-- and never mind the business model that required garish advertising packages to attract the attention of store buyers. Internet radio in particular provides listeners with amazing tools for understanding and organizing their music listening.
A steady stream of new stuff can pour into the consciousness of anyone whether they are traipsing to a subway stop, sitting in a corporate cubicle, killing an infidel enemy or sending ringtones to friends. Music lovers can travel light while they behold the heaviest sounds.
In this light, alas, a collection of vinyl represents a time past, imbued with the values that attach to your sense of nostalgia (or not.) Lately in the store we have been adding dozens of sheet music songsheets and folios ranging from the late 1800s to around 1950. The often garish covers of these piano/vocal scores might promote the song, or feature the show the song appeared in; maybe even the stars of a film or musical theatre production. The illustration styles reflect the times. People had pianos not iPods. 78 rpm players, not hi-fi's. Radios, not televisions.
We've also put up a few Mosaic Records brochures. These lovely magazines from the 1980s and 1990s were the periodic catalogs of the company run by Michael Cuscuna and Charlie Lourie. The lovingly and discerningly packaged jazz reissues on the Mosaic label incorporated both respect for the originals and the added value of care and significance. The brochure catalogs contain helpful discography information and intelligent articles about the featured artists.
Both examples of ephemera in our store-- songsheets from the early 20th century and reissue catalogs from the late 20th century-- reflect a certain place and time in the dissemination of popular music. Although we do link to amazon mp3 catalogs in our online store, we will always specialize in the older, advertising/artifact encumbered music media. You had to be somewhere to play it on the piano or spin it on a turntable. You couldn't just be anywhere to select your own music, as is possible today. The transistor radio (1960s) provided a glimpse at what we now can experience as exactly the music we want, anytime we want it. Still, I don't know when I'll stop reading the back of an album cover, probably never!
Frank Swinnerton wrote the above in 1923.
"At last an orchestra really sounds like an orchestra; we get.... what we rarely had before-- the physical delight of passionate music in the concert room or opera house."
Ernest Newman wrote the above, about the advent of electrical recording, in 1926.
"Of greatest significance is the replacement of a conventional stylus with a laser beam that scans the record, thus eliminating not only end-of-side distortion but also the friction that generates record wear."
Mortimer H. Frank wrote the above in 1983, about the advent of CD playback.
Since the early 1980s, other things have also changed. Broadcast radio. Music in popular culture. What the eye sees when it hears music. Sheet music. Big hole records. LP records, tapes, CDs. The recipes for making the music: playing an instrument....turning on a radio....spinning a record......popping in a CD. The recipes for care of the artifact.... keep it clean.... put it back in its container..... etc. etc.
Now, similar to when the music industry once deemed the CD would replace the vinyl record, and with popular demand for live music performances less than ever, computerized music is flourishing in its newly miniaturized form, as bits and bytes on inter-networked computers and computer-like appliances. Freed from the irrelevant fetish you hold in your hand-- that record album, that digital storage disc-- music can just be its wonderful invisible self and show off its variety, its border-crossings, its moods, glow,the genius of its practitioners-- and never mind the business model that required garish advertising packages to attract the attention of store buyers. Internet radio in particular provides listeners with amazing tools for understanding and organizing their music listening.
A steady stream of new stuff can pour into the consciousness of anyone whether they are traipsing to a subway stop, sitting in a corporate cubicle, killing an infidel enemy or sending ringtones to friends. Music lovers can travel light while they behold the heaviest sounds.
In this light, alas, a collection of vinyl represents a time past, imbued with the values that attach to your sense of nostalgia (or not.) Lately in the store we have been adding dozens of sheet music songsheets and folios ranging from the late 1800s to around 1950. The often garish covers of these piano/vocal scores might promote the song, or feature the show the song appeared in; maybe even the stars of a film or musical theatre production. The illustration styles reflect the times. People had pianos not iPods. 78 rpm players, not hi-fi's. Radios, not televisions.
We've also put up a few Mosaic Records brochures. These lovely magazines from the 1980s and 1990s were the periodic catalogs of the company run by Michael Cuscuna and Charlie Lourie. The lovingly and discerningly packaged jazz reissues on the Mosaic label incorporated both respect for the originals and the added value of care and significance. The brochure catalogs contain helpful discography information and intelligent articles about the featured artists.
Both examples of ephemera in our store-- songsheets from the early 20th century and reissue catalogs from the late 20th century-- reflect a certain place and time in the dissemination of popular music. Although we do link to amazon mp3 catalogs in our online store, we will always specialize in the older, advertising/artifact encumbered music media. You had to be somewhere to play it on the piano or spin it on a turntable. You couldn't just be anywhere to select your own music, as is possible today. The transistor radio (1960s) provided a glimpse at what we now can experience as exactly the music we want, anytime we want it. Still, I don't know when I'll stop reading the back of an album cover, probably never!
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