Music

Music is one of the joys of life, and we've come a long way in the last 100 years. It used to be our access to music was live, through someone who actually played an instrument. Might be a harmonic or a violin or a piano or a guitar. People would pull out their instrument and play something. My mother talks about how in the 1930s at Christmas, her dad would play the violin or her sister would play the piano.

Then we had records - the old fashioned grammophone. And all of a sudden, we didn't need to have musical ability in the room, we could bring it into the space through the magic of a record, usually playing at 78 rpm. Then we had 33 1/3 rpm and then 45 rpm.

Along the way, magnetic tapes got developed and all of a sudden there were reel-to-reel tapes - which could store a lot more music than one record. And they morphed into 8 track cassette tapes and they morphed into regular cassettes.

Then, we had the cd... and we all went out and replaced our favourite tapes and records with cds. And now what... well, now we have mp3 and iPod and wma and everything is digital. Miniaturization is at work.

A collection of records took up a lot of space, and they were heavy!! Cassettes and cds took up space as well... but now... now, I can have 4000 or more songs in a little thing that is the size of two fingers (more or less)... I have a virtual library of music at my finger tips. I can listen to anything and everything, whenever I want. I can listen through my computer, or through my iPod. Or I could get a little box that wirelessly connects to my computer network and then play the music over the speakers in the living room. Or I could get wireless speakers and listen to my music all over the house. The possibilities are endless...

And no need for boxes and boxes of records or cds or cassettes... I let go of my cassettes a long time ago. Most of the records went a few years ago... and now it's time to let go of the cds... a few at a time... a little bit here and there... so it's not too much of a shock!