I can remember when I was a child listening to my sister Grace playing Fur Elise on the piano in our family’s front room, and I was so impressed. I also recall that two of my sisters and I all sang in the Hayes Girls Choir under the directorship of Mr. Brian Trant. We didn’t realize then that we were on the cusp of a new musical generation. As we were learning to sight-read music and to play musical instruments, the world was moving on to music recorded electronically.
We lived in the same town as Electronic Musical Industries (EMI) which was about to change everyone’s perception of how music was made. It was going to be made in studios, recorded on vinyl, and purchased in record stores. Our corporate neighbour unknowingly helped in the demise of our family’s cautious ventures into music-making.
The singers in my family never stopped singing, but none of us continued to play musical instruments after a year or two. We all enjoyed listening to music on the radio, which then was primarily via the BBC. That entertainment was all-inclusive. It gave us information, discussion, comedy, music, drama, and news, all without anyone needing to find new apps. Their music was eclectic, too. Through the BBC I listened to classical music, show tunes, opera, pop songs, and humorous musical hall ditties.
When I was in my teenage years, music took a new stylistic turn. The BBC wasn’t ready for competition and was slow to take on board the evolving approaches. Consequently, the new music found alternative resources in off-shore vessels that were close enough to the UK to broadcast to most of the country. Radio Caroline, Tony Blackburn, Dave Lee Travers, and others opened up to me and to the rest of Britain a whole new world of music. Through pirate radio I heard more rock n’ roll, more rhythm and blues, more saucy language, and more regional accents than I ever heard on the BBC.
Since then, I have tried to keep up with multiple technological changes. The vinyl collection was supplemented and overtaken by an audiotape collection, which then became an Apple iPod Nano collection, and then a CD collection. The CD collection became an iTunes collection, and the iTunes collection became an Apple Music collection, so that now I seem to be paying monthly for the privilege of listening to albums I have already paid for.
I still have a CD player, but very few CDs. I no longer have a record player or vinyl records, but I do have most of my favourite albums on iTunes/Apple via my laptop. I even kept the iPod Nano because it was the best, but it no longer works. Recently, I subscribed to Spotify because it provides an easy two hours of music they think I might like. I find, though, that I don’t listen to any of those technologies much these days. Where once there was always music in my background, now there is often silence, sometimes audiobooks, and regularly television. But the music is mostly gone, and I miss it.
You are probably wondering why I don’t just play the music I have saved on iTunes or the music that the Spotify algorithm chooses for me, and I wonder why, too. It just doesn’t seem the same. Part of me wants to go back to the days when I had only one channel and it provided me with all kinds of different music whether I liked it or not. In those days I thought it would be great to be able to listen only to my preferred sounds, but now I realize I was wrong.
I have gone from listening to the BBC’s wide and deep variety, through genre-specific broadcasting, through algorithms that think they know me, to days without any music at all. I’m sure there is an answer to this dilemma, but for now I’m just remembering how good it used to feel to live with all sorts of music occupying part of my mind most of the time.
Snowbird of Paradise 
I do understand but I rather enjoy finding new artists
Yes, but how do you find them?
Suggestions from Apple Music
Oh, I see. Hmm.
Good topic, Anne. I’ve occasionally wondered how I somehow managed to stop listening to music, either on a radio or vinyl, or CDs. I just lost music from my life. I think that when hip hop or rap fell under the realm of music, I gave up. Frank and I had numerous vinyl albums and I had a large CD collection but when we moved, all that seemed rather bulky, especially since we had stopped listening to much of it for quite awhile. At BY I began listening to music when on the computer. It may have lacked the sound I was used to hearing, but it was music I recognized as song. Now I ask Alexa to play specific songs or some genres and have learned to settle for that. The world has changed in so many ways.
We have been through the same process of discarding and buying and now subscribing. The sound from the computer is so tinny compared to CDs with a good CD player, though.
Yes, interesting musings. Especially that you continue to pay for music you had already purchased. In my home, I take a back seat to my husband’s search for music he wants to listen to. (Maybe he’s my BBC station!) Fortunately, I enjoy his choices.
But, right now, I’m in the house alone, and I love the sound of silence. I sometimes turn on music via Alexa, via our subscription to Pandora (sometimes it’s a subscription to Spotify, whatever is working for my husband at the time). But I find I am enjoying silence more and more. Although I have been known to turn on the music to do some dancing in the evening, when I am trying to satisfy a goal on my activity tracker.😁 Another electronic device in my life!
I, too, am content with silence for a lot of the time. I like your idea of dancing in the evening! That sounds like the kind of exercise I could get into 🙂
It’s kinda fun!
My music students have it so easy nowadays with access to essentially any music at any time. Just wish they would listen with a little more intent instead of completely at random!
That’s an interesting thought, Eric. I’m going to make a point of listening to music today, and I’ll try to focus on it.
@snowbirdofparadise.com I have a theory about why you listen to music less now: It used to be that you could just turn on the stereo, and if it was playing the radio yesterday, it would just go on doing that today, automatically. Nowadays you have to turn on the computer and the bluetooth speaker, make sure they're connected, choose an app, choose a playlist… And then all the other sounds probably play through the speaker too, like notifications! That being said, I've been enjoying Spotify's DJ feature. It tells you a category it's picked for you, plays 5 songs from that category, and then switches to something else. I like that there's some variety, but it's always related to things I've listened to before, and I get to have an idea of how the songs are chosen. 🙂
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I like your theory, Jamie. I just can’t be bothered fiddling with the technology these days.
I will check out Spotify’s DJ feature — if I can figure it out! — and let you know what I think.
Well, that was a short-lived experiment! Haha! I have got a new laptop since the last time I used Spotify and now I can’t even open the app! Clearly, I am not their target audience.
. . .
Never mind. I figured it out. 🙂
And, bonus!, I discovered I can get a CKUA app. My life is now complete.
nice article
Thank you! And thank you for visiting.