The harmonious combination of the melodies from different mediums brought together has always captured the attention of man. We have been rendered immobile just to listen to a tantalising tune and if it is one that has caught our fancy then we would go to the earth's end to make it ours for hearing. The passion we have for music is evident in the different ways we have today to store, listen and enjoy our music.
When talking about music I remember an incident that happened when I was in school, the teacher was taking a chapter on music and pulled me up to ask what my favourite genre of music was. I was not that interested in music so answered that I didn't like it. That was a statement that changed when I got home and told the same to my father who immediately pulled out a few of the cassettes(yes, those rectangular plastic disks with two spools and film) lying around and made me listen to it, it was a few country tracks... listening to the sultry tone of the singer accompanied by the guitar immediately caught my attention and since then been an ardent fan of the genre.
After that day I have been in the search of the medium that best captures the soul of a song and brings the closest rendition of the song. During my vacations post that day, staying with my aunts whose husbands were collectors of music, I was slowly becoming interested in music. Listening to the crooning of most of my families preferred musician all vacation, come the next academic year, I had to get to school and get exposed to the genre that youngsters listen to. Hard Rock, rock. This was the time of Walkmans and my classmates were lugging around cassettes of their favourite singers. For a while i liked listening to if but lost interest in it due to the loudness and the fact that the lyrics seem to be lost with the music. Those were the days when I discovered elvis and micheal jackson. That love still stands and a lot more have been added to the list since. Once the singers were in place then came the time for the medium, what were you going to listen to these singers on? Coming from a family of music lovers the source was not a problem so much as the money needed for buying either cassette or LP's the two available mediums. It was mostly cassettes and the little bug of LP's at the back on my mind.
Cassettes soon gave way to audio Cds and then it was a mad rush to see how to get my hands on cds and a discman. The wait was long and when I did get a discman the audio cds were slowly giving way to the new kid on the block, mp3. This was a format that compressed the file allowing one to store music by the hundreds on a cd when audio cd was having about 10 to 16 songs maximum. While this was going on my grandmother gifts me with an old hifi music system that was lying around and needed repair. After plenty of running around I fix it and now was on the lookout for LP's. When kids my age was running behind cd's I was looking of for lp's. This search had me scour several markets in metros for the elusive lp's. Slowly by slowly I start building my collection, which since has grown to over 400 odd.
My joining a company in Madras was what got me into a lot of lp's, and still today i grab ones that catch my fancy. Starting from that humble player that my grandmother gifted I have over the years acquired several hifi players each an upgrade of the earlier. When i say upgrade i really am not an expert in any way but luckily have some friends who have been very helpful in aiding me get the best there is in the second hand market.
Second hand you may wonder, well apparently the old player do have a lot to offer and are better built than several latest players and just in case you are wondering hasn't technology gotten better, yes it has and so has the cost which make almost all the good brands and technology out of reach. Will one day get my hands on or but till then my tryst with music will continue unhindered and hopefully grow to newer genres and lead to discovering good artists.
My joining a company in Madras was what got me into a lot of lp's, and still today i grab ones that catch my fancy. Starting from that humble player that my grandmother gifted I have over the years acquired several hifi players each an upgrade of the earlier. When i say upgrade i really am not an expert in any way but luckily have some friends who have been very helpful in aiding me get the best there is in the second hand market.
Second hand you may wonder, well apparently the old player do have a lot to offer and are better built than several latest players and just in case you are wondering hasn't technology gotten better, yes it has and so has the cost which make almost all the good brands and technology out of reach. Will one day get my hands on or but till then my tryst with music will continue unhindered and hopefully grow to newer genres and lead to discovering good artists.
