What Does Music Mean Anymore?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ค. 2023
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Music for me is a time machine. It causes me to return to the time in my life that song was popular, or a special meaning for me. It has been over 50 years but when I hear Rod Stewart singing "Maggie Mae" I feel the cold air on my face and my boots hitting the frozen ground on campus as a college freshman. I don't just remember it, I actually feel it. Music is that important to me as I know it is to many people.
"Maggie Mae" was a college freshman experience for me, too.
Same with me ! 😊
Music is a time machine for me as well in a different way. Hard to describe…..different times of my life have a unique emotional coloring to them. The way i felt at the time a song was popular comes back for a short time and i remember the circumstances.
Other times it is as if i were traveling away, never to return. If you could tune into the lost past like a radio station from your hometown, for a brief moment it feels like all of it is still back there the way you left it, awaiting your return.
It sounds strange but that is the way i roll.
So eloquent, Fran. I remember sitting for hours and just listening to albums as a kid and teen. Not doing anything else but listening, concentrating on the music. I miss those days.
Can you find 45 minutes to listen to a modern “album?“ The concept album of the 70’s happens sometimes because kids had parents. Billie Eilish where do we go when we dream or whatever she called it is comes to mind listen to that one. My suggestion. ❤ or one of my albums… yeh…
Children of the Sunnnnnnn suuuuuunnn suuuuunn… anything but Floyd
I remember the Early days of FM ... they would drop the needle on the new album and just play it like - dark side of the moon
Recapture those days! Today, I encourage you, Queen of the Goblins, to do just that.
I agree wholeheartedly! I’m the same age as you, and was brought up with analog too. My daughter has grown up in the digital age. I cannot bear digital, it sounds harsh and high-pitch to me, and my daughter finds analog muffled. For me, music is there to truly listen to and absorb yourself into it. My whole life has been immersed in music, and I’m grateful for that.
This is a small gift for you, Fran. You’re my muse
Thanks for the Big Bump MegaMandy! We'll keep the lights going for a bit with that.
I completely agree! I feel the same way about music. I'm not a musician but I couldn't go a day without music. I've had the same thought about what would happen to my record collection after I die. Its uniquely me. Anyone else would just see it as a pile of records but to me its inseparable from my life story and who I am. Each album has meaning and can be tied to a place and a time and a memory. I've inherited my Dad's record collection and although I don't like most of the music, I like keeping it all together, at least for a little while longer.
Stereo is the most natural because we have two (2) ears. We naturally hear in stereo.
Exactly. Unless you don’t have two working ears, your whole life is in stereo.
My audio quirk is to prefer a distant radio station - just on the edge of my listening area. Even with optimal tuning, there is a continuous background hiss, like white noise. When that station added a streaming option, I found the music to be jangly and boring compared to the added exotic white noise of the borderline reception.
If you drive down highway 97 in central Oregon, there is a station somewhere along the way that comes in and out as you wind through the trees. It's like a station from the 80s/90s never changed their programming, even throwing in some local bands from that era. It feels like you've slipped through time driving down the highway, surreal and very cool.
That's why shortwave radio is so amazing and appealing :)
I as of late have been tuning the AM band and I like that fast flutter sound of the signal fade, and sometimes how I can get one station from Melbourne victoria(about 230 KM away and one somewhere in Queensland I think brisbane over 1000KM away. They both take turns as who comes in or rotate radio and null the other out. This is at night of course and the melb one is only 1 KW not sure the other.
“Music is my life”. I share the exact same sentiments, Fran!!
Fran, I’ve spent the majority of my life listening, writing and recording my own music as well as the music of others. So, it comes to no surprise that I was totally moved by this video you made. I seem to have the same basic memories and radio dreams that you have! If someone had given me a transcript of this video without telling me who wrote it I would swear the words came from me. Thanks for sharing your very personal thoughts on this matter.
Dark Side of the Moon & The Wall are great in stereo.
I listened to this on the livestream, and again with this edit, quite a captivating talk, putting into words what of lot of us in our 40's & upwards feel, but don't normally discuss.
Dear Fran...I love you, but I also love stereo. I love the point-source relationship that a stereo mix can provide. I see that the speaker spacing in your lovely lab is about the same as what we would get in our 1960's console stereo cabinets. Very nice. Fran, I respect your musicianship, and as a percussion and electronics player myself, I find the ability to move sounds around in an acoustic space is useful. Think of closing your eyes in the forest. I did, however, buy the Beatles in mono box set. I love it too. Is listening to Esquivel a guilty ;pleasure or a serious pursuit? The listener must decide. I remain forever a Fran fan.
In the UK we have Cornetto ice creams, they're like a grown-ups version of yours.
Just one Cornetto… GIVE IT TO MEEEE! (delicious ice cream, from Italeeee)
When I was in Italy in 1996, I came to the conclusion that Italian cafe ice creams and coffees were entirely symbolic, the payment was for being able to be SEEN there consuming them.
It's crazy how often I find myself not wanting to do something or having any energy and what gets me through it is putting on music.
My daughter has been to over three hundred concerts. She is 33. I think I did well.
Always support live music...
I picked up guitar in my late 50s and couldn’t be more than 10 feet from my guitar for years. Alas, the passion eventually faded. I admire your skill. And your intellect.
There was a fun "Everybody Loves Raymond" episode that revolved around new and old technology. Raymond found a still unopened gift of a DVD player in his parent's basement. And at some long ago Christmas somebody had moved his father's jazz records too close to the basement furnace and ruined them. So Raymond buys DVD versions. The first funny gag is Raymond trying to open the DVD, get the wrapper off, get the super sticky security label strip off, even smacking it against a workbench. His mother also comments on all the controls on the player saying "we're not NASA scientists" and the parents walk away with Raymond left frustrated. Later, Raymond has it set up upstairs and when the parents return from the grocery store plays the DVD and it was LOUD. And they drop the grocery bags and they still hate the DVD player. Raymond gets it adjust right and explains it is better than the original. But it is futile. His older brother shows up with old vinyl records from a used record store. The father puts one on of jazz saxophone and it has less frequency response and is very scratchy. The father says, "Now THAT'S music."
3:13 WTF? The best music, IMHO, is the phased music made by people like The Alan Parsons Project, Moody Blues, Rush.... You miss so much if you do not listen in stereo. In fact, Fran, I believe in it so much that I even added a 6 and 25 foot extension to my sound bar and put it right above my head from where I usually lay. Acoustically this is backed up by an 1898 Kimball Upright Piano that won an Award at the World's Fair for best Piano Construction. ( I figure if I ever need a shield against small arms fire that heavy brass soundboard will be bulletproof and then some. And its on wheels... )
As the strings pick up the sound bar's vibrations(40 Watts, 6 speakers) the added warmth is absolutely phenomenal. Sublime, even! You rock on, girl. You be you.
Moody Blues 👍👍 Absolutely.
Wait, did I read that correctly, you have a speaker system set up to have a whole piano running sympathetic strings? That rules.
@@CatFish107 I had to look up sympathetic strings(great phrase, kind of explains why I like the sitar so much, too) but yup, that's the bottom line. It really helps digital music be more analog w/o buying tubes technology.
The trick back then in the 80's, was to go to the rubbish tip, find a car radio, bring it home, and run it off 12Vs using a old car battery and a home made charger from a 12" B&W TV. That was my sound system. I then learnt about antennas and made a DX ant to get stations from 300km away. So loved that time.
One thing you missed in this conversation. I also grew up riding in the car listening to AM radio. This was in the late 1970's. In a 1974 Dodge Dart. My mom would always have KDKA 1020 playing on the radio. I can still hear her favorite songs playing. The thing you didn't mention that I remember oh so well, was that every time the car passed beneath electrical wires, the station would fade out and then back in. I can still hear Billy Joel singing "Just the Way You Are". Fading in and out. But my mothers voice never faltered...she kept the song alive through the fade outs. These are some of the warmest memories of my childhood.
Yes, the AM fadeout under power lines....
Have similar memories about my dad - even remember asking him why the radio did that!
I took a bus, at 7 years old, to a Rose's department store about 10 miles from my house, to buy an AM radio with the proceeds of collecting bottles for their return deposit. I collected empty bottles in the neighborhood for weeks, returning them to a Tinee Giant convenience store, until I had enough money to buy the radio I had seen on a previous visit.
I brought that little white radio home, with a couple extra batteries, and no one even realized I had gone so far from home. My mother thought I had been 'outside' playing the entire time.
I put the little radio under my pillow, and for months I slept with music playing under my pillow, so that only I could hear it. Eventually I ran out of battery power and had to collect more bottles (which became my regular habit) for fresh batteries.
I listened to that radio under my pillow for years.
There is not a song from the 60s or 70s that I do not have the lyrics for in my head, waiting for the opening bars of a song to come flooding back. Apparently, I absorbed all the lyrics by osmosis.
But my consumption of music changed when I first heard Pink Floyd on the radio.
I would put a Pink Floyd cassette in my car radio and my speaker response was not good enough. I spent hundreds of dollars for the best stereo I could get. I bought home stereo systems to disassemble and make into a car stereo. I put an extra alternator in my car for added battery power to power my stereo.
It was a whole new experience to what I had fell in love with.
I played different music in my car than I would in my house. In my house was a radio, where the speakers were all together and the system sounded like a typical radio. But if I heard a song that sounded like it would be better in deep stereo, I went to Tracks music store and found a cassette.
I will still put in the Wall album when it is time for spring cleaning in my house. But now I have speakers in every room, with a switch to cut them off and on at will. I have subwoofers that literally rattle the windows in the house even at low volume.
I exist IN the music now. It's not a recording, it's the first time I heard a song all over again, every time.
As I write this, Pink Floyd is playing in my head, song after song, in snippets, like my mind is trying to decide which to play.
I think there are different types of music, which I will listen to at different times, for different purposes.
I like them all. But I consume them differently.
I grew up in the 70s too, but I grew up with a dad who would lay me down on the livingroom floor between a set of speakers to listen to Moody Blues, Tubular Bells, and Bongos, Flutes & Guitars. The first albums I owned were The Who: Live at Leeds, and Tommy, so I listened to them the same way. I love feeling physically immersed in the sound.
I grew up in the eastern block behind the curtain, I had no other possibility but to listen to radio Luxembourg at night in Mano , I use to make my own weird antennas and sit on top off the four story building at night to listen to Led Zeppelin , Deep Purple , Jimmy Hendrix , and on , I was spied on by the local who reported me to the authorities, since I was under 18 I was sentenced to commute service work of 100 hours and lectured on the evil of the rock music, I told the prosecuting officer that it was too late for me since I have then music in my head , for past 45 years I live near NYC and to this day I listen to records in mono , enjoy your channel , thanks
This was a true Joy Fran. Like we were friends, hanging out. Thanks!
Lots of Progressive Rock bands recorded in multichannel starting in the late 60’s and early 70’s. You have to remember a lot of time was spent placing the tracks, and even moving them around. One of my favorites is “I Robot” by The Alain Parsons Project. I came of music age in the 1980’s so this is something that I went back and rediscovered as an adult. My early experiences was with classical music, and the progressive, new wave, and even metal music closely match with live classical music to me.
You know Alan Parsons did the engineering for Dark Side of the Moon. His Turn of a Friendly Card was an attempt at another Dark Side, and he almost did it.
@@edwardschlosser1 I love Turn of a Friendly Card, but to me I Robot is their best concept album
My introduction to music was in the early 1960s with a handheld transistor radio. I remember me and my brother laying in bed at night listening to the local AM radio station for hours waiting to hear "Surfin' Bird" by the Trashmen.
I think music took a real turn for the worse in the early 1980s when MTV became popular. It changed music from an aural experience into a visual (music video) experience. The appearance of performers and bands became more important than their musical ability. We used to use our imagination when listening to a song but after music videos became popular, the image was preformed for us and burned into our heads. For that reason I never watch music videos.
These days I keep my collection of about 3000 CDs in the form of high-quality MP3 files on my computer available for instant playback.
I remember listening to a little handheld a yellow and black Phillips and I would use an earphone at night in bed so not to get sprung listening. I would tune up and down the band listening to AM stations from all around Australia on the band and was fascinated by that at the time. I remember blasting Dancing Queen by ABBA really loud on the little thing when it come on.
I hated most of the music of the 1980s, an era when recording quality got worse rather than better, and over-production was the norm. I despise MTV, Which made it possible for bands with minimal to no talent, but an arresting or easily malleable visual appearance, to become "stars".
I have never liked music videos for the same reason. I watched mtv for a short time. Videos had nothing to do with the music, images flashing by too fast to process, etc.
Led Zeppelin had a great Stereo experience/effects on their albums. Sounds would go from 1 speaker to the other speaker.
My growing up music were my grandfathers' record collections. So, I still love various forms of jazz. I discovered my favorite band because of one of those records.
Once I realized what was going on with the music and film industry, I made sure the buy the media of stuff I liked. What worries me about physical media is how long can I keep my CD and DVD players going. Some day, those belts and motors will fail with no replacement parts available. It's already impossible to find decent players at a good price anymore.
Two of the greatest dee-jays were Hy Lit on WIBG-AM and Dave Hermann on WMMR-FM (both Philadelphia stations).
Hy Lit had his peak period in the sixties; he played EVERYTHING; from The Beatles to The Flamingoes to Frank Sinatra to Jefferson Airplane to Otis Redding... he even had a television dance show on channel 48; every week he had hit performers lip-synch to their latest records. He had Iron Butterfly lip-synch to the whole 17-minute version of "Inna Gadda Da-Vida! How crazy was that?
Dave Hermann hosted a program on what was then a quasi-classical/easy-listening station, but from 10 p.m. (or around that time... it HAS been decades), he brought forth an entity called "Marconi's Experiment"; one of the first progressive programs in Philly. (By the way, Hy Lit also had a progressive show on WDAS-FM). As eclectic as Philly AM radio was back then, Hermann (and Lit) played not only all kinds of rock, but jazz, folk, blues, and classical!
My first panel spkr experience in a special room, powered by extremely clean tube amp power, was an experience, never to be forgotten. Every instrument has a location in the room and in the reproduction of its sound.
Similar to my experience with panel speakers, eg., Magnepan and Quad. Very precise imaging...as long as you're sitting in that sweet spot.
A favorite childhood memory is Times Square in the early 50's. Then it was mostly populated by locals not a big tourist attraction. Then, there were many music shops all playing music thru outside speakers. What a glorious cacophony. One could buy records of course, but also a really big seller - the sheet music. Back then there were ordinary folks who wanted to play the music for themselves with their friends and family. As a young adult my listening was for Stones and NRPS at home on decent stereos. Today - nothing much, just whatever I've bookmarked on TH-cam.
Could you consider doing a show about your record collection? Telling the stories about what you love about it all. That would be nice.
I grew up in the 50's and 60's. We used to have a big wood encased tube radio that must have gotten every frequency known to man, and also had an added FM tuner. But my Dad wouldn't let me listen to anything but classical! I used to listen to Bach and Rimsky Korsakov. When I started school the bus driver played the radio all the way into school and back, so I got familiar with Elvis, Johnny Cash, Johnny Paycheck, Janis Ian, and many others my Dad couldn't stand! Eventually I got a small tube radio from my grandfather that only worked upside down. Saved money to get it fixed, it worked a week, then went back to only working upside down, so I left it that way. Played it in my room where Dad couldn't hear it! When transistor radios came out I eventually got one but didn't play it much at home. The batteries were too expensive. Never got a phonograph, but my younger brother did and got every Beatles record ever made! When I hit college my annoying roommate got me so sore blasting his rock that I went downtown and bought a cheap scratchy kids record player and a few country-western records. Had the room to myself before long! But I got to like Country and folk, and still like the older stuff, from before the rock and rollers took it over. In church we always sang hymns, then they moved to "worship music". Some of it is fine, but half hour long blocks are far too long for my old knees! And most people don't know the words and don't sing along. What bothers me most today is that no one has "their" music anymore. The unions had music, the anti-war movement had music, the early environmentalist movement had music. Today no group does. Or if they do, no one ever hears it. Radio stations play the top 5 over and over and over, rather than the top 40. Hearing live music is rare and so expensive only the 1% can attend concerts. Churches almost never get live groups anymore. Most bars have gone out of business due to drunk driver liability, and those still in business rarely have real musicians playing - for the same reason as churches.
My dad was an early adopter of stereo and built a set of 3 way speaker cabinets with 12" woofers and a beautiful Fisher tube amp... in 1960 when I was 5. So I absolutely adore full range stereo listening. Very immersive.
All the thousands of tunes, wrote their track in your soul - as your soul was forming "you" - as you experienced "life" in all the eras, they were all your "companions". All your favorites, like a friend who knows what you like and you knew them. So, perhaps the best way to explain what they mean to you - since, no words are adequate anyway - is to thank them, share them and keep writing new tracks, or mix-tapes of your soul.
My dad had an 55 Chevy in the 1960's with a speaker at the front dash, one day he put a 6"x 9" speaker in the rear and I was so jazzed to hear music in the front of the car and back, that was Hi-Fi to me, I was about maybe 10 yrs old.
Fran, you describe me and my relationship to "Good" and "Bad" music better than I could describe it to myself. I need music. I hear music in my head all the time. I hear a word, a phrase, a statement and I can almost always come up with a song that I have heard. You where speaking to me and the passion I have for music. Thanks again, only you can bring my thoughts into my hearing.
Wow, was I spoiled! When I was about 7 years old, my dad took me to the nearest television station for a studio open house. There was a music group playing in the studio, the same studio where the news readers' desk was pushed back into the opposite corner. We went from the studio into the control room and heard the group through the monitors in there. From that moment, that's how I wanted the music to sound from my speakers. Never got it in my personal home equipment. But, occasionally, I did at work.
Music was life, an identity back when you could hold it.
Thank you Fran. I grew up listening to "light-classical" on 33.3RPM LPs and one of the great commercial classical radio stations of the era (KFAC in Los Angeles). To this day my main musical genre is "classical", mostly baroque esp. Bach. But as you mentioned later "epiphany" occurred and I developed a taste for rather obscure jazz like Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim African Suite and Capetown Jazz.
Proud Patreon supporter of Fran's channel.
Hi Fran, not sure what the average age range of your viewership is, but if the perspective of a 26 year old is something you're looking to hear from, hope this provides some insight as to what someone my age had the opportunity to grod up with-
As a kid, from a very young age, I would ritualistically listen to the radio every night before bed, and fall asleep to my favorite program - Delilah on Wish 99.7 out of Pittsburgh. My radio was the centerpiece of my room, and I had it sitting on the dresser at the foot of my bed like you might let a pet spend thd night with you.
I wasn't allowed a TV (my other obsession) in my room and was always supremely jealous of the kids who were allowed to have that, so as a result i really treasured having this connection to the outside world through the radio. And the reliability of having a DJ with an easy, friendly voice to drift off to every night was something that really put me at ease. And I loved hearing the stories that people would call in with!! The gimmick of Delilah was that she was the "queen of sappy love songs", so people would call in with requests and who they were dedicated to. That idea that a song was *for* someone was something I latched onto, and gave all the music another level of emotion and humanity to resonate with.
I remember at least one or two kids in my kindergarten class having portable CD players, and that was something I just hungered for for ages!! I begged my mom for one but I think a combination of them being a trendy, expensive object at the time, and me being a small kid, she didn't wind up getting me one. But she did give me her old AM/FM & Cassette Walkman which I thought was honestly even cooler at the time, because hey now I can take the radio with me wherever I go!! It was so strange and interesting hearing how different all the daytime programs were by comparison, and often how much more energetic. Mostly I just listened to the radio pop music of the 2000s, the oldies station 92.1 The Pickle, as well as my mom's tape collection. And *that* was where some fun stuff was. She had a lot of folk rock and classic rock from the 70s-80s on mixtapes she had made, and each tape really had its own personality. I also got some tapes with some childrens music, and storybooks on tape.
I think I used that player every single day until I eventually found a CD player at my grandad's house that he let me take home. I get a lot of my fascination for technology from him, and he would always let me and my siblings take home a couple treasures (usually old toys and gadgets that belonged to my mom and her brothers) from his place when we visited. The CD player couldn't recieve radio signals, which I thought was a bit of a bummer, but at the same time I was totally floored to have one!! This started a new nightly tradition: my dad gave me his copy of Dark Side of the Moon, and told me a story about when he had been listening to it in a car, driving along a highway on the coast while a thunderstorm was rolling in. I was so captivated by this idea of listening to music while events in the natural world occurred around me, and it has honestly been the foundation for most of my listening habits since. I was intentionally trying to re-create this scenario in smallform for myself by listening to the album every night before bed and hoping we would get a thunderstorm. I must have caught a handful of storms that way, and they were some of the most impactful childhood memories I have. Hearing the intro to Time with real life thunder and rainfall bleeding in from outside ny headphones! Unbeatable!
There are a lot more little steps like this where each technological advancement of how I would access music would give me a bit more freedom to hear more of it more often. Getting an ipod nano, eventually an iphone, listening on youtube, and now in the streaming age where there's basically no limits.
I will agree with you, quite strongly, that there isn't really music scarcity anymore. It's everywhere and completely common. And I think that does rob us of some specialness/sacredness to the ritual of listening deeply. I certainly don't pay as close attention to the music we have on in the coffee shop where I work, but what I do treasure are the well-curated college radio stations in the city I live in. Having those around has been like reaching back in time to discovering and exploring the radio for the first time. I also have been getting much more intentional with when I listen to ny own collection of physical stuff. I love having stuff on different formats too, because each one has its own sound quirks that highlight different qualities of the art that's on there. Also I think there's a lot to be said for the involved fun in manually putting something on, and knowing about the piece of tech you're running it through. I recently picked up a Minidisc player on ebay because I think they're super cool, and a fascinating piece of engineering. Sure the audio quality isn't top of the line, and it's inconvenient as hell to have such a niche piece of equipment to listen on. But it's fun, dammit!
I know some people younger than me who are listening to stuff with intention, and making an effort to appreciate the time and place they're in when they listen. I think as long as people are around that's a tradition that will continue to go on.
Thanks for the video, Fran, hope you have a good weekend!
"Holding onto words that teach me
I will conquer space around me
So maybe I'll win saved by zero
Maybe I'll win saved by zero"
I think I get it Fran with the music and wish if They would leave It alone and inovate instead of a tweaking stuff. Thanks Fran
I was a teenager for most of the seventies. We had the Quad format that never really took off. I love certain records in 5.1. Listen to the 5.1 mix of Dark Side or War Of The World or Brain Salad Surgery. It’s a completely different experience. These were the days when we had attention spans and albums like Close To The Edge or In The Court Of The Crimson King were intended to be one 49 minute statement, not individual songs.
MTV ruined popular music. We have no imagination today. It’s all presented for us.
Thank you, Fran, for this great presentation. I have had the same experience of being the one who just ran with the love of music, so much as to have a collection of physical media. My stereo system might not be the best in sound quality, but it's MINE! I enjoy it, and that's all that matters.
Thank you for sharing your early experience with music scarcity. Im thirty seven. When I was young 3 to 4 years old my father had some crates of what remained my grandfather's record collection. There was a bit of everything. 78's 45's 33's Rock Italian opera pop Motown. You name it. Unfortunately when my grandfather died before I was born my grandmother had to get rid of all his stuff including his massive record collection. Multiple Cargo vans full. He was into technology in general and had an attic full of trinkets. It all had to go. I wish I could have at least rescued his record library, unfortunately though I'm struggling to keep my relatively small collection vinyl records and CDs. I was getting close to becoming a homeowner but the market has postponed that.
Here in the UK in the late 70's early 80's we had a DJ called John Peel who opened up my world on the radio.
My father used to sing on road trips. I wish I could listen to that again.
Tedeschi-Trucks Band, Samantha Fish, Larkin Poe, King Fish Ingram, Daniel Nicole Band, Gov't Mule, Blackberry Smoke, and I could go on and on. There are many great bands out there today.
I've never liked Dolby. Even my first 4 track recorder had a Dolby switch and I felt it removed an important part of whatever I was recording. I'd rather have the whole watermelon seeds and all.
The am stations did have it figured out to pump that music out of those central dash speakers.
I recently discovered a "Midnight Special" TH-cam channel. They trickle release singles as well as entire shows from my favorite music tv show of all time.
It's great to see the old 70's clothes and hair styles again along with bands and musicians that are no longer around in many cases.
The show had such diversity and that's a reflection of how radio was back then too.
Well said and very relatable. I'm sure every generation feels that their "todays' music isn't music" cliche...but you are right. A majority of todays' music is about marketing and a brand or an icon and less about real music.
Thank you for sharing. A little bit of your ditty at the end sounded like it had an 8 second nod to Herbie Hancock....I liked all of it.
I've been producing music for decades, started off in my early teens, when my older brother (a guitarist) started bringing home analogue synthesizers in the '80s (they were 2-a-penny back then). I loved the strange sounds you could get from these beasts, I was already into basic electronics and grabbed a book by RA Penfold with all the circuits you needed to build your own synthesizer, and there it started. I still have a lot of my builds, and still build synth modules. Half of my studio is hand built gear, which I use regularly in my productions. I had my first vinyl released in 1992, still producing to this day, my latest release was just last month.
I'm no big-name artist, although I do have a loyal following, albeit niche. I'm totally self managed (which has become much harder of recent with algorithms restricting self promotion on social media), but was touring the world with my music, and making real life contacts, right up until the lockdowns in 2020. I couldn't bare sitting doing nothing, so decided to get myself a degree in music technology, which I have now passed. I'm staying on at uni for another year to do my honours, since work has thinned out with a lot of governments restricting live music in smaller venues through taxes. So here I am, still mad about electronics and the music I can make with it, watching one of my favourite channels talk about my biggest passion.
I do prefer stereo, although I understand that it's more of an effect, because as you said, there's hardly ever really a time when the players are standing all around you, and as a musician myself (CraigTubeMusic here on TH-cam, if you don't mine the shameless plug) I have thought of that before as well. But I have always mixed my songs in stereo because I think it adds an additional dimension to something that is not live, and it seems to make the music more immersive, possibly more interesting, as you can hear instruments on their own sometimes in one channel. It would be hard to do live converts in stereo because of the seating, and how far the audience is away from the stage, so mono it is. But we live in a stereo world with our two ears and certainly in a small room with a few musicians, it would be stereo. Given the choice, I'd rather slap on a pair of headphones and enjoy a stereo experience, they way my brain was meant to hear things.
I remember that feeling of awe, something almost spiritual, about listening to music when I was younger. A lot of it for me was the sense of mystery. I didn't even know what people looked like, apart from pictures on album sleeves and articles in the music press. When I started going to live gigs it was a bit like getting a glimpse behind the veil. The media have made musicians too available. It's lost a lot of the magic.
Two things. About the time you were into the car radio, FM burst onto the air in Dallas/Ft.Worth and the DeeJays made the scene happen. It was the mass social media of the day, and everything that was happening, or was going to happen, was carried to the masses via DeeJays and cottage print industries. The power of the FM stations drove the record pressing plants, as well. Of course, all of that is dead now
The other thing is, the internet provides access to live-recorded performances. Watching Joni Mitchell perform "Amelia" was an emotional experience, but watching any great artist's performance is really just a lot of nice icing on the cake.
There is still a lot of very good music coming out (and old music re-released, that before was only available on Vinyl in the 70s/80s). It's just not played on regular radio. On my channel you find some curated playlists highlighting the tracks.
Music taps into your emotions. It's like a switch that can make you dance, happy, sad or even depressed! I enjoy plenty of classical, rock, some country and yes even bubble gum music depending on the mood effect I'm seeking. I have no music rules. If the music taps my emotions, then it's GOOD music!
I especially like dance music that lifts you up out of your chair and REALLY makes you move your body. At a stop light, have you ever noticed another car bouncing and swinging because the driver or passengers are REALLY into the rhythm of the music? It's also great to see someone dancing down the aisle in a supermarket with a shopping cart when some good overhead music hits their emotions. I've been known to do it and I prefer the shopping carts where ALL the wheels can swivel with you as you dance down the kitty litter aisle.
Music is also a common language. In a world where our differences often pit one person against another, music is often a healthy, common human thread.
I worked in a record store (back when there were such things) for about 2 years. During this time, my music tastes broadened substantially. Before I worked there, my musical tastes were pretty much limited to the rock genre, but more constrained to pop rock. After my record store stint, my tastes broadened to include almost every type of music. I've since learned to listen to all types of music and appreciate what goes into each style. I still have my favorite genres, but I'm open to listening to nearly any music out there.
As for what today's music means, that's hard to answer. Most of today's pop music is computer created with computer augmented vocals. Today, it's less about using real people to write and perform music and more about crafting music via formula with computers. While I'll listen occasionally to today's pop, it's honestly so vanilla and one-note that most pop songs sound too much the same. It's too bad we've lost the want to explore human musical creativity and instead mostly rely on computers to do this.
I feel you, and I get what you're saying. I also have music in my head all the time, it's great. LOVE.
57, here. I grew up with a tube-operated record player. It was big enough to play a LP, six of them. I can't count the number of records and phonograph needles I wore out. Then along came CD's... now MP3's. I have an MP3 player that's pretty decent, and it's useful for household chores. Headphones shut my housemate noise off.
I grew up mono, but every time I hear a new sound type, I like it. It started with a Styx album, and confirmed with Final Cut, Pink Floyd. 7.1 is pretty awesome if it's done right, but it doesn't belong in a home living room. It's too big to fit right. Old stuff: Leave it alone, adapt the 7.1 to the sound so it sounds right. But play that 7.1 in a film soundtrack, and that's a Good Thing.
For me, music used to be KISS and other hard rock stuff, then I discovered Alternative, and that lasted until there was too much machine and not enough human in the band. Then my style changed hard-to-jazz when I heard a modern jazz tune, "Obliquely Yours" by Rosin Coven. The jazz bug bit hard then, and hasn't let go. Jazz doesn't need 7.1. 3.1 is plenty: Left, Right, Center, and Subwoofer. That center channel softens that ping-pong that straight stereo suffers from. The subwoofer is an addition to jazz that makes that double-e sound full and deep, as if you're next to the instrument.
I haven't seen many younger folks just sit there and listen to tunes unless they drive somewhere. I don't know how to get them to listen to the more important political music. If they do listen to it, they become more liberal.
Today's Top 40 Shits is written by 6 people, which is why it sucks. I never liked Top 40.
I totally agree with you Fran and can relate to your experiences, as a kid my dad had this Zenith Tombstone 1938 radio where we heard the popular music of the 50's & 60's. After getting into my teens, I bought vinyl records (like Herb A & T brass) and had made my own stereo. Later adult life went on with reel to reel and an everything stereo system, recorded a lot of easy listening music back in the 70's off of FM stereo stations, still have the R-R recordings. CD's came out in the 80's and have a collection of them. Today we are a disenfranchised person on the lack of soothing relaxing music on the radio, that was once so prevalent there, decades ago. I liked the music, the rock-n-roll fans disdain, Easy Listening/Beautiful/Elevator music. Something to said, about what America has become, too few choices of music formats on FM radio.
Music is everything to me since 1989. Always will be.
Love your take/explanation/preciseness of how and why you like your music playback in a mono presentation.
As long as I can remember I have loved music !! All types..All languages...All instruments !! At the age of eleven I smoked weed and got so stoned that I could hardly move. I was sitting by a cheap stereo back in the mid seventies and somehow I closed my eyes and went for a trip following every chord , every note , every color in the music .. I went to another world and loved it.. needless to say that as a teen , hardly a day went when I wasn't high.. I wouldn't smoke weed to hang around people but, to rather merge with the music. As an old man now I don't do any drinking /smoking etc but, the music fills my soul to this day . I don't believe in life after death but if it is so, then , I would want to meet the music gods and stay in their kingdom !! NO ! I'M NOT HIGH RIGHT NOW PEOPLE !! 🙄 'Cmon !!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣!!!
I grew up the same way Fran. Old cars and pickup trucks had an AM RADIO only.. no FM. I listened to .56 WFIL and WIBG to. Single speaker in the dashboard and then Chevy put a speaker in between the back seats in the 60s. After HS I got into JENSON speakers with 10oz magnets and hooked up a good sound system and when my old car died I'd take out the stereo and install it in my next vehicle etc.
I had several basic am only transistor radios as a child and teenager in the '70s.
They would run many hours on even cheap 9 volt batteries. I picked up deposit bottles for money, so I had batteries. I also hadca basic am only clock radio.
Every job I've had there was
a radio on in the background.
At my current job, a fm transmitter connected to the computer broadcasts to a '90s cheap home stereo. Everything from electroswing to bluegrass , depending on who starts it up. Variety is a good thing....
I can’t speak for everyone in gen z, but I’m certain there are always people who’ll appreciate music, collecting hifi systems and obscure forms of media is always going to be a huge part of my life, and it might never be the same as when compact cassettes and other physical medias were thriving, but as long as content such as yours, techmoans, technologyconnections, etc. get exposed to more and more people, I’m sure they will continue to save physical medias and grow their appreciation to music.
Music will always have a different meaning from person to person and you nailed that point!
Great video!!
In 2000 I wrote a PERL script to mix a CDRW of mp3s based on A, B, C annotations on my collection. I played them in an Aiwa player in my car.
I have modified it to mix USB sticks these days.
Speaking of the Ice cream over here in Australia we can get the Ben & jerry's and it is around $14.50 and that is for under half a litre. I have never tried it as its too expensive for what it is. I am sure its imported the same way from USA to downunder land where everything is so expensive. A friend got his latest power increase and it will be 48 cents per KWH
As a visual creative, I need music for fuel. There are times when I do just sit and listen, as a kind of mediation, otherwise it's often one of the main influences, and active driving forces on my illustration. Other times it dispels anxiety, and sometimes depression. I do recall a certain scarcity of music. Metal was very mysterious and rare in my small town. For a time, one of the radio stations I could pick up would play 1 Metallica song a day at 10 pm, it was always For Whom The Bell Tolls, but it was something.
Other than the fact I like stereo, we seem to have so much in common, music-wise. I grew up with AM radio, and still have an appreciation for how it sounds.
Guess I'm a super weirdo, having found a handful of new passions in middle age. Didn’t have more than a passing interest in making music until my 40s, but the past couple of years have been full of learning things that hadn't excited me previously.
I can relate. Even if music is not playing, it's playing in my head. I'll have to go back and check whether it's in mono though.
I think the part of my media collection that occupies the greatest volume and has the greatest mass is all the sheet music.
It doesn’t get any more analog than that!
My Dad brought home a Sansui Quadraphic stereo with big speakers, and a 4 track reel to reel. Oh the sound! The tape deck came with a demo tape and I’ll never forget the sound of a jet far away coming towards me, roaring over and going past. Oh my.
It certainly has become background noise. I mean even playing songs in person to people who know me, I often find that, yeh, they can't keep quiet for the 5 minutes it takes to play a song.
I am 74 years old. Unlike you, I grew up listening to my parent's 78 rpm big band records during my very earliest years. Then along came Elvis Presley and my musical listening journey accelerated. I have extremely eclectic musical tastes and I have found that many of the musicians I have known and played with are kind of stuck in a very narrow channel of musical taste. That has always confounded me. Another mystery to me is when you put on a piece of music for someone to listen to and they get about 30 or 40 seconds in and start jabbering about some unrelated crap!
Music is not meant to be background noise.
Your ramblings provide amusement.
Fran, I respect your view of Stereo. I grew up with mono and somewhat stereo systems. Once I got stereo I would not go back. MP3 is garbage with all the artifacts it adds, I just have the ears that hear stereo and good playback. For the most part what we hear on the internet is compressed and is just good for talk and background music.
What people "like" does not necessarily align with what is the most accurate. And there can be perception that has little or nothing to do with the actual sound. For example, I remember "back in the day" (1960's) when there were plenty of competing tube and transistor receivers and amplifiers and you saw ads extolling "The warm tube sound" or "The cool clear transistor sound" when the actual technical performance was virtually identical. Also, since I have an electronics background, it seemed everyone thought I would know the answer to "what are the best speakers". And I was amused when somebody would listen to speakers at one store and drive across town to compare to listening to speakers at another store. Hard to compare like that. I advised, "Just get the cheapest ones that sound good to you." That's because some of the cheapest speakers with lousy boomy bass and other problems sound great to some people. And that's OK.
Well.. I belive this "music as a background" thing has always been this way for most people..except those that are actually interested in what's going on behind the scenes..maybe it has increased backgroudness as years go by because of the huge amount of entertainment available for the masses..
I believe I cannot go on without music..it was a huge part of my life as a player before I retired from it.. now as a listener is even more important. every memory or thing in life comes with a song or album attached.
I find your ideas a bit incongruous. Your automated radio station idea is just describing what Clear Channel actually did for radio, like its an awesome idea but when actually executed it's generally considered a bad thing for radio and media in general. Do you even know how much fun it is to mix for surround sound? It's pretty amazing! I would love to get to do something in atmos! Never underestimate mono! There are some examples of releases that have phasing issues when mixed down to mono or even parts that are hidden intentionally and only heard when played in mono. I'd love to know more about your set-up! Perhaps you haven't had the field of sound adjusted properly, if the room isn't tuned even your favorite album is going to sound like crap. I get it tho, people like what they grew up with, but you're really missing out of some of the more pleasing aspects of music when you don't do it in stereo. How do you deal with phasing since you're pushing mono? It seems like that would be concern in that environment.
I've been asking myself what's going on in music these days lately. I'm over 70 now, and I go through phases when I don't listen to music at all, isn't that sad? Part of it is living in the country.... it's so quiet here, the animal sounds are musical....
but I grew up in an era when music was a cultural phenomenon and I miss that (and I miss playing, which I used to do every day, am I depressed or what?) - thank you kindly for reminding me - cheers!
I got heavily into John Cage and the Barrons. This changed my perspective on what music is and can be.
I used to listen to music all the time on my walkman, then on my stereo cassette player, then in my car, and then on my PC. I don't know if it's because I don't have a car anymore or what but I find I rarely listen to music anymore. I might listen to a song or album if I have a sudden urge, but it's pretty rare these days.
That's interesting about preferring mono. My weird thing is that I like hearing music playing in the next room. I like the way it sounds bouncing off the walls and filling an entire space. I think it comes from playing music as a kid and wanting it on all the time, but only being able to play it out of my 80s/90s boombox. I'm a music composer by trade, so I disagree that people in music industries don't care about music. However, one thing that does happen when you're required to listen exhaustively, is that many of us need a break. I don't like listening to music in the car, for instance. I really appreciate being able to hear environments as clearly as possible.
I love anything that gives an old favorite new life.
To quote Peter Schickele quoting Duke Ellington, "If it sounds good, it is good."
I think other generations do have the "every fiber of attention/being" kind of listening. I definitely know some great Gen Z musicians who appreciate all types of music. Maybe it just isn't quite as common as it used to be.
the 'Fran's Orban' compression/EQ script!
Music or performance🤯 GREAT description.
you rock Fran!🤩
That ice cream looks like a mini-Cornetto (a very popular product since the '70s here in England) - does the US have them? The full-size ones, I mean.
Whilst I definitely do not share your listening preferences, I do share your passion for music.
I'm over 70yo, yet I have moved far from the Folk & 60's radio pop I began with, thru Blues, Hard Rock, Punk, New Wave, Alt-Country, Flamenco, 50s Girl Groups, 50s & 60's R&B, Cuban Rumba, still exploring.
Only a few years ago learned I have Aphantasia (no mental pictures) and very little Internal Monologue (a voice constantly articulating your thoughts).
What I do have, like you, is an internal jukebox. I have thought about what would happen if I tried to sit down and write out all the lyrics in my head. It would take years, I reckon.
I have a YT playlist titled "Woke Up in My Head". It has had 268 entries since 2015.
I had a portable RadioShack AM radio.
Fran, I absolutely love u you. I'm from Bristol UK. I'm not a scientist bit all the same I think your mint, you make me smile!❤
Also if you had to choose would it be film or recorded music? For me music all the way
Very thoughtful, thank you. I'm not one of the younger generation any more, but I can say even with streaming music apps I can sit down and spend hours digging through music to find something new, just listening. I suppose the app/service is the DJ though in that they are influencing what you hear next or at least what you have to select from.
What's the device you're playing at the end?
If they're going to ship it from Europe... FROZEN, make it 16 ozs.
How bout having reverb in our cars in the 60's. That was a crazy Kool sound!!
My Dad bought a Magnavox TV console it had a turntable and Hi Fi stereo receiver and 2 large speakers 1 on each side. I would run out and by record albums but I could only play them when NO ONE was home etc. Great albums came out when I was in HS. Pink Floyd DARK SIDE OF THE MOON AND LED ZEPPELIN IV and David Bowie YOUNG AMERICAN etc. I was a big fan of DON CANNON (CANNON IN THE MORNING) WIBG🎶
Spot on commentary! And WFIL - "rocking in the cradle of liberty"
I really have no idea how many records I have. Top level (ripped CDs) go over 400, many artists have multiple albums under that. I listen actively. It's not background. I hated AM radio in the car, but FM (maybe because then the car had speakers in the parcel shelf in the back) was "my jam." My father, being an aficionado of classical music, tried to tune in stations from states away. A lot of static (despite what Steely Dan says). At home I'd fire up his Phillips Stereo set and go through his collection of albums - perhaps fifty or a hundred). I'd soak in it, live in it, have it wash over me. 80% symphonic, 15% operatic, 5% big band. When it was my turn to stretch out, there was still a lot of classical, but also progressive rock, and "top forty" orchestrated music. The Carpenters, Chicago, Walter/Wendy Carlos, Renaissance, Focus, Maynard Ferguson, Brazil 66, Woody Herman, Earl Klugh .... eclectic and wide spread in style. Music sort of died with Disco for me, but plenty of bands kept "my styles" alive. The Toto, Fleetwood Mac, Chicago, Johnathan Butler, Stanley Jordan, Tomita, Vangelis, Mike Oldfield, Klaatu....
Friends in school were either amazed or dumfounded that I knew specific recordings of classical music, not just the composer and the titles, but the conductors, the orchestras. Huge differences between Dorati, Karajan, Bernstein, Furtwangler, Rattle, Haitink, Jansons, etc.
The flavors of Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, the Dorsey Brothers, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Sammy Kaye.... the lists are endless.
You can throw a Takako Matsu, or Kuh Ledesma at me any day too.
I still spin vinyl regularly.