‘Have You Heard?’

A blog about life, times, people, places and, most of all, music

A few days ago I was discussing the importance of music with a friend.  She observed that over the last dozen years the relationship between music lovers and their collections has changed radically.  New and younger music consumers rarely line shelves with CDs and may not even know what a 12 inch vinyl album looks like.  She queried what I thought may have been lost in the present era of the instant download, the deletable Youtube visual and the ephemeral Tweet.  We then considered what it is and, more poignantly, what it means to build and maintain a collection of music on longer playing physical media.  That got me to thinking about my own relationship with music which is defined – at least in part -  through the medium of my extensive record collection.

There is seldom a day that goes by when I don’t play CDs or vinyl albums albeit that only rarely do my seven inch singles make it onto the turntable.  But what makes me play particular pieces of music or sequences of albums?  Why did I buy the records that I own?  What part does and has music played in my life?  Why am I so emotionally involved with the music that I listen to and love?   The fact is that an intro, a chorus, a theme, a riff, a rhythm, a coda or even a single chord or note can instantly conjure up a connection or a memory: people, places, times, events both personal and global, gigs, venues, holidays and, naturally, the musicians and vocalists themselves whose performances have continued to captivate me since my youth.

2013 will mark fifty years since the first time I went into a record shop and emerged with a 45 RPM single.  My parents had bought me my first record player, an Elizabethan, as a reward for passing the entrance exam to the secondary school of their choice.  Shortly after that, I was given my first vinyl album as an eleventh birthday present.  Since then I have accumulated approximately 3,000 albums that cover a broad range of Jazz, Classical, Rock, Blues, Folk, Soundtracks, World and other styles.

During the course of the next twelve months I have been challenged to listen to every record I own, no matter how embarrassing or jarring some may now sound.  In doing so I will engage in a dialogue with the music and write about it.  I will tease out the memories, the significance of different records and the relationship between pieces.  In the time frame proposed, it is unlikely that I can actually listen to every note of music that I own.  It would take about eight or nine hours a day to achieve that in a year, leaving insufficient time for life itself!  Nevertheless, over the course of a year there should be enough time to cover a significant number of the CD’s and albums, put them into their respective social and cultural context and talk about them from my own personal point of view.