What would our life be like without music? A couple of words that come to mind would be “bland” and “colorless.” Eventually, the sadder contraries probably have at least a basic appreciation of music. For many of us, our most vivid memories can be triggered by music. Just a few bars of a particular melody can lead us to very specific times, places, and events in our lives. Those memories often lie dormant until they are resurrected by a particular piece of music. Sometimes those memories are bright and relaxing. Sometimes they are not. Music stimulates reactions in the listener that cover the entire emotional spectrum. Our rich history of music players and their development has been a direct result of our love for the medium.
The history of music players began with Edison:
Thomas Edison introduced the phonograph, also known as a gramophone, in 1877. Edison’s phonograph was the first device that could record and reproduce sound. This was a revolutionary development. Before 1877, for millennia, music could only be heard in real time. Great musical performances could not be recorded and therefore were not available for wider consumption. Were you one of the lucky live audience members or had to rely on repeat live performances that may or may not have been the same as the original. There was no recorded music in the house. Imagine that.
Edison’s phonograph, like all early groundbreaking inventions, was crude in design and function. Sound quality was poor and the device had to be turned by hand. However, Edison had started the evolution that would fundamentally change the way we consumed music and forever alter the impact of music on our lives. There would be no history of music players without that first Edison phonograph.
A big step forward:
Vinyl records and turntable. Aside from the fact that vinyl records are making a comeback, there is a large section of the population that has never heard a vinyl record spinning on a turntable. Those people are serving our sympathy. For warmth of sound, nothing compares to vinyl. Never mind the inevitable scratches, stylus wear, or the occasional deformation; Vinyl records and their turntables had a magic that digital evolution has failed to capture. The sheer thrill of taking an album out of its sleeve for the first time and gently placing it on a turntable cannot be overstated. It goes beyond mere nostalgia. The album covers themselves were often works of art to be enjoyed alongside the records. Albums and turntables were a far more tactile experience than any other type of music-playing deviceā¦ perhaps that’s what’s driving their resurgence.
The Great Leap Forward (???):
Next we come to the much-beleaguered 8-track cassette player. This infamous technology came on the scene in the mid 60’s and survived until the late 70’s. Most of its infamy is well deserved. They were extremely high maintenance, requiring one to carry an assortment of chemical cleaners, pencils, screwdrivers, duct tape, and other miscellaneous gizmos just to keep things running. They hissed, “pinged” from track to track, and about once a day would stop, revealing a mess of tangled tape that had to be pulled out and rewound. But they had a glorious advantage… you could play them in your car! They were portable, although “portable” meant that if you wanted to carry your tape collection on your because you needed a small steamer trunk to do it.
Music clubs:
A byproduct of the advent of the 8-track cassette was the introduction of music clubs. Clubs that offered a naive teenager a whopping ten 8-track cassettes for just 99 cents. What a good deal! The only small caveat was that he had to agree to buy ten more cassettes at “regular” price over the next 2 years. So what! It still sounded like a great opportunity for a kid with limited funds. The problem, of course, was that the ten cassettes you had to buy at full price came from a very limited selection. Obscure bands with names similar to “Captain Ron and the Bail Jumpers” or “The Blue Moodys”. Most of us kids were eventually turned over to a collection agency…
Improved cassette technology (the latest analog input in the history of music players):
Compact cassette technology. What a relief. This next generation of music playback was an order of magnitude better than the 8 track cassette. You still had the occasional spaghetti-tape freaks, but it was much easier to handle. Compact cassettes were a fraction of the size of 8-tracks, resulting in an innovative ability to pack a ton of music into a relatively small space. Noise reduction technology had also advanced, significantly improving the overall sound quality. Unfortunately, the “music clubs” continued their efforts to catch young people off guard, but at the time I was too sophisticated to fall for their tricks.
The digital revolution:
The compact disc made its first appearance sometime in the early 1980s. By the mid to late 1980s, CDs had already surpassed the compact cassette in terms of units and dollars. The ultimate in player reliability, storage and impeccable signal clarity. It was amazing to hear digital music for the first time. No other technology had been able to produce such crystal clear quality. How many of us still have copious amounts of CDs despite the continuing evolution of digital technology?
Digital vs. Analog. There are some (myself included) who claim that the transition from analog to digital, while greatly improving signal clarity, came at the expense of warmth. If in doubt, just listen to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” on CD and later on vinyl. But, that is perhaps a topic for another day.
Where will our history of music players take us? It will be fun to find out.