Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Welcome To Music 21st Century Style, Ron

I guess I can officially be called "old" because of what I'm about to admit. I've been resisting the advancement of technology when it comes to music. Recorded music has been in the "digital stage" for several years now. The Ipod or generic MP3 player is a common source of personal musical entertainment and internet downloads are a common source of purchasing music.

As someone who grew up collecting vinyl records, cassette tapes and CDs I have found it very difficult to put confidence in any from of a music collection where I can't hold the music in my hand. It just doesn't give me a sense of ownership of the music. I'm the same way with books. I have to have a copy of a book in my hand to feel like I've really added it to my collection.

To me having an MP3 player with over 700 albums stored on it is not the same as having 700 CDs slipped into plastic sleeves of a storage case and kept on a shelf. To store and copy music in a totally electronic format as computers files has such an inherent vulnerability to it. One virus on the hard drive of the computer where your collection is stored or one accidental drop of or spill on an MP3 player and the whole collection is gone.

With records, tapes and CDs losing a recording usually only happened on an individual album basis. If you scratched a record or CD, or a cassette tape was "eaten" by your player you only lost a song or just one album at the most. The feeling of insecurity inherent with digital music is something I just couldn't deal with. This has kept me from jumping into this new era of entertainment for a long time.

But alas technology and culture has quickly by passed those who feel the way I do about physically possessing the music we listen to. I've finally decided to raise the white flag. Today I made the jump into the world of modern music technology.

I downloaded some music from CD to my computer to my phone's MP3 player. I will start listening to that music over the stereo system in my Vue through use of a low frequency transmitter. I will listen to the MP3 player while I'm exercising or taking my dogs for a walk. The great thing about doing this is that I can also download some sermons that are available online from some of my favorite preachers such as John MacArthur, Alister Begg, David Jeremiah and John Piper.

Eventually I will rip all the music from my collection of over 700 CDs, as well as my Rewind shows, which I have on CD, to my computer as my initial digital music collection. I will then copy them onto my phone/MP3 player. I will make up play lists and enjoy my music the way most people do in the 21st century. I guess it's about time I got up to speed. I'm sure I'll enjoy the flexibility and the convenience of it all...eventually. Please welcome me to this new world of music with open arms. I'm probably going to need some help getting used to it.

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