Your Most Disturbing Realizations

[Fading Fast]

What's disturbing to me is the realization that every musical personality I enjoy with the exception of Bea Wain, Vera Lynn, and Baby Rose Marie, is dead. I spend entire days being entertained by the voices of a generation that within the next couple of years, tops, will be as extinct as the dodo. And yet to me they're as alive as I am.

Or maybe I myself am *also* dead and I just don't know it yet.

Lizzie, I have great respect for your passion and preferences. But there really has been a lot of interesting music done - well away from the mainstream pop stuff - over the last decades that I bet you could find some artists and styles (many do updated versions of older styles) that you would like, but as with everything, it will take some trial and error, etc. to get there. That is our biggest frustration - it is hard to keep up, to find the niches you like, etc., with so many options, it's hard to wade through and find what you like. Not in any way discounting your preferences or sense of loss, just trying to encourage you to seek out even more music to enjoy.

 

[Fading Fast]

I see the pacing of life as like the groove on a record. When it starts at the outer rim, the needle has further to travel with each revolution, but that distance reduces with each turn, so that the linear velocity of the groove passing under the needle increases as it approaches the center of the disc, even though the RPMs remain constant. The record turns at 78rpm all the way thru, but the linear velocity increases as the song plays thru to the end.

And then the song is over and the needle either hits the lock groove or skids across the label, and that's the end of it.

I remember the first time I realized / learned that a record moves at different speeds - it was a real "wow" moment. On the surface, counterintuitive - "how can the record be turning at different speeds!", but then the lightbulb goes off.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

I see the pacing of life as like the groove on a record. When it starts at the outer rim, the needle has further to travel with each revolution, but that distance reduces with each turn, so that the linear velocity of the groove passing under the needle increases as it approaches the center of the disc, even though the RPMs remain constant. The record turns at 78rpm all the way thru, but the linear velocity increases as the song plays thru to the end.

And then the song is over and the needle either hits the lock groove or skids across the label, and that's the end of it.

Sometimes the needle gets stuck & you hear the same thing over & over again........Sometimes the needle gets stuck & you hear the same thing over & over again.....Sometimes the needle gets stuck & you hear the same thing over & over again........Sometimes the needle gets stuck & you hear the same thing over & over again.

"Give it a knock somebody !"

 

[2jakes]

That's funny I have the impression that life is slowing down as I get older, maybe that's down to my lack of ambition, so I just sit back & enjoy the ride.

The funny thing is this was my impression as well when I was in elementary & had to be in class all day.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Lizzie, I have great respect for your passion and preferences. But there really has been a lot of interesting music done - well away from the mainstream pop stuff - over the last decades that I bet you could find some artists and styles (many do updated versions of older styles) that you would like, but as with everything, it will take some trial and error, etc. to get there. That is our biggest frustration - it is hard to keep up, to find the niches you like, etc., with so many options, it's hard to wade through and find what you like. Not in any way discounting your preferences or sense of loss, just trying to encourage you to seek out even more music to enjoy.

I think it's less the performers than the structure of the music itself that doesn't do anything for me. I just can't take any kind of rock music -- it's a language and a mode that I just don't understand. I can see the emotion in some of it, but I don't feel it myself. I can even appreciate the cleverness in a lot of rap and hip-hop, but again, it's not a musical structure that I can relate to. And so on and on. There's just no emotional resonance.

Part of it's because I didn't grow up listening to "current music." We just never had it in the house -- my mother, even though she was in high school in the fifties, had absolutely no interest in "rock-n-roll," and most of the records we had around the house were the sort of thing she did like -- Liberace, Lawrence Welk, Billy Vaughn, etc. I had a little kiddie phonograph of my own, and the first record I remember playing on it, to the point of distraction, was a novelty song from the twenties -- "Does The Spearmint Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight?" We'd see rock performers on television and it would be like seeing space aliens. Music wasn't even a big deal around the neighborhood -- the kids I knew were interested in baseball, not in bands.

I recognize the names of a lot of the performers from the sixties thru the nineties, because that's what was being played when I was working in radio, but I don't think I could pick any of them out of a crowd. I do know who Don McLean is because he lives in this area and is kind of a dink, but I can't say that I enjoy his work.

 

[Fading Fast]

I see the pacing of life as like the groove on a record. When it starts at the outer rim, the needle has further to travel with each revolution, but that distance reduces with each turn, so that the linear velocity of the groove passing under the needle increases as it approaches the center of the disc, even though the RPMs remain constant. The record turns at 78rpm all the way thru, but the linear velocity increases as the song plays thru to the end.

And then the song is over and the needle either hits the lock groove or skids across the label, and that's the end of it.

Doesn't the linear velocity slow down as the circle circumference gets smaller but it does one turn in the same time as the outer circles larger circumference, meaning - the inside of a record has a slower linear velocity? Or is my head all screwed up on this?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm pretty sure it's faster toward the inside, just from my experience cleaning up surface noise -- the crackle picks up in tempo toward the middle of the disc. Of course, if you're playing a center-start radio transcription, it's faster in the beginning and slower at the end...

 

[Fading Fast]

I'm pretty sure it's faster toward the inside, just from my experience cleaning up surface noise -- the crackle picks up in tempo toward the middle of the disc. Of course, if you're playing a center-start radio transcription, it's faster in the beginning and slower at the end...

I'm far from an expert (I'm the opposite of one), but I still think it's faster on the outside - where's Hudson Hawk when you need him .

 

[vitanola]

I'm pretty sure it's faster toward the inside, just from my experience cleaning up surface noise -- the crackle picks up in tempo toward the middle of the disc. Of course, if you're playing a center-start radio transcription, it's faster in the beginning and slower at the end...

No, Miss Maine, the linear velocity relative to the stylus point slows as one approaches the center of the disc. This negatively affects high frequency response and lowers the frequency of surface noise, making it more prominent relative to program material. Cylinder records have inherent advantages in this regard, for they have constant linear velocity, and stable frequency response and signal-to-noise ratios, but they pose a storage problem. Have you ever noticed the acoustic superiority of multi-part transcriptions which alternate between inside out and outside in? When cleaning these up the side joints are less apparent for the surface noise and frequency response of the alternating sides are similar, and so the splice is less jarring.

 

[2jakes]

Doesn't the linear velocity slow down as the circle circumference gets smaller but it does one turn in the same time as the outer circles larger circumference, meaning - the inside of a record has a slower linear velocity? Or is my head all screwed up on this?

No, the linear velocity only loses it’s flavor as the circle circumference gets smaller

 

[Trenchfriend]

I think it's less the performers than the structure of the music itself that doesn't do anything for me. I just can't take any kind of rock music -- it's a language and a mode that I just don't understand. I can see the emotion in some of it, but I don't feel it myself. I can even appreciate the cleverness in a lot of rap and hip-hop, but again, it's not a musical structure that I can relate to. And so on and on. There's just no emotional resonance.

Part of it's because I didn't grow up listening to "current music." We just never had it in the house -- my mother, even though she was in high school in the fifties, had absolutely no interest in "rock-n-roll," and most of the records we had around the house were the sort of thing she did like -- Liberace, Lawrence Welk, Billy Vaughn, etc. I had a little kiddie phonograph of my own, and the first record I remember playing on it, to the point of distraction, was a novelty song from the twenties -- "Does The Spearmint Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight?" We'd see rock performers on television and it would be like seeing space aliens. Music wasn't even a big deal around the neighborhood -- the kids I knew were interested in baseball, not in bands.

I recognize the names of a lot of the performers from the sixties thru the nineties, because that's what was being played when I was working in radio, but I don't think I could pick any of them out of a crowd. I do know who Don McLean is because he lives in this area and is kind of a dink, but I can't say that I enjoy his work.

Don McLean "American Pie" = most nerving song on every nerving doodle-entertainment-radio in Germany! One of the nerving classics.

Luckily, I mustn't hear mainstream-radio and can enjoy alternative culture-radio.

 

[Trenchfriend]

That's funny I have the impression that life is slowing down as I get older, maybe that's down to my lack of ambition, so I just sit back & enjoy the ride.

Me too. I'm 31.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I'm reluctant to paint all "rock music" with the same wide brush. The category label, like jazz, covers everything from reworked R&B, to heavy metal, surfer and hot rod songs, Madonna... you name it. It's a genre worth serious inquiry and I find much of it an offensive cacophony, but there are pieces that I enjoy.

One point that I'll note: we associate certain songs with life experiences and relationships, past and present. And often cherishing those memories surpass any artistic merit that the song itself may have or lack. Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" triggers pleasant memories of fall 1972 for me... and the 1974 First Class "Beach Baby"- a tune with no artistic significance whatsoever- triggers a long past carefree relationship that led nowhere but was enjoyable for its own sake. And I'm sure that others see songs- rock or otherwise- in that same light.

 

[Fading Fast]

I'm reluctant to paint all "rock music" with the same wide brush. The category label, like jazz, covers everything from reworked R&B, to heavy metal, surfer and hot rod songs, Madonna... you name it. It's a genre worth serious inquiry and I find much of it an offensive cacophony, but there are pieces that I enjoy.

One point that I'll note: we associate certain songs with life experiences and relationships, past and present. And often cherishing those memories surpass any artistic merit that the song itself may have or lack. Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" triggers pleasant memories of fall 1972 for me... and the 1974 First Class "Beach Baby"- a tune with no artistic significance whatsoever- triggers a long past carefree relationship that led nowhere but was enjoyable for its own sake. And I'm sure that others see songs- rock or otherwise- in that same light.

John Fogerty's "Centerfield" came out when I was a senior in college and had just started dating a girl I had wanted to date for awhile. That album - the title song and "Rock and Roll Girl -" where playing everywhere at that point. While both are, IMHO, throwaway pop songs, they always take me right back to that moment in my life and, as you noted, because of that, I enjoy the songs well beyond the intrinsic quality of the music.

 

[MisterCairo]

I patiently waited 32 years to see the sequel to Star Wars Return of the Jedi.

And it was worth it...

 

[ChiTownScion]

No, Miss Maine, the linear velocity relative to the stylus point slows as one approaches the center of the disc.

Stands to reason, really. The circumferences become progressively smaller as the record plays, but the stylus is always travelling @ the same RPM.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I never heared of the famous US-songwriter Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864), before. That's interesting. Now, I have to read more.

He was mentioned on german radio, some minutes ago (MDR Figaro, German broadcaster Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk's cultural radio channel).

 

[tonyb]

I never heared of the famous US-songwriter Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864), before. That's interesting. Now, I have to read more.

I doubt most Americans know of him, either, but they know his work.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We sang a lot of Foster in our grade-school "Music Appreciation" classes, but I doubt many kids today would recognize "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair" or "Old Folks at Home" today, and they certainly wouldn't recognize "Old Black Joe." And if they know "Camptown Races" at all, it's as the song Foghorn Leghorn sings. If, indeed, they have any idea who "Foghorn Leghorn" is.

Our "music book" was a strange thing in those classes. We learned a mix of nineteenth-century fake folk/minstrel songs like Foster wrote, a few sea chanteys, some patriotic pseduo-hymns like "My Country Tis Of Thee" and "America The Beautiful," and a whole bunch of World War I songs. I might not have known much about the Beatles, but I knew "A Long Way To Tipperary," "Pack Up Your Troubles," "There's A Long Long Trail," and a sanitized version of "Hinkey Dinkey Parley Voo" before I was ten years old.

 

[2jakes]

John Fogerty's "Centerfield" came out when I was a senior in college and had just started dating a girl I had wanted to date for awhile. That album - the title song and "Rock and Roll Girl -" where playing everywhere at that point. While both are, IMHO, throwaway pop songs, they always take me right back to that moment in my life and, as you noted, because of that, I enjoy the songs well beyond the intrinsic quality of the music.

CCR always takes me back to my military tour overseas.