Music to my Ears

Today

This morning Paul was reciting, pretty well verbatim, from an album that his Dad used to play, with a mixture of solemnity and excitement, back in 1957. This album was called "A Journey into Stereophonic Sound" in which a posh-voiced narrator described the various things captured by this new recording method - the ceremony of the keys at the Tower, an express train whooshing past, The Ride of the Valkyrie. "How awed we were in those days", said Paul wistfully "imagine today's kids being excited by something like this."

In My Day

We had a vast collection of records. The family myth goes that Mamma first saw Daddy when he was painting the hall ceiling at 4 BH whilst listening to Beethoven's 7th on 78s. He had to climb down every four minutes to change the record.

The existence of the Henry Wood Gramophone Circle ensured that we would amass an ever-growing collection of records. Our 78 record deck had two turntables and records were doubled sided, odds and evens. This meant that you could move smoothly from disc one to two, and be turning over disc one ready and so on. A forty minute symphony could run to ten or more discs and were housed in boxes that were pretty heavy.

The decision to move to 33 rpm was a major one - there was a considerable outlay and we needed a broad classical repertoire. In the end the bullet was bitten and we made the change. We had a collection of over a thousand records which were housed in a filing cabinet in the room where the meetings were held. There were many advantages over 78s, quite apart from the greater length of each side. They were less susceptible to breakages and, while you could no longer play them with just about anything, including a rusty nail, the styli were miracles of precision. I remember that we had a little paper disc marked out with three concentric rings of black lines, one for 78, one for 45, one for 33rpm. The idea was that if the turntable was turning at exactly 33rpm the relevant black lines would blur into grey. It was possible to play a record designed for 33rpm at 45 or even 78 with hilarious (or so we thought) results. I think Mamma & Daddy rather frowned on this.

The move to stereo was less dramatic; after all, the recordings were still on vinyl and revolved at 33rpm. The change was more in the equipment and the careful placing of speakers. But gradually new recordings were made and our collection was updated. I don't recall feeling as much excitement about this as Paul and his Dad did and in fact am not sure that my hearing is really sensitive enough for the nuances of hifi.

I can usually tell when a pre-stereo recording is played on the radio as it has a curious quality of sounding as though the musicians are in a small room with me which I find rather endearing.