The long walk to class in the morning is something I don’t mind when accompanied with my iPod. With music, I am able to carry on my mood from my room until the moment I get to class. When traveling long distance, I know the little device in my hand contains all the comfort that I need for the fatiguing flights. In just a touch of a button, I am able to return to my room, my memories of friends, and turn my long, wasteful waiting hours into pleasant, entertaining experience until getting to my destination. Its small presence with an enormous yet convenient power is what makes it a valuable possession I can’t afford to be around without.
Music is not a dimensional object that can be preserved in a safe glass box or in volumes as poetry can be in written forms. Its major components of moving rhythms, transitioning dynamics, and addictive melodies require an animated audio player to bring it alive. Depending on the different tempos and volume of the audio, it can turn the quality of the song from a happy to sad, upbeat to mellow, or even pleasant to unpleasant sound. With the failure to process and project all of the interconnected elements, the essence of music is lost.
Emile Berliner’s invention of the first record and its player in 1887 introduced a new aspect in the appreciation of music. Everyone was able to individually own his or her favorite musicians and their music. Time consuming effort to get to live performances held in public place could be spared, and now be held directly in the individuals’ private homes. Music could now be played an infinite number of times for any reason of occasion. Physical and social efforts became unnecessary and listening to music could now be turned into effortless personal hobbies.
As music recording technology evolved, physical space reserved for the audio system began to minimize for convenience. Philips in Europe initiated the first upgrade from the big bulky record into a new product called compact cassette, which took the form of a small plastic box. Inside the compact cassette were rolls of strips that held within its small dimensions an eventful amount of music. However, the easily tangled and damageable strips soon called for the next step of development. Not twenty years later, the first CD (compact discs) was released in America. Although it required a more cautious care to avoid getting scratches, it had an incomparably greater capacity to hold more data and efficiency since it was able to last longer. Although the aesthetics and materials in the physical look of music recordings changed, the value of their existence was not altered by them.
With emphasis on consuming goods, CD’s became one of many other observably popular consumers’ products. With the new system of Napster, an online music downloading program, people began to freely share their music on the internet, an intangible cyberspace. For this reason, they naturally began to devalue purchasing and having ownership of tangible CD’s. It eliminated worries of having physical storage space for collecting music as a whole, since they could now be stored as mp3 files inside the computer hardware. Having such an easy access to all genres of music, more people used Napster instead of buying CD’s, which initiated marketing decline for the music industry. The program had to be shut down for encouraging the users to free download and distribute burned copies of CD’s, crossing the line of legality.
Now learning the possibility of the technology to intangibly transfer music to home computers and into portable mp3 players, Apple soon launched iTunes and iPods in 2003 filling the holes of the unsettled problems Napster previously had. This system allowed consumers to buy music as normally buying CD’s, but digitally by individual songs instead of whole albums. Acquiring 24 hour access from anywhere with internet connections, songs were transferred over to the consumer’s computer with few clicks on the screen. Such simple process attracted not just the young targets, but also the older generation to become regular users. Music in the cultural aspect became more respectable among more diverse groups. Over the years, Apple brought a change by offering more variety of iPods that invited the lower class to take interest also. No matter the where the consumer fell in the social class, anyone was now able to afford for iPods since it comes in wide ranging prices with different features. Personalization and color options also added contentment over having ownership of the equipment and no one felt left out of the latest music trend.
Although technology brought change to the value of music this far and made common for people to take its regular availability for granted, we have not yet totally lost the intimate connection of appreciating live music performances. Technology makes it possible for us to still revisit live concerts of Elvis, Beatles, and other musicians of the past, but despite how good the quality of the recordings are, it cannot replace the experience of their music as having been physically at their concerts back in time. The “human recorder” is far more superior with the ability to capture the neglectful details such as the soft yet tonic harmonies and spontaneous commentaries. Based on the experience, their music and they remain as inspiration or are forgotten. However, on the better side of the history, music can now travel digitally. It has become a universal piece of property for all age groups throughout the world and brought them together for their sharing interests.
The simple circle within a rectangle shape has become such a powerful icon that people all over the world are able to recognize it. Everyone knows when they see a button shaped like a wheel, they are not to push down, but simply touch and move clockwise in a circle to go down the menu. While staying abroad, I know I don’t have to worry about getting music updates from home. Although, not entirely the same as being back, I am able to keep myself up and not miss out on my own music, thanks to iTunes.
