Finally, after all these years, I have embraced digital music.
Not that I've avoided MP3s, WMAs, WAVs, OGGs, AIFFs, MIDIs, and whatever iTunes uses. I've had tons of the things since they first became available, many of them even legally. But they've never been real to me.
See, I grew up with record albums. Big dinner-plate-sized discs of black vinyl. They were prone to scratches and warping and breakage and came in cheesy cardboard sleeves the size of museum paintings that attracted mold, and I loved them more than my dog or any given parent. But music enjoyment in those days was hard work. Not just because of the difficulties in avoiding deadly fingerprints or stacking coins on the needle arm to get past the scratches, something that required the intense concentration of a bomb squad agent with hiccups. No, what I spent my time on was organization.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
From Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity":
Tuesday night I reorganize my record collection; I often do this at periods of emotional stress. There are some people who would find this a pretty dull way to spend an evening, but I'm not one of them. This is my life, and it's nice to be able to wade in it, immerse your arms in it, touch it.
When Laura was here I had the records arranged alphabetically; before that I had them filed in chronological order, beginning with Robert Johnson, and ending with, I don't know, Wham!, or somebody African, or whatever else I was listening to when Laura and I met. Tonight, though, I fancy something different, so I try to remember the order I bought them in: that way I hope to write my own autobiography, without having to do anything like pick up a pen. I pull the records off the shelves, put them in piles all over the sitting room floor, look for Revolver, and go on from there; and when I've finished, I'm flushed with a sense of self, because this, after all, is who I am. I like being able to see how I got from Deep Purple to Howlin' Wolf in twenty-five moves; I am no longer pained by the memory of listening to 'Sexual Healing' all the way through a period of enforced celibacy, or embarrassed by the reminder of forming a rock club at school, so that I and my fellow fifth-formers could get together and talk about Ziggy Stardust and Tommy.
But what I really like is the feeling of security I get from my new filing system; I have made myself more complicated than I really am. I have a couple of thousand records, and you have to be me - or, at the very least, a doctor of Flemingology - to know how to find any of them. If I want to play, say, Blue by Joni Mitchell, I have to remember that I bought it for someone in the autumn of 1983, and thought better of giving it to her, for reasons I don't really want to go into. Well, you don't know any of that, so you're knackered, really, aren't you? You'd have to ask me to dig it out for you, and for some reason I find this enormously comforting.
[ March 02, 2005, 09:25 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
It's "High Fidelity," and those are precisely my sentiments. Except that iTunes abstracts the directory arrangemnet of the songs away from me so I don't need to worry about it if I don't want to (though I do periodically go poking about in there and move this or that song).
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Eek! Duly changed.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
There's a movie of High Fidelity, too, which I really enjoy. John Cusack. And Jack Black. Before I left a 64-CD booklet on a train, those CDs were arranged in autobiographical order. Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
It must be a personality thing, I think. For me, the odd compulsion has moved past the way I organize my couple hundred CDs in the large cardboard box that is their home and now manifests itself in the designations I allow everything in iTunes. Once, I went through and cataloged my whole collection by language group. (French being close to Spanish, a little farther from Hindi, way down the line from Finnish.)
It kind of freaks people out sometimes. I'm glad you fellows understand, though. Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
I used to have my CDs organized by color. All the ones with colored cases were in a giant rainbow, and the black and white ones alternated, with the columns staggered so that overall it was a checkerboard effect. A checkerboard with really thin squares, but still.
One of my more left-brained friends came over one day and freaked out that my CDs weren't organized, and sat down to start organizing them. I stopped her and said they were organnized just fine, thank you very much.
She leaned back and said "They're not alphabetical, by band or title."
"Nope."
"Not by genre."
"Nope."
"Not chronologically."
"Nope."
*loooooooong pause*
"They're by color."
"Yep!"
"I hate you."
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
My bookshelves are kind of like that. There are some topical themes, but you'd have to know the in joke in order to understand if I put my Robert Jordan on the same shelf as OSC.
AJ
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
I saw the movie first and hunted out the book. Much as I like John Cusack, I like the book better
My organization is either all or nothing. I'm sure that says something terribly important about me, but my main concern is: can I find what I want as soon as I want it? Sometimes that means meticulous filing, such as with my e-book collection, and sometimes it means remembering that the second to last Discworld book is on the bookshelf, sideways, underneath Good Omens and Practical Magic.
[ March 02, 2005, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Honest, self-evaluation time Chris: what percent of your time do you spend writing the article and what percent do you spend writing the title?
Great article, I love few things more than sitting down with whatever (DVDs, books, music) and organizing it according to some new scheme I've devised.
Hobbes Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
The bleary done be gone from my eyes now!
*Laughs quietly and nostaligically* *Plans leisurley weekend of organizing*
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Chris, I am sending the link to this article to my music list, filled with taper-trader-geeks. Is that OK? It is priceless! (I won't until you say it is OK)
Well, it is a public article, right? And it will give you more exposure, right? Because I am being impatient and want to share this now!
Chris, I am sorry, but I sent it.
[ March 02, 2005, 11:56 AM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
My husband has an interesting system. He saves all his music(which is all live) on back-up cds which he keeps on the spindles the cds came in. Each file has a number, and is anally stacked in order. There are thousands, but they only take up one shelf, as the spindles stack perfectly atop each other.
And Chris, you will be happy to know, this collecting and organizing only takes up about fifty percent of his life time. He has figured out how many years it would take to actually listen to all of it. I forget how many, but it was pretty astounding.
"sometimes it means remembering that the second to last Discworld book is on the bookshelf, sideways, underneath Good Omens and Practical Magic."
This is my system. Death to anyone who moves my piles!
[ March 02, 2005, 11:35 AM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Please feel free to send links to anyone you like. Traffic is good.
My columns traditionally take about three hours to write but that also includes obsessive Hatrack checking, music playlist fiddling, and more than a few rewrites. The working title for this one was "Audio files for audiophiles," suggested by my writing buddy, but I thought of this one yesterday morning before I submitted it. Sometimes I'll think of the title and work up a column to match it, like an upcoming one about online medical diagnosis sites and their effect on hypochondriacs (based on my wife) called "I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell."
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Good one Chris.
Wednesdays are one of my favorite days of the week, I know when I log on I'll have something new to read. Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
DVD extras: this column originally had more to do with the skill and artistry involved in enjoying music, as opposed to clicking to make a playlist. Here's some deleted excerpts.
"When I was a teen with disposable income, music came engraved on dinner-plate-sized discs of black vinyl, like a huge floppy CD. These archaic devices, called “records” or “LPs,” were invented in ancient Sumeria to replace the round clay tablets of prehistoric DJs. They were prone to scratches and breakage and came in pre-dented cardboard sleeves the size of museum paintings. I loved ‘em. But they were hard work."
"Just getting the record on the turntable without adding fingerprints required the intense concentration of a bomb squad agent with hiccups. Experts – and we were all experts – knew how to hit specific song grooves with a deft touch and how many coins to balance on the needle arm to force it past the inevitable scars (one penny for a simple scratch, three quarters for actual cracks)."
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
ElJay - there was a bit of installation art recently in California like that. The artist (and now I can't for the life of me remember his name.... Michael something?) got permission to re-arrange an entire bookstore by color. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen.
edit: Looked up the specifics. The piece is called "There is Nothing Wrong in This Whole Wide World" by artist Chris Cobb, and was at Adobe Bookshop in San Francisco. There are pictures here.
[ March 02, 2005, 05:32 PM: Message edited by: Annie ]
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Annie, I wish I could have seen that. I'll have to google for pictures when I get home. And, um, maybe take a long look at my bookshelves. The CDs looked really cool.
My magnetic poetry on my fridge is organized by parts of speech. Nouns, verbs, adverbs, conjuctions... I've got a couple of sets, too, so it's a lot of words. I think it might be time to take them down. Before I seperated them that way, the words were alphabetized for awhile. Primarily because I was looking for a certain word for a poem and I couldn't find it.
Added: Oh, thank you so much! That looks really amazing!
[ March 02, 2005, 05:35 PM: Message edited by: ElJay ]
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
Our magnetic fridge letters used to be sorted...until a certain little person realized it was really cool to slide them around. Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
I alphabetize the silverware.
Funny, though, how my anal ordering tendencies don't carry over into my neatness habits. Everything I own is sorted and organized and in little stacks laying around the house.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
The silverware? Care to explain that one a little more?
Posted by Little_Doctor (Member # 6635) on :
Great article Chris! I wasnt alive when vinyls were in use. My dad on the other hand, has a collection thats takes up and entire room in my basement. Well over ten thousand records. We reorganize them twice a year, and its so much fun. I like music on the computer because it's convenient, but vinyls are always going to be the best. Even if I'm not allowed to listen to them because of sentimental value.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
quote: Care to explain that one a little more?
Big fork, Big spoon, Knife, Little fork, Little spoon, Other
Posted by Little_Doctor (Member # 6635) on :
What aobut Butter Knife? Ladel? Steak Knife? Serving Spoon?
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Ah, okay. My silverware set came with a handy wooden caddy with appropriate separate slots for everything, so I don't have to figure out my own system.
But the top row of my spice rack is parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Aren't quirks fun?
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
quote:I realize for many of you who are more experienced with digital music this is like watching someone playfully press down on the gas pedal after previously only ever using their car as a cigarette lighter
Chris, you are a genius.
Thanks!
I arranged my records by genre and artist. I arrange my digital files in subdirectories by artist and then turn them into automatic playlists.
I arrange books by size, then genre and author (alphabetic).
I suppose my only quirk (which ElJay actually messed up when she put my books and things on the shelves here at dkw-land) is that all my knick-knacks are themed to the genre of book that appears behind them on the shelves. For example, the fossil-bearing slate and the trilobite sit next to the natural history books. The little wooden praying monk and the carved lava tiki god sit next to the books on religion. Anthropology was fronted by an Amazonian blow gun, and so forth.
Dana noticed it right away in my old house, but the boxes got kind of packed at random and when they arrived at the new place, ElJay did me the HUGE favor of placing them all on shelves. Someday, I'll get it all straight again. Then lock the room so no-one can mess with it.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Man, if you woulda told me, it woulda been right. But all the knick-knacks were in the same box. You're moving again in July, anyhow. Just fix it then.
Added: Actually, I'm not sure I could have done that, because in order for things to sit in front of books on shelves it means the books would have to be pushed back, instead of lined up perfectly at the front of the shelf. That would have been difficult for me to do.
[ March 02, 2005, 07:00 PM: Message edited by: ElJay ]
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
I have a friend who arranges her music by "feel."
"No way Tom Waits would ever be able to handle a shelf with Cheryl Crowe."
That sort of thing. People come over and protest, and move everyone around.
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Except that iTunes abstracts the directory arrangemnet of the songs away from me so I don't need to worry about it if I don't want to (though I do periodically go poking about in there and move this or that song).
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![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
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You're moving again in July, anyhow. Just fix it then.