The Varieties of Musical Experience (cont'd)

Although I have done a lot of playing and performing, I've also been a 'consumer' of music for as long as I can remember. When I was 4 or 5 I would spend hours on a rocking horse listening to records. My memories are vague but I know I would listen to some of the same songs over and over again. I'm don't recall any specific type of music that we had in the house growing up, but I know we watched the 'hit parade' and other musical shows on television.

I remember doing a lot of ice skating to popular songs of the 50's and eighth grade sock hops with simliar music (I think all the records were old). The pop stations at the time were KDWB and WDGY (AM of course); not sure that I had a favorite band or group, but I was up on top 40's stuff through grade school and junior high.

Although it was a 'pop song', The Battle of New Orleans made a big impression; I was in boy scouts when it came out (1959) and we had a parody or two we sang around the campfire (-- something about "the 'sqiutos kept a coming").

The movie West Side Story came out when I was first starting high school and we may have had a soundtrack album. When the folk boom hit (again when I was a freshman in high school or so), I bought and listened to Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary, etc.

The Beatles hit when I was a junior in high school - I remember dancing to 'I want to hold your hand' and would up getting many of the albums (I still have these LPs). Didn't listen to much Dylan until college, but have a few of his LPs that I bought then.

In college I had a Stereo (just a turntable with Speakers) and a Motorola radio. I started out as math major and used to do math listening to music. Since computer programming is a lot like math, I still listen while I work.

I got a few Doc Watson and Tom Paxton records and learned some of their songs. Continued to listen to (and buy) Beatles and other LPs of that ilk. During at least one summer, I spent time listening to Leo Kottke and Dave Ray at the Scholar Coffee house and bought a few of their albums.

Out of college, Lynn and I taught high school in Montana for a year and moved back to Minnesota in 1970. By 1973/74 I was taking Music Classes and classical guitar lessons at the U of MN. Although I still did some jamming, my 'consumption' of folk music declined - I have a number of classical guitar LPs from that period: we also joined the Musical Heritage Society & have a number of Baroque and Renaissance Albums. (Lynn was in grad school in music and was playing the viola d' gamba). One of our first paying gigs as a wedding in Long Lake: of course we weren't playing fiddle and mandolin music - it was Viola da Gamba and Classical Guitar.

I was still listening to 'pop' music - Linda Ronstadt, Eagles, James Taylor and even a couple of Joni Mitchell albums. I was then a bartender and eventually manager of the Black Forest Inn and I made many tapes to serve as background music. Even bought a Benny Goodman album, but never did become much of a jazz fan.

Alex was born in 1978 and although I continued to listen and accumulate albums, I don't recall ever connecting with any '80s groups (Maybe Bruce Springsteen if he's considered 80's - bought a few albums by him). In the mid '80s I started playing 'folk' guitar and singing with our Church once-a-year folk-gospel-bluegrass band. This got me looking out for music to perform and I started to listen to 'modern' bluegrass singers like Alison Krauss and Tim O'Brien. By this time I had a CD player so most of my purchases were now CDs. Although I don't 'keep up' with popular music, I do own 10,000 maniac, Sara McLaughlin and Bonnie Raitt albums bought int the 90's and 2000's.

Lynn and I became active in the Minnesota Bluegrass and Oldtime Music Association in the early1990's and started going to MBOTMA festivals. I started buying a greater percentage of CD's at festivals. Although my initial focus was bluegrass, I started getting into 'old time' music through people like Bruce Molsky as well as Foghorn, Uncle Earl and other groups.

In the early 2001's I started to play guitar more and started learning new songs. I also repaired my old AR turntable (circa 1970) and in addition to listening to LPs I owned, started using EBay to get more. I was learning songs by Norman Blake and ended up getting all of his LPs (I own a number of CDs as well). In addition, I started to get LPs of 78 collections as well as some 70's and 80's bluegrass and oldtime string bands. Since I like Celtic music, many of the LPs are from bands like the Bothy and Battlefield bands.

Last year I got an 80gb ipod and I have transferred all of my CD's and some of the LPs to MP3s. Currently, I have almost 9000 tracks(haven't done the itune store download thing though, I like a hardcopy backup ;-). Although I listen to a little internet radio, my soundtrack at work or on walks is usually from this on random play. (I have over 480 hours of music, so if I listen 4 hours a day it should be 120 days before I get a repeat ). I also make playlists of songs to learn or to consider learning.

Many of the songs I know I've learned from current or revivalist musicians; lately I've been on a kick to track down original sources and/or learn music originally recorded on 78s. So I have CD sets from the Carter Family, Delmore Brothers and others as well as some CDs with 78 MP3s. (Lynn is glad that I have not gotten an actual 78 player and filled the house with old 78s).

I've transferred all of these to ITunes and the Ipod - during random play, I will often note a song that I like and move it to a 'to be considered' playlist.

I expect I'll keep listening...