Can you imagine living a day without music? Or having a month without your iPod or mp3 player? Just think of how the world would be if you were not able to hear your favorite song echo through a speaker. Well, the way that music players have branched out over the years, there are no worries for not having music by your side for generations to come.
For years, music has been a powerful tool for inspiration and enjoyment. However, music has been transformed in several different ways for people to enjoy the recorded sounds. But through the decades, music players today are as small as a pocket and as simple as just pressing the “play” button to get the music you love.
Let’s turn the clock back to where record players, or phonographs, were the “it” item of music players. From the late 1870s through the 1980s, record players were the most common device for listening to recorded sound. In the 1870s, the way to listen to music took some work than just pressing “play.” Instead, to receive music, people would have to crank the phonograph to hear popular music. However, record players soon turned to electricity and became a much easier way to listen to music. An album, or record, would be placed on the record player, while a needle was placed on the record, which would play music aloud. The record player soon shorted out in the late 1980s; a new product was then put out.
Stereo 8, or commonly known as the eight-track, was popular from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s. Eight-tracks were magnetic tape sound recordings that held eight parallel soundtracks, corresponding to four stereo programs. However, by the late 1982, eight-track cartridges were not carried in retail stores.
Besides the CD, many teenagers today still remember listening to music on cassette tapes. Cassettes consisted of two sides of tracks, which made the tape to be manually flipped or the machine itself change the direction of tape movement. Cassette tapes were quite popular between the early 1970s to the late 1990s.
Megan Linn, a senior at North Marion High School, remembers listening to old cassette tapes. “I listened to my mom’s old cassette tapes like Led Zeppelin and Nirvania.”
Along side the compact cassette, compact discs, or CDs, were popular among today’s teenagers and still are. CDs are optical discs used to store digital data, however, designed for storing digital audio. The CD was on market in October 1982 but presently remains the highest sale of commercial for audio recordings.
The new millenium opened up for the highly used MP3 player today, the iPod. First, a mp3 player stores, organizes and plays audio files. On Oct. 23, 2001, Apple Inc. launched the Ipod in stores and soon became the hit item. Apple Inc.’s product line consisted of iPod Classic, iPod Touch, iPod Nano and the iPod Shuffle. As of September 2008, more than 173 million iPods worldwide had been sold. From then on, the iPod has been considered the best-selling digital audio player in history.
Many teenagers cannot go a day without having their mp3 player or iPod by their side, including Chad Efaw, a junior at North Marion High School, who had this to say about his mp3 player: “I love my mp3 player because I can jam anywhere I want to.”
So, the question is, what does the future hold next? When asked what the next invention of music players will be, Sarah Satterfield, a senior at North Marion High School, replied, “I think that music players will be more compact and hold more music and features.”
Technology has grown drastically over the years, and obviously in the music field. The next creation of music players is unknown, but is sure an excitement awaited. So while the wait, hold onto your iPod, CD player, cassette tape, or any other music device that gets you through the day and just press “play.
Entertainment Today
Related Photos
-
PHOTO BY SARAH GOODRICH
May 25, 2009
To hear music, just press ‘play’
- Entertainment Today
-
- It’s a girl for Annika Sorenstam It’s a girl for Annika Sorenstam.
- NYC subway art contest proposed to honor Jackson A New York city councilwoman has come up with another way to honor Michael Jackson at the subway station where he shot the music video for “Bad.”
- Country artists try to build their base abroad Dierks Bentley and his band recently jetted to Australia to open six shows for Brooks & Dunn, playing to more than 10,000 people a night in the country's largest cities.
- 'Billy Elliot' wins 10 Tonys; 'Carnage' best play Broadway's Tonys seemed a family affair this year, with an outpouring of generosity from winners to losers despite the domination of the evening by "Billy Eliot," which won 10 awards, and one actor bringing his wife to the stage to stand by him while he accepted his prize.
- Hollywood labor drama likely to fizzle Tuesday The credits are about to roll on a contract drama involving actors in Hollywood's biggest movies and TV shows, a fight that has left them bitterly divided and further behind than they started.
-
Commanding the field
How many can distinctively conduct the “The Star-Spangled Banner” in ¾ time using the appropriate cut-offs and the upbeat introductions? How many can direct a band marching backward and keeping time to the parade style songs? These are only the tryouts, while in reality the job of field commander entitles much more.
-
‘Every animal deserves a chance’
Isis, the shelter cat, sits perched on a wooden fence near the main door and slowly creeps over to greet guests who come to visit the sanctuary.
-
Rediscover Marion County for a summer full of fun
Memorial Day Weekend was the cue for families to begin thinking of and even planning those wonderful summer trips that build fond memories and shared stories for years to come.
In just a few weeks, school children will be out for the summer, giving families time to take off work and take off for all points north, south, east and west. -
Listen to the music playing in your head
Summer is the perfect time for outdoor concerts. And North Central West Virginia is conveniently located amid the many venues that offer music ranging from country to pop to rock and more.
The following is a list of concerts scheduled throughout the summer in the area. -
To hear music, just press ‘play’
Can you imagine living a day without music? Or having a month without your iPod or mp3 player? Just think of how the world would be if you were not able to hear your favorite song echo through a speaker. Well, the way that music players have branched out over the years, there are no worries for not having music by your side for generations to come.
- More Entertainment Today Headlines
