Music Man (Virtual)

I love music. I can’t sing but I love music, most music. There even a few (very few) Rap tunes I like.

I’m slowly going deaf. I stopped listening to the radio, records & cassette tapes. Records and tapes: that pretty much tells you how long ago that was!.

And then I got hearing aids. They changed my life. I could hear again. I rediscovered music and began listening to music on the radio again. We got a CD player in the early 90’s & I began purchasing CD’s I found interesting. Over the next 15 years, I purchased almost as many CDs as I did novels. Amazon.com loved me.

Three years ago, I got a Sony eReader. That changed my life too. I’ve read exactly two paper novels in the past three years. I read over 50 novels a year and no longer have to find space to shelve all those novels. Our bookshelves are no longer over flowing with pulp fiction.

I never thought about how many CDs I have or what kind of music I’ve collected. I hear music on NPR or KROQ & I go to Amazon.com and look for it. Amazon has that insidious “help” function, “People who purchased this music also purchased…..” I would purchase the CD I was looking for in addition to several others. Amazon .com really loves me.

In past years, I uploaded my CDs into iTunes on my PC. However, if you don’t purchase your music through iTunes, it’s not saved if your HD (Hard Drive) crashes and if you purchase a new PC, it’s not easy to transfer those saved CDs to the new PC. I switched to MAC when I retired and I am now able to back up my HD on the Time Capsule.

A week or so ago, iTunes began a new service where you can upload your CDs NOT purchased via iTunes and they will save them for you in the iCloud: costs $24.99 a year but it’s well worth it.

It was time to transition my music collection.

I spent last week uploading CDs into iTunes. I began with about 1 GB of music on iTunes (that was about 5 hours of music). It takes about 3 minutes to transfer a CD. I transferred 75 to 100 CDs a day for over a week. Where did all these CD’s come from? It took over 48 hours to upload the music into the iCloud. I have nearly 1,000 CDs! I think I’m getting my $24.99 worth.

I now have over 90 GB of music saved, which is over 33 days of music. If I put my entire collection on shuffle, I’ll not have a single song repeat for a month. That could make for a very strange mix: Bach followed by Macy Gray followed by Frank Sinatra & The Mutators. Yikes!

I have my entire music collection on my iPod and the entire collection backed up to the iCloud. I can purchase music from iTunes with assurances it will not be lost with a HD or iPod crash. Using Play Lists and Genius, I’m now utilizing my entire music library. There are no more CDs cluttering up the stereo cabinet. The CD player is no longer needed. The CD’s have gone into storage.

I’m not purchasing books anymore. I’m not purchasing CDs anymore. Amazon.com is no longer in love with me.

Thank you for listening,

Jerry L. Hanson