Day 816, September 26, 2022

Headphones

Sometimes when I listen to music, it is like a record album rotating around the same handful of songs, the same artists, a rut of composers, an era of sounds. Back when I had a CD changer in the shop, certain CDs never left the carousel. Every day they would make the rounds, every five hours or so. It became a way of tracking time. There is A Love Supreme again, the Grant Green compilation. And then one day, I closed up the shop, and that CD player, and those albums disappeared. An era passed before I returned to them on entirely different media.

Some time in middle school, my father returned from a tour of Japan with one of the first Sony Walkman cassette players. It was big and bulky by mid-eighties standards, but at the time it was svelte. There was a built in speaker and microphone, and it came with a snap on leather case with cutouts for the buttons. Suddenly, it was possible to carry around your music without relying on the spindly antenna and finicky reception of the transistor radio. Headphones also shrank, from heavy fully enclosed models like what helicopter pilots wear, to thin whispery bent metal things that rested on foam pads that felt like almost nothing. And that is how I walked through school hallways and imagined my own movie soundtrack as I passed Ms. Selden’s classroom and made my way to the library where Romula was marrying seventh grade couples over the middle school dictionary. 

Only recently have I returned to headphones, wireless rechargeable models that I wear while cooking dinner so that I do not disturb the peace with a Spotify Acid Jazz mix. Or on the fifteen minute walk from my parking area to the office, when I can continue the audio book I’m reading and not quite step out of Haruki Murakami’s world until I cross the threshold into the office and I say hello to the assistant who is always already there.

Today’s headphones are delightful auditory experiences, nothing like those early generations. I have full cushion headphones for cooking dinner, the ubiquitous earbuds for on the go music and audio. Once again, I can have my own soundtrack as I mow the lawn, do the dishes, make the chili. 

Music has always been important to me, but as much as the music itself, the listening to music has been important. When I was stationary and home bound, the early days of fatherhood, my speaker collection grew in size and number. I had a stereo system for the workshop, for the study, for the living room. Each with its own receiver, record player, CD player, cassette deck, and pair of speakers. Old KLHs, or ARs were a specialty of mine, mostly take-it-or-leave-it finds at the dump. I loved how those old systems sounded, state of the art, at one time, but still glorious. I subjected my children to a wide range of auditory whim, from the dollar bin free jazz, to the Saint Saens Symphony No. 3. This became their soundtrack to Lego building, stuffed animal parties, and drawing sessions. 

There were no headphones worn in this era. 

And then there was a period where music slipped away into the background. I continued to play music in bands, but listening to music became more of an occasional thing, when there was company, or the kids wanted a dance party. Years passed without a soundtrack. Only recently, in the midst of the pandemic, have I returned to listening to music. Wearing headphones it is much more personal and intimate. Like walking around the house in your underwear. I hope I continue to kindle that spirit for a long time and always relish the hiss and pop of the needle riding the runout at the end of an album.