My History of Music Technology

I have my favorite music, and like most folks, I like to have that music around me as much as possible. In my family, during the 70's, this started as LP's and 45's that I "borrowed" from my folks and played on my own turntable. Since these albums belonged to my parents I was pretty much stuck listening to their musical tastes. (I still have a fondness for Marty Robbins and Roger Whittaker, much to Andrea's chagrin.)

A few years later, I remember packing 8-tracks when the family would take long road trips. I was no longer constrained to what was playing on the radio, a virtual Godsend on the back roads of Nebraska. Personal music collections became highly portable, at least by 70's standards. I still remember cruising through the American Heartland with "Brickhouse" by the Commodores blasting from the tinny speakers of our Ford Econoline van. (As a kid, it was just a cool sounding song. When I actually listened to the lyrics years later as an adult, I wondered if Mom and Dad were feeling awkward at the time.)

An interesting property of 8-tracks was the tape player could loop the tape. So, unlike vinyl that you had to flip from side to side, the 8-track innovation allowed you to listen to an entire album, on repeat, ad nauseam until you literally wore out the tape. Yup. Eight-tracks were cool, but they were still clunky.

Technology marched on to the next milestone: the smaller form factor of the "Compact Cassette." I believe the cassette's biggest cool factor was, along with an affordable tape recorder, it allowed Joe Public to record his own music. Ripped from the record player, radio, or some other source, you could compile a cassette of your favorite artist's songs or, if you were thinking outside the box, different songs, artists, and genres (whoa!). For the first time ever, "El Paso City" by Robbins could be followed immediately by "Texas Women" by Bocephus.

This capability began the tradition known to all teens of that time of "making a tape." This creation gave voice to your angst du jour to share with peers of like mind, or, as demonstrated by John Cusack in his early flicks, to express feelings for that special someone you admired from afar.

The reign of the cassette lasted for years as it increased in capacity and fidelity. "Is it live or is it Memorex?" Other technologies were spawned: you were the 80's version of "the shiznit" if you owned a Walkman. However, cassettes still had an Achilles Heel. Tape players loved to eat them.

Enter the CD. CD players let you skip and/or repeat tracks easily, and play them in any bloody order you wished. Compared to cassettes, these silvery drink coasters were also darned near indestructible. Tack on the ability to record to them (double whoa!) and you're well on the way to kissing your radio good bye. How could you possibly improve on this?

Well, along comes the MP3 player that can do everything a CD player can do, only faster, easier, and with capacity out the wazoo. I've got our entire CD collection on a single device where I can access every artist and track from Bach to ZZ Top and Willie Nelson to Whitesnake. All this on a gizmo that I can fit into my pocket. This, my friends, is music junkie Nirvana! Surely we've reached the pinnacle. Could it ever, possibly get any better? You betcha! But...that's another post....

I've Coined a New Term

I was once trying to explain to a supervisor that the requirement we'd been given would greatly increase our workload but would gain us very little operationally. He couldn't see my point so I told him a story.

The USS Conyngham (DDG 17) was on a training cruise off the Virginia coast in May of 1990 when a massive fuel oil fire broke out. The all hands effort that ensued was a 23 hour battle to save the ship. Unfortunately, she lost 1 sailor and 18 were severely wounded. The Navy issued more than 50 medals to the crew as a result of their actions.


When the Conyngham got back to Norfolk, I was able to tour the fire zone. The space was a continuous black char. Throughout, massive reinforcing timbers were erected, making it look like some nightmare forest. As I walked around, the deck rose and fell under my feet like a crazy funhouse room at the carnival. I shot a glance to our guide and he just nodded grimly, "Yeah, the entire deck was close to buckling." We made our way back to the dock and we passed sailors scraping the superstructure and painting. Back on the pier, I watched Navy divers hit the water near her stern. A little while later a crane lifted her massive screw from the water and laid it gently on a barge. I looked back up at her decks at her sailors painting and just shook my head.

The Conyngham was never again going to move under her own steam. Her forward boiler room was gone, CIC was gutted, and her screw was floating away. Yet, someone thought it would be a good exercise to give her a fresh coat of paint.

So as I was trying to explain to my supervisor that we would see very little gain for the amount of work we put in, I told him he was "painting the Conyngham."

There, it's out now. Feel free to use it in normal discourse, particularly with your supervisors. However, I want credit...