The Memory Palace
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While listening to an interview on one of my local public radio stations with Bill Bryson about his new book on the history of (a very specific type of) “private life,” I was reminded of one of my favorite little historical phenomena.
It’s the flip-side to Episode 35(the Walkman one) and, in its way, to Episode 12 (the Marconi one). It’s simple. But lovely.
We’ve only been able to record audio for a hundred years and fifty years or so. It’s only been about a hundred and change that people could actually go out and hear recorded audio or buy a machine to play it in their homes. And so before that, before the phonautograph or the gramophone or the player piano or phonograph or the radio or the 16 gig iPod Nano with Multi-Touch, you only heard a musical performance once. If you fell in love with that song or an aria or a symphony or a chant you heard that one time, that one time might be all you got. You might wait decades to hear it performed again. And who knows how it would sound then? Sung by a different voice? Played by different hands? Who would you be the next time you heard it again? If you ever heard it again. 
Published On Nov 20,2010
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As late as fifth grade, this conundrum still effected me. I am currently 20 years old. When I was in fifth grade it was about 2001. I wouldn’t get my first portable disc player for another year. All I had was a cassette player and one re-writable cassette. The best I could do was record songs from my radio. Out and about, at the mall, in the comic book shop, I remember hearing music that I hunted for months, if not years. It was a glorious sensation to finally find it.
You are killing us on Google! But your episode on the walkman melted away the stress and anxiety and it was completely worth it. Keep doing what you’re doing, it’s beautiful.
Thanks for the update Nate. You’ve got the best single person podcast going out there…look forward top hearing the new stuff…will it be audio only?
As an audio archivist, I think about this all the time. The past as a foreign country and all that. Had I been born in the 19th century, I would play any instrument I could afford — even though I have zero natural musical ability. Zero! But without easy access to recorded music, I would have no other choice. (And what’s easier than an ipod’s repeat one?)