Music lessons; take two
Back in April, I took Paul’s record collection and a turntable to my nephew, Parker. This was a much-loved gift and he’s since purchased a few new (old) records to add to the collection. Unfortunately, this left his 12-year-old brother, Haden, feeling a bit left out.
But that changed today when I showed up with a dual-cassette “boom box” and a bag of Uncle Paul and my old cassette tapes. I know it’s hard to believe, but the kid was so, so excited to get a stack of Van Morrison and Bob Dylan tapes. Maybe less excited about some of my tapes – Cyndi Lauper, Sylvia, and Belinda Carlisle.
I had to teach him how to use the cassette player and explain how the process works for finding a specific song and flipping the tape over when one side is done, but that quick lesson was enough to get him ready to play. I also explained the concept of mixed tapes and the differences between 8-tracks and cassettes. He was further cheered when I told him that you can still find cassettes every so often. (He’s a yard sale maniac, so he’ll be finding new music all summer, I’m sure!)
Anyhow, we’re now sitting here watching Pete’s Dragon and I think it’s driving him crazy because what he wants to be doing is playing with his new toy.
Yep. I’m still Aunt Awesome!
My first mix tapes were made by recording tracks I loved off the radio. Even now when I hear particular songs I can remember the track that came after it on my own personal compilation.
I never had a mix tape made for me when I was a teenager, but I have had 3 separate sources since ‘growing up’ – one from a good friend who was trying to cheer me up, one from a colleague as a thank you/leaving present and one from another friend more recently as a way of rescuing my AWOL musical taste/knowledge!!
And to demonstrate the march of technology – the first actually was a tape, the second has a CD and the third was straight to iPod. I loved that you had to show your nephew how to ‘use’ a tape player, who’d have thought it?? But when you stop to think, why would he know? They’re just not around anymore.
Today’s lesson was in how to remove the speakers. It’s so funny that he’s so into ‘retro’ technology! I mean, on Friday he purchased an electric typewriter for Goodness’ Sakes!