Taking the Fifth...and the rest of them, too

If you had told me even ten years ago that I would soon be able to fit my entire music collection in my pocket, I would have first checked to make sure both legs were still attached...and then rejoiced. 

If you had further told me that practically every song I've ever loved would be in one online store, available for less than a dollar, I would have lost my wee little mind.

And then if you had told me that, while a great many people did frequent this online magical music store, a greater many shunned it like the plague, on account of them having the colossal nerve to charge anything at all, I'd have goggled at you like you'd lost your mind. Upon further reflection, I think I'd have realized that free is better than cheap, from the consumer's point of view, anyway...but when you're buying music (or books, or movies, for that matter), there's more than just your point of view involved.

I'm a sometime musician and composer myself. I don't play as much as I used to; this blog has largely replaced my keyboard as a stress relief valve. I've never had anything published--wouldn't even know where to begin--but if I put myself in the place of someone who had been published, I think I'd be a mite ticked at people just naturally assuming they could reap my skullsweat for free.

Okay, I'll admit it: I've Limewired stuff. "Free" is a powerful temptation, sometimes. But then, with Limewire, you never know what you might be getting free with your free stuff. We've got industrial grade virus protection on this computer, and so that hasn't been an issue, but  I have downloaded corrupted tracks, music with commercials spliced into it, and on a few occasions, nothing at all--which is a tad unnerving. Okay, I just downloaded something...what the hell is it?

So nowadays I try to stay within the clean, well-backlit confines of the iTunes Store. Every now and again my wife is kind enough to pick me up a $20 gift card, and when I have one of those on me, civil war breaks out between adolescent Ken, the Ken with absolutely no restraint or understanding of 'delayed gratification', and the Ken of Sober Second Thought, the Ken who agonizes over using up precious gift card space on so much as a single song, lest there be a better song out there he hasn't thought of. Or one that might be released next week.

It was with one of those gift cards that I went searching thro' the fair this past weekend, I checked for the umpteenth time to see if the Proclaimers' album Born Innocent had been released.  There's a single song off that album called "Role Model" that I heard by chance a couple of years ago and fell in love with.

Nope--not there, not in Canada, anyway. Although it's been available in the British iTunes store forever. 

(That's annoying, I gotta say. I have no problem paying artists for their work, but if you're going to give me the option to browse stores from all over the world, LET ME BUY WHAT I CAN SEE. That's just common retail courtesy, as far as I'm concerned.)

I mused again about buying up Amy Grant's Age to Age. This is Amy in her pre-"Baby Baby" days, when God was at the very center of her music...and despite having little use for her God, at least as He is commonly worshipped, I still love her early output.  But not enough to buy right now.

I listened to snippets of Pink's latest and liked it...but not enough to buy right now. The new Hockey Night in Canada theme still isn't on iTunes. Toby Keith's latest--pfft. 

Hmmm.

I have an old friend with whom I've recently reconnected on Facebook. He was a professional-level trumpeter in grade nine and it's little wonder he's a professional trumpet player today. 

In my high school days, I was a pretty fair euphonium/baritone player myself...not in Craig's class, but good enough to aspire to that level, if you know what I mean. Anyway, there are reams and reams of (mostly British) band music Craig introduced me to: cornet solos, euphonium solos, you name it. I was obsessed with this stuff for years. The virtuosity of some of these players--well, even after you've heard it, you still can't believe it. 

Like this:

I hadn't listened to much of this for a long time, but just as Facebook has reconnected me with Craig, iTunes has restored my obsession with British band music. Also my memory: and so I went off in search of David Childs...and found an entire album of jaw-dropping music.

$9.99 down...

I remember, years back, my parents somehow getting a complete set of Beethoven symphonies on CD. It cost $40 or $50, as I recall.  The orchestration was okay but the tempo was several notches too fast throughout. It was probably the first time I really became aware of the cult of speed in society--hearing Beethoven's Fifth zipping along doubletime will do that. 

I typed "Beethoven" into the search field, looking for, oh, I don't know, maybe the Moonlight Sonata, or Egmont Overture--I didn't even know. And what comes up first but all nine symphonies, complete, by the London Symphony Orchestra...for $9.99.

Holy crap.

It's been years since I listened to my parents' CD: I'm not even sure, to be entirely honest, I've ever listened to all nine symphonies. I know the Fifth intimately, having played it in high school (and by the bye, am I the only person in the world who can't stand the first movement of that symphony? It's been overplayed to death, to the point where even people who absolutely hate classical music know DA DA DA DUM...) I love the other three movements...and you never hear them. Always DA DA DA DUM...

Anyway, long story short, that was too good a deal to pass up. It took almost seven hours to download the collection. The actual downloading went by quickly, about a megabyte every three seconds...but then it would take ten or twenty minutes to "process" each file. Argh. 

Now my iPod is a little bit more cultured. Beethoven's cool, you know--even if you're not a big fan of classical music, you've heard more Beethoven than you think you have. Bugs Bunny is replete with Beethoven. When I listen to the faster movements of his symphonies, I can hear nascent rock 'n' roll. It's not much of a stretch to imagine Beethoven reincarnate, moshing in a pit at a metal concert. Or maybe I'm nuts. But hey, at least being nuts has a nifty soundtrack.