For his birthday, my husband wanted a turntable. He’s been digitizing all of our CDs so we can listen to them easily from our living room stereo, but while it’s convenient once it is all digitized and we can control the music from our phones, it is a soulless process. He and I both feel the lack of anything physical to work with when we play music — nothing to touch, hold, or place in a player; no artwork to enjoy while we listen. No object we feel we own.
On his birthday last week, the kids and I presented him with a record player from U-turn Audio. Though I knew it might be risky, we really really wanted to not get the black one. So we bought the white one instead. It has made him ridiculously happy.
This turntable has been almost as exciting in our household as when we brought the kittens home. Our kids are really into it. The problem is, we spent the whole birthday budget on the turntable, and we didn’t have any money left to buy any records.
I know, lame.
But the lack of music to play actually intensified the experience for Brian. The next day, he went to a record store and flipped through vinyl albums. He was moved by the act of being in a brick and mortar store, touching the albums, and looking at the large format artwork that was once an important part of the listening experience.
When the kids came home, they wanted to know all about the music he bought. They wanted to look at the records. They had a dozen questions. “How does it work? How does the music come out?” My husband showed how to put a record on, how to place the needle. They watched it spin and wanted to know about the grooves — how they’re made, how the needle in the groove makes music. They had never asked questions before about the mechanics of music-listening or the physics of sound. This object — a vinyl jazz record — sparked a curiosity that had previously not existed.
We’ve already listened to our two records multiple times. The kids want to listen to more, and so do we. “Maybe we could listen to the clock,” our son said.
This turntable is special to them in the way that music was special to us when we were their age. We want them to have the experience of their own first album, like we had when we were young — maybe the Empire Strikes Back score for our son and Rubber Soul for our daughter, who has learned at least a half dozen Beatles songs on her guitar.
For now we’ll just keep playing these two records, enjoy them with our feet up on the table and a drink in our hand, and start saving our allowances again.
I remember the firstr ecord player I bought. It cost me £17/10/- and I paid for it weekly from money earned through my little job. I was 12/13 I think. I was so excited, but couldn’t play it as Dad didn’t have a 3amp fuse for the plug, so I had to wait!
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Excellent essay. Informative. Emotional. Insightful.
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Remember, I have about ten feet of vinyl you’re welcome to browse the next time you’re here!
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We still have a record player here at home and a ton of old Vinyl that I could never let go of. I play them still once in a while.
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My husband and I bought a record player a few Christmases ago and we love it.
Thank you for sharing your experience and a wonderful birthday present.
Enjoy searching for more vinyl to add to your music collection.
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Great piece. My kids gave us a Crosley Cruiser portable record player for Christmas. My 8-year-old grandson was fascinated, too. We have lots of vinyl, not all equally good, but much that we love. The turntable of the stereo we inherited when our oldest son left for college had finally stopped working, so now we can listen again!
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The first album I ever listened to was a recording of An American in Paris; sadly, both the record and the player have since departed.
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Great read! We do miss a lot with all our push-button stuff, don’t we? My favorite part, though, was your son wanting to listen to the clock! It’s especially fantastic that it opened their curiosity and ability to recognize what they’ve got around them! And all from a record player!!
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Johnny Cash, Sonny & Cher, John Denver. Will always love the sound of the static and pops. Thanks for the reminder! 😊
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Great read indeed. Now you made me want to go out and buy that turntable and LP’s…:-)
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