I got most of my Classical education, and collection, at Discount Records on High Street across from the OSU campus in the mid 70's. The owner was extremely knowledgeable and had actually auditioned every album that he carried in the Classical venue. Of every album that he recomended, not one single album could be considered average, either for the recording value or the performance, they were all winners. Sadly, you cannot get that kind of Service anywhere today and I really miss it.
But what really fries me is that not just the gems have disappeared, nearly every Record shop has disappeared. I now live in the Detroit area and 10 years ago you could drive down a 2 mile stretch on Woodward Ave and hit 6 seperate record shops. Harmony House even had one store devoted to just Classical Music. Today, there is only one store left and over half of it's floor space is devoted to DVD's.
My rant is that I HATE downloads. Not only is the entire MP-3 format an insult to musicality, I fear it's longterm effects on Music in it's entirity. Are we going to see Music trend towards instruments and compositions that are least degraded by overcompression? If so, say goodbye to the Violin and any other stringed instrument. Most likely we'll be left with pure tone generators and drum machines. It may even come to the point where even live music is processed thru an MP-3 coding setup before it's sent to the speakers. Picture that awful "thumper" next to you at a traffic light, in 20 years that may be what is "presented" at a live "concert". I don't know what can be done about it but I just had to vent a bit. Currently the only place that I can get a new CD is either at Best buy or Circuit City (the one shop on Woodward isn't worth the drive), and needless to say the selection is limited. I could shop online, however it's just not the same as "leafing" thru the records at a real Record Store.
I got most of my Classical education, and collection, at Discount Records on High Street across from the OSU campus in the mid 70's. The owner was extremely knowledgeable and had actually auditioned every album that he carried in the Classical venue. Of every album that he recomended, not one single album could be considered average, either for the recording value or the performance, they were all winners. Sadly, you cannot get that kind of Service anywhere today and I really miss it.
But what really fries me is that not just the gems have disappeared, nearly every Record shop has disappeared. I now live in the Detroit area and 10 years ago you could drive down a 2 mile stretch on Woodward Ave and hit 6 seperate record shops. Harmony House even had one store devoted to just Classical Music. Today, there is only one store left and over half of it's floor space is devoted to DVD's.
My rant is that I HATE downloads. Not only is the entire MP-3 format an insult to musicality, I fear it's longterm effects on Music in it's entirity. Are we going to see Music trend towards instruments and compositions that are least degraded by overcompression? If so, say goodbye to the Violin and any other stringed instrument. Most likely we'll be left with pure tone generators and drum machines. It may even come to the point where even live music is processed thru an MP-3 coding setup before it's sent to the speakers. Picture that awful "thumper" next to you at a traffic light, in 20 years that may be what is "presented" at a live "concert". I don't know what can be done about it but I just had to vent a bit. Currently the only place that I can get a new CD is either at Best buy or Circuit City (the one shop on Woodward isn't worth the drive), and needless to say the selection is limited. I could shop online, however it's just not the same as "leafing" thru the records at a real Record Store.