There is an empty wall in my room now. An empty shelf that has distinct dust lines. A shelf that once held one of my most prized collections.
My CD’s are very important to me. Anyone that knows anything about my high school days knows that I was (and still am) in love with music, mainly classical music. Whether it be a Beethoven symphony, a Strauss tone poem, or a Mozart horn concerto, I was all about my music.
I think my very first CD was of a Christian comedian by the name of Mark Lowry (album Mouth in Motion). It wasn’t really until high school that I found my passion for classical music. But once I was in high school, that is what I did. I remember countless trips to Border’s Books & Music to just page through their shelves of CD’s. I would always look for the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra recordings with George Szell conducting. Those recordings were decades old, but they had a flare to them that I especially loved. Later on in my music career when I was at Indiana University, I studied with Myron Bloom, who was the young principal horn player under Szell in those recordings I loved so much.
Lazy summer afternoons, I could be found laying, back on the floor, in my room, with Beethoven’s 7th Symphony blaring from my stereo, me just staring at the ceiling, taking in the gorgeous sounds of those horn’s high B-naturals singing above the rest of the orchestra. Or listening to the steady low string pulse of Holst’s Mars from The Planets, the soothing strings from Barber’s Adagio for Strings, the riveting words and sounds coming from Bernstein’s Mass, the intensity of Stravinsky’s Firebird, the joy of Respighi’s Pines of Rome … all so amazing.
Please understand me, this was not just any CD collection … this was THE CD collection.
Beyond the classical, I had show tunes, movie music, rock and roll, jazz, contemporary christian, pop music and everything. I even had a few rap CD’s that never got played after a short phase was quickly passed. On vacations I would load up a CD carrying case and listen to my CD’s on headphones. If the family was willing I would pop in the headphone to cassette adapter and play music over the car speakers. We would play song after song after song of name that tune, name that broadway show, name that movie and so on.
On a specific trip to New York City with my Mom where I was going to do some college visits, we listened to symphony after symphony on the car ride East. Each symphony being about an hour long, it made the car ride fly by.
I don’t think I can describe enough to you how much my CD collection was a part of my life. I can remember when and where I got nearly every single one of my hundreds of CD’s. At times I was part of a mail-order CD club where my older brother and I learned how to cheat the system to get more free CD’s by each one of us quitting the club after fulfilling our contract only to get referred in again by the other. With most of my CD’s, I can picture in my head at least one specific moment when I was listening to it’s music. On the way home from Northwestern University after a not-so-good day of auditioning in 2004, we all listened to the Cincinnati Pops play Disney hits with the Indiana University Choir singing along with soloists. On the way to and from Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra in 2003 I would hear the soundtrack from Pirates of the Caribbean. In my travels between home and a church in Hamilton where I was rehearsing for a Christmas Musical in 2001, I would have Philip Jones Brass Ensemble Greatest Hits playing. Each and every time I hear the songs on that CD, now, I think about that drive.
But today is a different day than it was yesterday. When I was at Indiana University, I decided to rip all my CD’s on the computer so that I could have backups. After the countless hours of getting every detail in iTunes correct, I never much opened the CD cases again. My listening had transitioned from the spinning CD to a spinning hard drive. For a number of years after that, until recently, my CD’s stayed in my bedroom at my parent’s house, collecting dust. Occasionally one would be taken from its spot on the shelf, sorted by genre, then sorted alphabetically by artist / composer within the genre and be played in the car or elsewhere on a stereo, but it was never the same. After having the mobility of all my music with me all the time, there was just no going back to the CD’s.
A few weeks back, I decided it was time to move on. I put all my CD’s in boxes and put them in the car. I kept all the classical CD’s separate as I was going to let my high school buddy who is now a music teacher take a look at them to see if he wanted to add any to his collection (he is yet to go computer with his music and sticks with CD’s). All the rest of the CD’s I took to half price books. I carried all the boxes in and set them on the counter along with a number of old text books and novels. After 10 minutes of looking through the CD’s that had taken me a decade to accumulate, my name was called over the speaker.
When I walked up to the counter, the guy offered me $50 for the books and CD’s. What a mind blowing thought … all those years of CD’s and just $50! Didn’t he realize this collection was priceless! And if that wasn’t enough, he then proceeded to tell me that the majority of CD’s he wouldn’t be able to sell and would probably just throw them away. I felt my face fall, eyes widen and all the blood in my body drain to my toes. When he offered me the “garbage” CD’s back without any hit to the $50, I quickly agreed, took my money, my CD’s and ran.
Today I had my music teacher friend look through all the classical and remaining CD’s from Half Price Books. He took his time looking at each CD, carefully opening and looking at some of the booklets in the cases. Multiple times he asked me what I thought about a particular CD and I would be quick to reply with a positive or negative. After a little while I brought out my laptop and we listened to a few of the CD’s he was looking at as he decided what he would add to his collection. He understood my CD collection.
In the end, I still have boxes full of CD’s that are left unwanted. All the non-classical CD’s will most likely find their way to Goodwill, where hopefully some bright-eyed music lover will be able to get as much joy out of the CD as I once did. As for my prized classical CD’s, my Dad told me about a classical music station up in Dayton that might be interested in some CD’s. I would have no regrets giving them to that station as I know they will get put to good use.
It is tough seeing things go that have meant so much to you. While I still have the music, it is the CD that I will miss.
Good music, good memories, good luck at your next player, good bye.