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I am an audiophile who is now a lone consumer. The independent music store is a thing of the past. Stereo and music buying is either at the "Big Box" stores or Wal-mart. In todays electronic jungle it is all about technology and portability. How many songs can I download and carry on my MP3 player? There is no longer the music listening experience once cherished in the 70s. With the emergence of the eight track tape the portable music movement was started. I'm talking personal music. There always was the portable transistor radio, but the listener was left to hear what the station was playing and not exactly what they wanted to hear. Now you can carry upwards of 10,000 songs where ever you may be going and listen all by yourself. Now its always music on the go. In the car, exercising, going shopping riding the train to work or bus to school.

There is less interaction with what is going on around because the listener has the earphones stuffed in their ears and is incoherent to the world around them. Not only does that create a problem it also steals the sheer joy of listening to music. Music was created to get an emotional response. All songs are personally wrote as an experience of one sort of another. No matter if it is a great piece of classical music or a country ballad. Its author wrote with some kind of emotion. That emotion is what moved the hand to write the note or pen the lyric. The artists wants the listener to feel that emotion when they listen to the piece of music. That is lost I feel when a person just listens to music via an MP3 player.

One needs to be surrounded by the music. Let the strings of the symphony lift the soul and the rhythm of the bass guitar and drum drive the beat. The listener needs to feel that bass and be surrounded by the music. That does not happen when a person in listening to a personal device. Don't get me wrong. Each of us will be effected by a piece of music differently. But music is a universal language and is meant to be shared and enjoyed. I can remember having guest over to hear a new piece of stereo equipment I had purchased. They would be amazed how the music would fill my listening room. I can't tell you how many people I have introduced the 1812 Overture too, but each and everyone of them loved it. And these were not classical music lovers. In fact I came to appreciate that genre because of hearing it on my stereo. As the music would fill the room my emotions would rise with each crescendo and in many times brought to tears over the enormous sound that I would hear coming from the speakers. Technology as a whole has hurt the the music industry. My favorite record store shut down after thirty plus years as the place to get your music fix.

There is not a record store chain or independent dealer (not including any Big Box or Wal-marts) within a twenty mile radius from where I live. And stereo stores? Forget it. The simple joy of walking in and talking to a knowledgeable person about my stereo needs is gone. Now all you do is walk in purchase a MP3 player, go home and either illegally or legally download music to it. People brag about their musical library and how they can take it all with them. I myself like to brag about mine but, I also want to share it and let them experience music the way it should be. Filling a room with sound they cannot only hear but also feel. And you can't do that when you listen alone.

Learn more about this author, Randy Markley.
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