About music

I love music. I love singing by myself, with other people, in the car, in the kitchen. But there were a lot of years where I didn't have much music in my life. Once I had children, silence became more important. I valued listening to nothing and would deliberately switch stuff off, not on. Not that the kids' music was not enjoyable - while I can't bear the Wiggles, I have whiled away many hours of road trips listening to some of the great Playschool cds, and then later the music of Sandra Boynton - well crafted and funny to boot.

But it wasn't my music. I don't listen to commercial radio, or watch video hits on TV. I found myself completely out of touch with what people listen to. I have an extensive collection of CDs, collected over the years. But I didn't listen to them much anymore.

Then I bought an i-pod. It is interesting, I have been thinking about writing this post for a while, and then this article in the Sydney Morning Herald caught my eye. It is ten years since the release of the first i-pod and apparently, they may not be making many more of them. I am often the last person to jump on a bandwagon but I will say, I love my i-pod because through it, I re-discovered my love of music. My i-pod, and i-tunes has changed the way I listen to music, because I can browse around, find tracks that I like, which lead me to other things, which is always interesting. I still don't have lots of current music in my playlists, but I've got some and I've got lots of old friends who have put out new stuff that I didn't know about. And it's fun. I can dance in my kitchen to a whole mix of stuff and sing really loudly and embarrass my kids.

So happy birthday i-pod. I will cherish mine and hope that Claire's survives its trip through the washing machine (not looking good though). And in the immortal words of a group from Sweden who make no appearance in my playlists - thank you for the music, for giving it to me.