Musicological

The idea of the journey being the reward is a good one that's probably not sufficiently appreciated in this culture. Sometimes we realize that the journey was the reward after the journey is over, after the conscious has had a chance to reconnect with the subconscious and discover what was true all along (i.e., we've had enough time to rationalize it all).

My experiences with digital music over the years have been such a journey. I ripped my hundreds of CDs. Later, after a hard drive crash, I ripped them all again. When disk space became cheaper and I felt I needed better quality, I ripped them all again at 192 kbps. (Now, I mull and procrasinate over the idea of a final pass with lossless encoding.) I set up a dedicated server connected to my stereo controlled via my laptop. I even wrote half a web application with a Google-like interface to manage the database, playlists and control the player; all that before punting going with Windows Remote Desktop (there's an OS X client for those of you with bilingual households).

After having the grand project complete and the system in place for some time, I've come to realize that I listen to Launch most of the time. This leaves me a little chagrined and shrugging introspectively. In retrospect, I never paused to truly understand how much I enjoy listening to new music.

Sigh. Oh well, at least the journey was fun.

I'll finish this musical missive with a free tip, a link to Staralfur by Sigur Rós on mp3 at Epitonic.