Joel Hill:

>BUT... the main thing that strikes me is that so many people have SO MANY
>CD's!!  Good for them - I hope that they are getting enough to eat, what
>with this outlay of money.

Amen, brother.

>I have probably 500-600 vinyl records (collected over 40-odd years),
>300-400 cassettes and around 100 CD's.  ...
>
>How do these people have time to become familiar with all this music that
>evidently is often gathered in the space of a very few years???? I listen
>to music in the car, all day at work and while on the computer at home and
>still don't make a sizable dent in my collection.  I have a sad feeling
>that some of you are missing out on becoming intimately familiar with much
>of the music that you are spending your money on.  I hope that I am wrong.

Joel, do you perform a lot (or even at all)? I've noticed that people who
make music don't necessarily have large collections.

I have, compared to you, a huge collection (though undoubtedly our beloved
list moderator's dwarfs mine) - LPs, cassettes, reel-to-reels, CDs.  It
takes me several years to cycle through, and, of course, the collection
continues to grow.  Do I know most of these pieces intimately? I'd say yes.
At least, if you asked me, "How does it go?" I'd be able to whistle the
high points.  In some cases, I have even bought scores to study with the
help of the CD.  However, I have noticed that I can't quite remember
whether I own a particular CD.  I'm also discovering that several CDs in my
collection merely take up room.  I don't especially care for them.  Since
my shelf space is shrinking at an alarming rate, I'm probably going to get
rid of them.

One of the reasons I began writing reviews in the first place was because
I was worried that I was "just collecting" and not really listening.  It
offended my Midwestern Puritanism.  If I have to write about a CD, I listen
a lot harder than usual, several times.

Steve Schwartz