My life in music
Posted in: Today's Chili
By Damon Boyd
Whether you’re a serious muso or just like to have something playing in the background, when, what, how and why we listen to tunes shapes a huge part of who we are.
I’d always believed that music was something personal, something I only shared with myself. I recently discovered something quite phenomenal about music: it s purpose as the life of life, the stuff that sticks us together as lovers, family and friends. Music sits patiently in the background, gently coaxing feelings of love and tenderness, while two people help each other find themselves and their futures together. Music is always there, it forgives and forces change and forges stronger bonds.
When I first began listening to music seriously, I did so on a little tinny Sony Discman. I remember how I went through my late teens with albums like Dark Side of the Moon, Beethoven’s 9th and Yazoo, while I found myself obtaining things like food, clothes, classic novels, solitude, sex and spiritual awakening.
With the help of music, I found what I wanted to do for a living. I was a really good artist, but it was the resonation of intuitive lyrics that helped me discover that I was a writer.
As I get older my taste in music differs, progresses, changes, evolves, and with it my taste in music systems. First it was a tape deck; then rinky-dinky CD players; small, cheap hi-fis with USB jacks; and now Tivoli sound systems, iSongBooks and clock radios.
With the right sound system, the experience of music and radio usually gets better, but it doesn’t come cheap. I tested out three products from Tivoli Audio: the hi-fi system, the iSongBook, while a friend tried out the table radio.
Like any thoroughbred, these things can be finicky. The only real problem I had was with the hi-fi system which, remarkably, was the most expensive of the three.
First there was the whole installation of the outside aerial, which is a lovely process, but because this is South Africa, even though the technology was all in good working order, the scratching and hissing were still apparent when listening to Classic FM or 702, which are Joburg-based radio stations. In essence, our terrible bandwidth destroyed my listening pleasure.
The other thing that happened concerned the batteries that come with the hi-fi system. These batteries (which are fitted into the back of the system) work as a backup, I guess, when the electricity goes out. But clever me didn’t think to replace the batteries and at one stage I went without music and radio for a week, until I realised why it had conked out.
However, the iSongBook was amazing, small, sleek and with sound that could pop an eardrum, it was the ultimate bedroom unit. And connecting my iTouch and iPod Nano to the system proved faultless and only a pleasure. The table radio proved to be a huge success with the friend, who found it a godsend for working at home and keeping up to date with current affairs and finance news (I miss my friend’s satisfactory smile — the one when Jenny Crwys-Williams’s voice came soothingly out of the speakers). It’s those little pleasures in life…
Okay, so this hasn’t exactly been a conventional review. I haven’t needed to get into too much technical detail, compare prices or get bogged down in geek-speak. Why? Well, because when all is said and done, what you want is a sound system that plays music the way it should be heard as your life grows, as it goes on day to day, as you get more intensely absorbed by what you do and who you are.
Music plays in the background as lovers quarrel, as the anger and feelings of confusion subside.
All products are available at Tivoli Audio.
Pricing:
iSongBook: R3995
Hi-Fi: R8500
Desk radio: R2995
Product Video:
(First published in the Sunday Times Magazine)
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