"So what did you use computers for?"
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 11:50PM Andrew, fourteen, did an amazing job learning the guitar solo to "Let it Be". Armed with a fairly accurate tab acquired on the web, he went home and practiced effectively and thoroughly. He told me he broke the 'back' button on his iPod remote from scrubbing backward so much to listen to small sections of the solo repeatedly.
"Good job," I said. "You did it right, then!"
We explored some other solos he could learn, since he's on a roll. "'Maybe I'm Amazed' would be good."
"Ok, should I get the tab online?"
"Well, it's better than nothing. If it's wrong, we can fix it. God knows I've had enough practice doing that."
"So what did you do to learn a song when you were a kid? Did you just download the tabs?"
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "It pains me greatly to say this," I said. "But you see, we did not have the Internet when I was a kid."
Andrew stared, amused and flabbergasted. "That sucks. So...what did you use computers for?"
"You know, word processing, spreadsheets, accounting..."
"So did you have Word?"
"I think by the early nineties. But I remember a time before Windows. We had," I paused. "DOS."
His eyes widened.
"Black screen, C-prompt, blinking cursor," I went on. "You had to talk to the computer in its own language. No photos, no movies, no music..."
"That sucks!"
"No mouse."
"No mouse?!"
"Well, it wasn't all bad. We also had ATARI 2600 - joystick, single orange button..."
"Wait - are you talking about a GAME CONSOLE?"
I had to laugh. I'm not so old, it's just that things have changed so fast.
"So anyway, there was no online tab. And if you wanted the lyrics, you had to figure them out by listening." And pausing your cassette to write them down.
"That sucks!"
Maybe. But kind of special to be among the very last generation of American teenagers who had to do things the hard way. Of course, even that is relative since I am also among the first generation who can't remember life before computers.
Ironically, Andrew's learning the same songs now that I did back then. The good news is, the songs haven't aged a bit.
Reader Comments (5)
Why, I feel like I had this very conversation with you!
I think that's how it went down! ;-)
My grad school advisor still used WP with the blue screen back in the late 90's. I remember not being able to use a calculator for the SATs or my AP Calculus exam. I definitely feel old!
For the less musically inclined (like me) we just learned the words and sang along. But it wasn't easy to hear yourself singing so in the days before the dual tape deck, garage band, and ipods (but please note the days after the 8-track)...we would play the cassette (maybe a selection of GNR's Every Rose Has its Thorn) in one corner of the room and then have a second boom box in the other corner of the room and sing directly into the mic. That way we could hear our voices over that of the artist and still have the music. As an adult...I found this tape and mistakenly shared it with my 9 year old daughter-who then proceeded to play it for the babysitter...the same little girl was also quite sure that a wedding picture of her grandfather and his brothers in their brown tuxes and platform shoes might just be a picture of the Beatles (don't we all wish)...the take home message, she needs a little music history lesson!
I can relate to everything you talked about in this post.