ABC easy as 123

Back in the summer I realized that for someone who loves music as much as I do to only have an 8G iPod was both ridiculous and sad. I replaced it with a 120G iPod Classic and have been diligently, yea even obsessively, working towards filling that behemoth ever since. I have scored (get it, scored?) countless CDs at thrift stores, closing sales, and who knows where else... Just yesterday I bought six, and would have gotten seven if that pesky man hadn't picked up U2's Rattle and Hum before I could grab it. ;p Still, I did okay, having harvested:

Rush: Roll The Bones
Billy Joel: Koehupt (a live album)
Wynton Marsalis: Standard Time Volume 3 (had this one in college)
Harry Connick Jr: Blue Light, Red Light (also used to have this one)
A Putomayo sampler of the music of Israel
A Midsummer Night's Dream soundtrack (mostly opera)

All of these were from thrift stores. Total Bill... Sixteen dollars.

At this point I have close to 5500 songs on my iPod. And a good chunk of them are songs I have never heard! At thrift store prices, I can pick up music just to try it out...however the tendency to listen to the comforting and delighting strains of songs I already know is often so strong...

I decided we needed a systematic approach. The alphabet. From henceforth, we (my boys and I) will be using the day of the month to dictate the letter of the day and therefore the music(s) of the day.

Today, for example, is the 7th...which is the letter G! So we may listen to Genesis, Gershwin, Glenn Kotche, and/or Glenn Miller. That may not sound like much until you factor in that Gershwin is one of my absolute favorites and I have ten CDs of his work on my iPod! ;) But we don't have to listen to ALL of any letter. (the Js would be impossible!) I aim to start with the most unfamiliar before going to the familiar. Drummer Glenn Kotche, for example. His CD Mobile is absolutely stunning. But we've only listened to it two or three times. So we will give it serious play today. Maybe we'll even pull out our DVDs and watch him. His technical skill is breath-taking...while his creativity is jaw-dropping. So you're left breathless with your mouth hanging open which is rather uncomfortable and silly, but hey, he deserves it.

Here's a sampling...



I'll try and report back daily on what we listened to and how we enjoyed it...