Alive, Breathing...

“So, that thing is permanent?” asked Solomon, the piano man, pointing at the flat, silvery round disk that his producer was holding.

“It’s virtually indestructible,” Allen said, and tossed the disk across the room. It struck the wall and bounced onto a speaker. He picked it up, swirled it in a circle, and placed it onto the surface that stuck out from a small black console branded “Sony.” There was a whirring sound, and then music came from the speakers. Solomon recognized Frida from ABBA emoting sadly with what sounded like a full orchestra.

“It sounds — mechanical,” Solomon said. I mean, it’s very clear, and all, but...”

“Are you kidding?!” Allen wrinkled his brow fiercely at Solomon. “It’s fantastic! It’s all DIGITAL! It’s OPTICAL! No wear and tear on the disks! And it can be reproduced perfectly! Thousands of times! Plastic and aluminum. New from Japan. It’s going to take over.”

“How does the recording happen?” Solomon was worried. He’d been Allen’s go-to studio keyboard guy for two years now, and wanted to keep doing it. He understood that “digital” meant turning things into ones and zeroes, which did not bode ill, necessarily, but he thought he was hearing something something not-so-good. It would be hard to describe why. Too crisp? Too pure?

“Sol, my boy! I’ve also gotten hold of a PCM encoder!” Allen was fired up. “You’ll play as usual — preferably ALONE — but instead of recording MUSIC on the tape we’ll get a series of tiny SAMPLES. Played back, they’ll seem continuous. Kinda like films have frames; when you project them fast, it looks real! But in the meantime, we can MANIPULATE those bits, those samples, to our heart’s content! I’m getting a computer for that purpose!”

“Lemme see it. The disk,” said Solomon. Allen turned ABBA off and pressed a button on the console. The miniature turntable flagrantly thrust itself into view. Allen pried the silvery disk from it and handed it to Solomon. It was a bit smaller than five inches across, and glimmery. The label that was relegated to the center, around the hole, had almost no room for information or pictures. The surface was hard and smooth. Solomon tried to bend it: it did not give, but he felt that it COULD be broken, perhaps with a hammer. He saw his face reflected, distorted. The disk felt light and cheap, though it probably wasn’t.

“An entire album on ONE SIDE, Sol!" Allen raved on. "Not everyone’s going to have this technology yet! I'm making sure WE are among the first! Your next recording session will be DIGITAL! We’ll be able to correct things more easily! Layer a lot more tracks!”

Solomon thought of the Tin-Pan Alley-style parts he’d recently composed and recorded here, with Allen presiding, for an album by The Pan Dowdies, a female folk-rock duo who’d wanted some piano for an old-fashioned, homey touch. There was nothing groundbreaking about the music, but he and the studio’s resident bass player, Gabby, had recorded together, in the same room, enjoying the musical communication. When they listened to the takes, the sounds seemed to be alive, breathing. Experiences like that were precious to Solomon.

That was just last week. But he had a feeling it wasn’t going to happen again.

— Macoff