In my summer holidays, as a child, I would occasionally go to the grammar school with my father, who was Head of Modern Languages there. The school had a ‘language laboratory’ with multiple desks hiding tape-recorders, and a control desk at the front of the classroom. I’m not sure exactly what Dad had to do on these expeditions, but there was much winding of tapes, and whirring spindles, before he declared that everything was now satisfactory – and then we went home. Decades later, my mother’s recollection was that Dad really wasn’t very technically-minded at all, which came as a surprise to me. My hero had surely been at the very forefront of technological advances with this complicated, hi-tech studio?
When I got a cassette recorder, it seemed even more modern. No reel-to-reel tapes for this up-to-date teenager. It also seemed perfectly straightforward. But I really had very little need to record anything by the time the cassette recorder was discarded. I did get a tiny wee recording device a few years ago, but I hardly ever used it. Eventually I chucked it out. I think it got wet at some point – anyway, it wasn’t exactly trustworthy, and the recordings were awful. I can record on my phone, sure. Or my laptop. Isn’t that enough?
For my new research project, however, I do need reliable, good-quality recordings. To that end, I got a Zoom portable recorder last month, and I must confess that I’ve waited until I had total solitude and no pressing tasks for a couple of hours, before looking at it. (I couldn’t contemplate working it out whilst decorators tramped through the house – or family members grumped about the sheer inconvenience of what we were being put through in the name of renovation – or sundry other distractions, all challenging my concentration!) Anyway, I started setting it up this morning.
Now, I was shown a different model before Christmas, and was told about a similar one in January. But it transpires that a new portable recorder in the hand is a very different kettle of fish to someone else’s already-set up gadget.
Right On!
A couple of helpful YouTube videos proved instructive. The first – aimed at school students, but I’m not proud – ended with a triumphantly American, ‘Right On!’ Right.
Mr Watson Rocks!
Followed by, on-screen, the caption, ‘Mr Watson rocks!’ Indeed you do, Sir.
I may still need a couple more sessions studying this wonderful piece of wizardry … can I find any more by Mr Watson?
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 