Friday 28 February 2014

My Turntable


This week, Chuck Wendig has us doing a writing exercise instead of a flash fiction.  He wants us to pick an item from around us and to describe it in 10 sentences.  Okay, easy for me, but my sentences are long - very long - sorry about that, chief!

It’s a Sony and has two speeds on it, along with a lose piece of plastic for those 45’s with a big hole in the centre, and a hard, tinted lid – to keep the dust off.


I bought my turntable about 6 months after I bought my AWA (a sister company of Sony) Stereo system, as I love vinyls.


The one thing I love about it is that farting noise it makes when you place the stylus onto the edge of the vinyl and it crackles just a little before the music begins to play.


It’s a semi-automatic turntable – so it has a buttons for ‘start’ ‘stop’ and ‘up/down’ for those who don’t know how to pick up a turntable arm – but I never use these buttons, not unless I’m in a hurry and I press the stop button to turn off the stereo quickly.


The stylus had to be replaced just once in the 10 years since I bought it; in 2004, but the stylus wasn’t the right one for the model of the turntable, so Dad and I had to take the whole thing into the music store and they fitted one for the arm which was a different model to the turntable.


When I put the turntable together – via instructions – I found I had to follow the instructions until halfway through, then ignore them, as it was made in Taiwan and everything was designed backwards… the switch inside the turntable (for the sound to play the vinyls) had to be turned off and not on. 


I love collecting great music for my turntable – rare music – from all eras.  I have vinyls from Carlos Santana, Jethro Tull, AC/DC, INXS, U2, Eurthymics, Madonna, The Doors, P!NK and B.B. King as well as classical music of the likes of W.A. Mozart and Beethoven – I play them more than I play cds.


Yes, I’m a very proud X-Gen child who knew and saw the changeover from 8-track tapes to cassette tapes and vinyls to cds and then through to iPod… I’m a rare one to know how to type on a typewriter as well as an electric typewriter and to have learned how to use a rotary phone and I was around before mobile phones became a reality.


I’ll never throw away my turntable, and if it breaks down… I’ll just go out and buy another one.


I do love my vinyls and my turntable… they just never go out of style.