MP3. Oh man. I was alive and coherent to see the rise of the MP3 format. I was quite excited to read this book. Although it was interesting when he started it off talking about Gnutella, a peer-to-peer network. The MP3 came alive with the world’s introduction to Napster. I remember downloading MP3s. “You mean, no CDs? Stored on my computer? And it’s free? Awesome.”

Eventually Limewire and frostwire were big. I used those more than I had used napster. Eventually I, like many others, switched to torrents. Most probably switched due to the virus and inability to know you were getting. Or know the quality. I was always upset to get a poor quality MP3. I still downloaded though. I once had over 4000 MP3s stored on my PC.

I’ve never really thought much about the actual files types of MP3s. I remember back in the day, there was 190kbs and 320kps. I always assumed it did involve how much data there was stores, but I never understood how much of a difference there could be in size from the original audio file. It’s fascinating to think that we are able to take an audio file and say, “oh this part is irrelevant to the listener, lets take it out.” It also makes you wonder if those parts were something that made music was it was originally: natural.

Side note: I remember my mom bought my brother an MP3 place one year, this was before the iPod. And the think was literally the size of a portable CD player. In a few years, MP3 plays were all the rage. Not only that, but Apple can attribute its true success to the MP3. Apple computers were not selling as much as PCs at the time, it was the invention of the iPod and the iTunes store that changed the company.

I appreciate how much love is going into the digital file of MP3 in this book. While it’s not the internet, as far and true revolutionary items, it’s still up there. Look at this digital age we have. Look at where music is. Look at how complex it can be (or if you’re a cynic, how much of a formula it now contains.)

One thing I really enjoyed about the book is the history it provides about hearing and sound combined with technology. We’ve covered quite a bit about this in class, but it’s still fascinating to have just understood hearing and recording on physical level. Then to digital and information levels. We can break down music not just into sound, but break it all the way down into binary, possibly.