Friday, December 11, 2009

Nine Years and Counting

I have in my hands right now a CD that I have been looking for for nine years... or so I thought.

It was sometime in 2000. Microsoft released their WMA format and compared it to the MP3 format at the same bitrates. They used a 7-second sample of a song. I wanted to find out what that song was. Somehow, amazingly, over the years I learned that it was a sample from a somewhat obscure English classical music composer named Matthew Locke. Now that I knew what song it was from, I could begin the search of finding a file of that song. I came close one time when I found the streaming audio of the song, but no MP3.

Then last fall I discovered that Yale had a CD of Matthew Locke! But of course, I kept putting off getting the CD until just when I was about to graduate and leave, and then had no time to actually go get the CD. But a trip to Yale to see some friends meant I could finally move onto the next step of my quest.

I went up to the circulation desk, a little hesitant to give the attendant my ID, since I wasn't sure it would still work. But here I am, in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library with Matthew Locke's Consort of Fower Parts on my desk next to my computer.

But it's the wrong edition. I gave it a listen, and though it was clearly the right song, I could tell that it wasn't the same. Nevertheless, I've now figured out what edition I need to look for, so though today was a failure, I am still one step closer to completing my quest.

After nine years, I can wait a few more.

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