Accessto electronics products in the home has changed the idea of what constitutesentertainment. People can choose fromlistening to radio, television, music or even watching a movie all from thehome.
Musichas always been a popular way to enjoy an evening at home. If you have only a radio, turning to aclassical station, oldies station or whatever your favorite type of music isand settling down to read, study or just dream a little has always been apopular recreational activity. Teenagershave been listening to rock and roll on the radio for years, but even beforethat, old time radio shows were welcome entertainment for the entirefamily. Fibber McGee and Molly, Amos andAndy, The Lone Ranger and Gunsmoke are just few of the radio shows thatfamilies listened to together. Therewere also live music shows from some of the famous big band performances.
Astelevision entered the entertainment mainstream, musical variety shows wereoften popular. Who could forget EdSullivan's presentation of the Beatles first performance in the U.S. Other favorites included The Dinah Shore Show,Tennessee Ernie Ford and later, the Dean Martin Show and later Sonny and Cher, The Monkees and Donny and Marie Osmond.
Therecord companies were selling singles, then records and the then long-playingstereo records. Stereos were becomingaccepted as fine furniture, at the same time as upscale stereo systems becamemore and more common. It seemed at timesthat the music was less important than the equipment that it was played on.Then almost overnight it seemed, eight-track cassettes were available andpeople switched to the handy map pocket sized cases with the tape players builtinto the cars. The tape players had hardly made it into automobiles before CDplayers were optional equipment and then standard equipment in many vehicles.
Athome, CD players were built into computers and the speed and quality of thediscs improved exponentially over the next few months. At the same time as the media forms werechanging from records to CDs, many musical instruments sound was createdelectronically on electronic keyboards.These instruments had a piano like keyboard but added chords, rhythmsand embellishments to a one finger melody.There are even prerecorded pieces that can be played.
Today,many people listen to music on headphones from an MP3 player or even to musicpieces downloaded to their cell phones.Sharing musical ring tones, or musical pieces by their favorite artistwith friends is a common way to spend an evening. At the same time as music carrying capacityjams more music into a smaller disk or memory card, televisions screens aregetting larger and larger. In fact, youcan listen to dozens of music stations sorted by genre on your television setbilled as a home theater experience.
Today there are not many high class stereosystems including a radio, record player, and cassette player around. A mobile phone unit can pull in FM radiostations, play memory cards with dozens of songs per memory card in one smallpackage, not much larger than a candy bar.By using a headphone or Bluetooth technology, each listener can be lostin a completely different kind of musical enjoyment.