{"id":24503,"date":"2022-04-08T12:20:03","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T17:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=24503"},"modified":"2022-04-08T12:17:40","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T17:17:40","slug":"noted-33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=24503","title":{"rendered":"Noted."},"content":{"rendered":"

I have written before about my fondness for the old Texas Monthly<\/strong>, and my disdain for most of what’s in the current version.<\/p>\n

This is an exception, for obvious reasons.<\/p>\n

“At One of the Last Classical Music Stores, CDs Still Rock<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

(Archive.is version<\/a>, because TM<\/strong> can sometimes be skirty if you don’t have a subscription.)<\/p>\n

Classical Music of Spring, as it\u2019s now called, is a time warp and a survival tale. It\u2019s a physical shop in historic downtown Spring, a block from CorkScrew BBQ, that stocks a selection of mostly new classical CDs, with a few used albums, Broadway and movie soundtracks, and DVDs and Blu-rays of opera and ballet productions. It doesn\u2019t sell instruments, sheet music, or guitar strings. Just recordings.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

…The store was never really about shopping; it was more of a community center or musical salon, where classical buffs gathered to argue about their favorite artists, discuss new releases, and listen to albums on the store\u2019s speakers.<\/a>
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a hangout,\u201d Sumbera mused. \u201cPeople don\u2019t just come in and flip through the stacks, pick up a couple of recordings, buy them, and leave. People stick around and chat.\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

…the logistics of setting up an online storefront for classical music are darn near terrifying. <\/a>
\nThink about searching Amazon for a pop album you want to download. You can probably type in \u201cAdele 30\u201d and be done. But the classical world, with composers, soloists, conductors, ensembles, and hundreds of compositions with identical names like \u201cPiano Sonata,\u201d is a database programmer\u2019s nightmare. And then there\u2019s the sheer volume of classical recordings being released. Presto Music, for example, stocks 614 recordings of Beethoven\u2019s Fifth Symphony.<\/a>
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think people realize how many classical titles are out there in print right now,\u201d Sumbera pointed out, before offering a ballpark guess: 150,000. Naxos, America\u2019s biggest classical distributor, lists 297 brand-new albums arriving in the month of March alone. Sumbera can\u2019t load all of those into an online store by himself, or even fit the inventory into his building.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Classical Music of Spring is linked on the sidebar, but to save searching<\/a>…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have written before about my fondness for the old Texas Monthly, and my disdain for most of what’s in the current version. This is an exception, for obvious reasons. “At One of the Last Classical Music Stores, CDs Still Rock“. (Archive.is version, because TM can sometimes be skirty if you don’t have a subscription.) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,22,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-endorsements","category-media","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24503"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24505,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24503\/revisions\/24505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}