Lovers of recorded music in all its forms will gather to share favorite music Tuesday
at 7:30 p.m. at Grounds for Thought, 174 S. Main. Bowling Green.
The Open Mind Record Grind is the brainchild of Glenn Burris, owner of Exponent
Events, and Kurt Doles, from the Bowling Green State University College of
Musical Arts.
They had read blogs from music lovers who participated in similar listening parties.
Those focused on vinyl records, often with listeners sharing entire LPs.
Burris said thanks to audio engineer Mark Bunce the record grind will be able to
handle just about any format thrown at them – 45 an 33 rpm records, CDs, digital
files and cassettes.
Music fans are asked to bring in one selection, 10 minutes or less, to play and then
briefly "tell us why it’s so great," Burris said.
Restricting the event to single tracks will allow more people to participate.
He’d like people to let him know they’re coming by emailing
[email protected], but he’s also open to people just dropping by, maybe
to share something they’ve downloaded on an iPhone.
Burris said he’s concerned that "active" listening is becoming a thing of
the past as music becomes more ubiquitous, but also recedes more and more into
the background.
In a press release for the event, he explained: "People download a lot of music,
and many of us even still buy records and CDs. But the listening session is
getting lost. We always seem to be doing something else, rather than just paying
attention to what we’re playing and getting the most of it." A listening
party "gets us away from the Internet networking for a while and into real
social spaces."
