Day: October 6, 2018

Slowing it down


In testament to people who must have too much time on their hands, you have to read this article.  Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” Song Is Completely Transformed When Slowed to 33 RPM

Fascinated, I read the article and played both of the embedded songs (from YouTube) and it really was amazing and left my head shaking.  I would encourage you to do so too.

Now, those like me who like and enjoy country music will recognize the song and have a real appreciation for the original and wonder about the slower version.

I also had to have a little smile.  If I was a teenager today, I might be really puzzled.  First of all, “who is Dolly Parton?”  Secondly, “what’s a record player and what’s the difference between 45 rpm and 33 rpm?”  My kids know the difference because I still have a turntable and an album collection.  I know that I’m in the minority.

Now, in my iTunes library, I do have a copy of Jolene.  I can’t remember whether I bought it through the iTunes store or ripped it from a CD-ROM but it’s there and pops up every now and again when I’m playing music randomly.  

I wonder — could I replicate this in iTunes?  I clicked everywhere and saw no options to adjust the speed.

I fired up Audacity where there is an option to speed up or slow down.  I could indeed adjust the playback speed but not significantly enough.

Other alternatives?

I zipped over to YouTube on the web where there are all kinds of recordings of this wonderful song.

I could certainly play it but that’s about it.

I turned to my smartphone.  I did have the YouTube app installed there and loaded the music.  Here, there was an option!

From the Hamburger Menu, there is indeed an option to change the playback speed.  I did a little mental mathematics to see if I could come close to adjusting to 33 rpm.  The results?  

Well, I couldn’t replicate it but I could kind of replicate something that sounded like the Chipmunks.  Does anyone remember the Chipmunks?

It was fun tinkering around and was a reminder that you can respect your time by speeding up playback on things like podcasts, even by a bit, and your mind still understands the message.

Related to this:  10 SONGS THAT SOUND INCREDIBLE SLOWED DOWN

Now, I’m off to play “Stairway to Heaven” backwards.  Bonus marks if you know why anyone would want to do that.

OTR Links 10/06/2018


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.