Music is, and has always been a major part of my life. I grew up listening to an eclectic mix of my parent's favourite artists before discovering my own, and have been very lucky in that I was taken along to concerts from an early age. I learned to play the piano when I was very young and have always been drawn to music in some way, through listening or playing, for as long as I can remember. My boyfriend is a musician, my housemates are musicians, and I attend multiple gigs every month, as well as living amongst near constant band practises and jam sessions. But somehow, and for some reason, music would always be the first to be pushed aside when life gets busy. I have a small selection of songs on my phone to listen to for long bus journeys, but they would get boring after a while. I managed to get myself stuck in a rut where I was bored of the same old artists and tracks for having listened to them a thousand times, and so eventually stopped listening.
A few months ago, I was invited along to a press day at Sony HQ, which you can read more about here. Upon leaving, I was kindly given a very generous gift of a Sony Walkman and a pair of MDR-10RC Headphones. I actually had no idea that Walkmans still existed, I'm sure many of you remember the cassette or even CD versions, I had one near permanently attached to me during one phase growing up, but they do, and the latest incarnation comes in the form of a small, light MP3 player, the A Series High Resolution Walkman. It's a smart little digital device that can hold 16gb of music while being small enough to fit in even the tiniest of clutch bags. The headphones are amazing too, they fold away into half their size and so are really easy to take on the go, and have a really amazing sound quality for a small pair. They are adjustable and so fit well even on petite heads, and the bit that goes over your ears (technical term) is padded and comfortable and doesn't look ridiculous on small ears, as many head band headphones have the tendency to do.
The Walkman is really easy to use, I plugged it straight into my computer and had great fun going through my music collection to decide what to load on. I rediscovered some real old gems that I had forgotten about, I now had room to take artists and songs who I haven't listened to for years on the go with me. I found I still knew all the words to every song on Fall Out Boy's From Under The Cork Tree and found myself feeling 14 again, and absolutely loved it. The Walkman and headphones have now become a permanent addition to my handbag and bring them out every day when I'm walking somewhere, or working at my desk, or just fancy listening to some music. I'm now beginning to wonder how I managed without them, and am questioning how I went so long without having music in my life every single day.Labels: listening, lovely things, music, review, sony, tech, walkman