The Pop of Yestercentury

This is Charlie:

Charlie hears a lot of music in his house: twenties jazz, Baroque concertos, swing, eighteenth century opera, early bop, early Romantic, tuba solos, bassoon concertos, motets for contralto, scat numbers, Duke Ellington, Charlie Johnson, Mozart, Cimarosa, Benny Goodman, Ben Pollack, legendary bands, obscure bands, old bands, new bands, still more old bands, several old and obscure bands, Sebastian Bach, Christian Bach, Wilhelm Bach, Bernard Bach, Ke$ha (it’s a long story and don’t judge) plus much more. Yet he rarely notices any of it.

These are the speakers that play most of the music in Charlie’s house:

If Charlie happens to wander into the room with the speakers and the music, he’ll either trot right out or, if he wants a change of floor, plop himself down and resume the above position. Either way he remains oblivious to all that lyricism and rhythm.

If there is music coming from the room with the speakers, then one of the humans who lives with Charlie and feeds him, plays with him, takes him for those amazing walks and (for some reason unknown to Charlie) occasionally bathes him will also be in the room with the speakers. Specifically, it will be the male human.

Usually the male human is thumbing through tiny booklets with words like “Frog” or “Naive” on them. Other times he’s just sitting there, with his eyes closed. Both activities have nothing to do with Charlie, so Charlie will bark at the male human or jump on his lap so that the male human will scratch Charlie behind his ears or toss Charlie’s favorite plush squirrel; that’s what Charlie likes. As for the music, occasionally a very high note gets him to perk up one ear ever so slightly, but that’s as far as his interest goes.

This is the record player that was recently placed inside of the room:
and this is the part of the record player that paints the room with music:

The record player also plays a lot of music. Yet when the record player plays music, even music that Charlie has already heard from the two speakers, Charlie actually notices it. This is Peggy Lee singing “On The Sunny Side Of The Street” with the Benny Goodman Sextet:

and this is Charlie, transfixed by that music as it flows out of the record player:

He may have even tilted his head during Lou McGarity’s trombone solo!

Charlie doesn’t seem to care that the record player doesn’t play as loud as the speakers or that the music it plays sometimes hisses and pops.  In fact, Charlie seems to like that about the music on the record player.  Maybe a zoologist could explain what Charlie’s sensitive canine ears detect in the record player’s music that’s missing from the speakers.  While Charlie will never be able to explain it to the male human, somehow the male human understands, and he is grateful for the lesson.