SKF NOTE: There isn’t enough time for me to listen again to all of the music I’ve collected in my life. At first, that was a sobering thought. All these boxes of music CDs? Father Time says I’m never going to hear many of them again.

Am I dating myself talking about CDs? I’ve digitized them all. Most of my listening is through my iPod – which, in itself, is an obsolete music listening device. My iPod screen has spider cracks all over from my dropping it onto a hard surface.

But it still works.

I don’t stream music. More than likely if I see an album I like I buy and download the digital version. My digital music is not stored on either of my Macbook Pro laptops. Rather, it’s all stored on two or three external hard drives from which I drag-and-drop albums on my iPod; usually enough music to fill about half my iPod’s capacity.

Most of my music listening happens during rest periods. Because my attention is almost always attracted to music, I’ve never liked to use background music during work time.

Some of the music I loved as a young man has lost its appeal. Jimi Hendrix, for example. I ate up the Jimi Hendrix Experience albums as soon as they were released. And drummer Mitch Mitchell was inspirational.

A few years ago I remembered not having listened to the Hendrix Experience in a long, long time. As it did at age 16 when “Are You Experienced?” was first released, presently it made sense to listen anew to Hendrix’s kick-off album.

I don’t know why the magic from Hendrix’s album was gone. But it was. Where at age 16 the music was full of surprises; revisiting the album I found no surprises.

I’ve discovered I’m more inclined to listen to albums I’ve never heard, by musicians I’ve loved forever, than I am to re-listen to their albums I’ve heard many times over.

For decades there was no one in my life with whom I can share the music I love. With such people in my life I know I would have a different attitude toward my lifelong favorite albums and songs. For example, in the 1980s I created a history of jazz drums by recording, in chronological order, favorite vinyl drum tracks onto 90-minute cassettes.

At different times I gave one of those cassettes to Jim Keltner, Neil Peart, Paul T. Riddle, and maybe others. It was fun giving these friends a chance to hear some drumming they’d never heard before.

If I had a family member, or a neighbor, interested in drumming I would have shared with them lots of my favorite music.

Or teaching a class. My key hesitation about teaching a music class involving drum history? It seems the internet is overloaded with such classes.

There are certain artists I do still enjoying hearing over and over. Miles Davis’s First Great and Second Great Quintets are examples. Just about any artist on 1950s-1960s Blue Note or Prestige albums.

Probably I shouldn’t fret over the music in my collection I will never hear again. I am always listening to new music. I think it is healthy to keep certain music close to my heart on my time left here. And to remember other music as stepping stones, getting me from where I was when I first listened to today and beyond.