Cassettes and our connection with music

Turn the clock back to about 45 years ago. The final Beatles record, “Let It Be,” was just given to a buddy by visiting relatives from the United States in the early 1970s. We hand the shiny black LP around our tiny group, flipping it over in our adolescent palms and gazing admiringly at the Fab Four’s sleeve while hardly paying attention to the warning echoes of “steady, careful.” Vinyl records were fragile items that were prone to scratches and should not be borrowed or traded carelessly. Although not unusual in middle-class homes, record players were by no means common even among this demographic.

Ten more years later, music of all genres that could be shared, traded, and even recorded exploded in portable 4-inch wide magnetic tape that was covered in plastic.

Lou Ottens of the Netherlands-based electronics company Philips created the compact cassette in 1963. It was a scaled-down version of the large reel-to-reel cassettes, or “spools,” that had been in use since the 1950s. Because the players were heavy and difficult to use, the big spools never really became a widespread commodity outside of the upscale Western market. For example, you couldn’t tote a spool player by the hand or carry it in a bag thrown over your shoulder. The tape may twist and slip if handled improperly or moved slightly, separating from the player and occasionally destroying the recording.

Just as the player it fit into had features that tempted one to click and snap, so too did the tape lose its intimidating power as it narrowed and wrapped itself compactly into two circles that fit into that quarter-inch thick shell of the compact cassette. The blank tape allowed us to find new voices within ourselves, even as the pre-recorded cassette—albums issued on this convenient format—made music a commodity that many more could own. I think that made our relationship sound.

Two sets of what we now refer to as “media practices” were initiated by the blank cassette: recording ourselves and creating our own music mixes, or “mix tapes.” In both cases, we were laying claim to the space of sound, by participating in its creation, and in curating our experience of it.

We were able to record and listen to our own voices—in speech, song, oration, conversation, or any combination of these—thanks to the portable nature of the basic playback equipment (which included a built-in speaker and microphone) and the convenient medium represented by the little cassette. From performances to lectures to private messages to loved ones, we could compose and produce our own audio. We experienced the disembodied and oddly unexpected shock of hearing ourselves—possibly similar to what people viewing their own photos would have experienced when they asked themselves, “Is that really me?” Through the physical medium of the tape, we also experienced the closeness of voice when heard over time and distance.

Sending audio messages to people we can’t connect with in real time or leaving voice notes on WhatsApp seems almost commonplace these days, but when audio recording on a compact cassette became feasible, simple, and reasonably accessible for the first time, it provided a means of communicating presence while spanning time and space. Cassette cassettes with children’s messages for grandparents, interspersed with snippets of their chatter and music, filled the void left by absence when intercontinental telephone rates prevented the lengthy, routine chats that characterize familiar relationships.

In order to communicate feelings and experiences that their tentative writing was unable to, workers in the Gulf and migrants to the West, who had been away from their homes for months or even years, sent audio-letters home with returning friends to be played for wives and parents.

And the mixtape, of course. Every respectable local music store in the 1980s through the early 1990s provided a service that loyal customers knew to request in addition to a wide assortment of pre-recorded tapes of devotional music and movies. For a fee that included the cost of a blank cassette plus a modest additional charge, you could enter with a list of songs, a selection of artists, movies, or composers, and leave with your customized tape.

It might cost anywhere from Rs 35 to Rs 100 to buy a pre-recorded cassette, depending on the genre and provenance. These tapes varied in quality and sometimes contained less than 30 minutes of music—a poor deal for someone who might want quantity. A mixtape, on the other hand, could hold up to 90 minutes of music if you paid for a C90, and just the content you really wanted.

If you had access to high-quality German or Japanese cassettes, you could bring them in and pay just Rs 20 or 30 for the taping. Some places even let you bring in your own blank cassettes. Though few were inquiring and even fewer were paying attention, this was undoubtedly a copyright violation. In a bustling bylane, you could always find a small vendor eager to create a recording for you from his stash of pre-recorded cassettes, but occasionally there were inspections and raids, and the stores stopped manufacturing mixtapes.

Of course, not every mixtape was produced for financial gain. Friends assembled collections for one another using dual-deck players at home, carefully selecting music that was provocative or embodied a “must-listen” call. Many of the tapes that still hang on my home’s shelves have sleeves written in the tidy calligraphy of people I’ve lost touch with over the years, preserving memories of a common musical preference or period of life.

Even in the pre-recorded market, cassettes introduced other audio formats to a market where there was an increasing need for entertainment and educational materials, especially among the middle classes. Digital technology were able to expand upon these early markets by incorporating storybooks with audio cassettes, language courses on tape, and inspirational lectures into book stories.

In many respects, the cassette tape educated us into listening—casually, personally, intently, and itinerantly. It enabled us to create our own soundscapes and made sound accessible to us outside of broadcast radio.

It foreshadowed the continuing miniaturization of devices that would let us carry that soundscape with us, into our cars, on to the streets, and into spaces of our homes without needing to be tethered to twisted wires and bulky instruments. Just as the pocket transistor radio kept my grandmother company as she rested in the afternoons, the small tape recorder helped her through sleepless nights. It’s a short thread that connects that experience (or “media practice”) to the earphones that bring music and talk to my ears as I potter about my kitchen today.