From A Table Sized Noise Machine to the Compact Disk
Dikran Kaprelian, a ninety-eight year old grandfather who can’t get enough of music, lives in Glendale, California now with his family. Before though, his life was tough; a man who lived through the Armenian Genocide and a corrupt government. He escaped to Allepos, Syria to avoid the genocide. His education, if you want to call it that, only lasted 4 years. His school had five grades - you do the math. Right after his school ended, he went to learn tailoring. At this point he was fourteen or fifteen years old. He had 4 other siblings living with him and his parents. Unfortunately, he is the only one left now. Later in his life, he got married to Alice Gabrielyan and had two sons, Yervand and Hakop. Now, being ninety-eight years old with not much to do, he sits in his room and listens to music. During his whole life he has enjoyed listening to music; it was actually his favorite passed time.
My name is Dikran Kaprielyan and I was born in Aleppo, Syria on January 31st, 1909. I went to school; our school is only five grades but I only went four grade in school. When I was out of school, I went to learn tailoring since then when I was almost fourteen or fifteen years old. I have two boys now, Yervand and Hakob. My life as a child was all together was not so good of a life then. It was so hard when we live cause I were alone with our father and mother. We were five, I am the last one. Most our people they have it get no education. I am almost the same, learn better than them or my old brother he went to school more than me by almost 1 year; the others didn’t. Even my both sisters, they were illiterate; they don’t know how to read and write.
Phonograph? What you mean about
the phonograph? We have had the phonograph many years, many years, and we have a
what you call, the disk? It was disk, when many old fashioned, very good disk
Komitas or something very good, but we throw away then when we have the new one
we throw away that; it was very good.
We first bought the phonograph in 1932 or 1934 in Aleppo, Syria. The children and the adults both liked to listen to the phonograph. We would all listen together. I don’t remember how many songs you can fit on one disk but I know there would be many… 3, 4, something like that. The phonograph was table size phonograph; regular phonograph. It was not easy to carry around. It was for our house, our room, not house because we don’t got house, it’s only one room. The disks were big; I don’t know how big but maybe like this, ten to twelve inches. The disks for the CD-player is the easy way and the more progressive way. It sound very good because it was our best singer, Komitas, Khachatooryan, something very good. The sound quality was very good too; the phonograph sound very good.
Certainly, the phonograph was easy to use, very easy. Most people they have like over here, most people or maybe fifty percent or sixty percent people they use the phonograph. They were expensive, well, its not, so and so. You have a, there is expensive and there is cheap too, the both. I think the average person could afford one.
I don’t know the comparison with the CD-player but they both are the same almost. They are good. The phonograph was good too. The CD-player is good too. After all, we are progressive; the CD-player is the best one. We are not going backward, ha ha.
The phonograph lasted long before it broke. It broke for me once and they people were masters at it and they fix it easily. The CD-player has a problem too and they fix it easily. If the phonograph or the CD-player broke, it would be easier to fix the CD-player.
You could certainly choose from a wide variety of music, different types of music. There was a lot available. With the CD-player, if you have some kind you can carry with you, easy way, that makes you help to hear better than the other. There were no headphones at the time, I haven’t seen them. The CD-player is of course something much more good in many ones than the phonograph. The phonograph was something simple. It only played a disk, that’s all. But not like this; this has too many things than the other one. Certainly, the CD-player is much better.