I'm proud to say my family is musical. We dabble in playing — a guitar and piano here, a recorder and ukelele there — but it's in the listening to music that we really excel. As a whole, our hearts, minds and ears are open to myriad genres, everything from classical to Christian, country to show tunes, hard rock to soft rock and many that aren't really rock at all. We even have our family favorites in the rap genre. (I must admit, though, jazz and easy listening rarely pass notes in our homes, our cars, our iPods.)

Music plays a prodigious and powerful role in our family, which is why I'm happy to see the love of music continue with Bubby. Since he was an itsy-bitsy baby, music moved him. And like the rest of us, he's happy to sample and savor tunes from varied genres, with recent favorites ranging from "Twinkle, Twinkle" to "Baby" by Justin Bieber to "A New Hallelujah" by Michael W. Smith to "We Will Rock You" by Queen.

I'm thrilled Bubby finds such joy in music. Yet I'm saddened that many of my most-cherished memories of experiencing music — and watching my children experience music — are things he and the youngsters of today will never know, thanks to the ever-evolving face of music.

Music rituals kids of today will never experience

• The satisfaction of placing the needle in the exact desired spot on a record.

• Flipping through album, cassette, or CD bins at the music store.

• Staying up late to watch a favorite group on "The Midnight Special."

• Making and receiving the perfect mix tape.

• Waiting for hours to catch the beginning of a favorite video in order to hit "record" on the VCR in time so it can be replayed in full again and again.

• The horror of a record or CD being cracked, a cassette tape being eaten.

• The horror — and sometimes giggles — associated with scratches and subsequent skips in an album.

• Singing along with a record, perfectly including the skip without missing a beat.

• Weighing the arm of the record player with a penny to get past the skips.

• Searching for secret messages and meanings in backmasking.

• The thrill of finding a favorite song on an AM station while traveling by car, seemingly miles from civilization.

• Waiting by the radio with cassette recorder in hand to record a favorite tune when Casey Kasem announces it No. 1 for the week.

• Marveling at the artwork on an album sleeve.

• Holding the album lyrics in hand while singing along.

• Memorizing the order of an album to the point that when hearing one of the songs on its own, you automatically hum the bars to — and expect to hear — the next song on the album.

• American Bandstand.

Today's question:

What fading or long-gone musical rituals do you lament?