Rotting CDs.

Those are two words that shake any music lover to the core. I can practically feel your tremors.

To the classical music critic in particular, nothing's more valuable than the CD collection. Sitting in aisle seats at concerts is wonderful, and plunking through study scores on the piano rewarding, but knowing you can jump from Adams to Josquin to Mozart to Zemlinsky and have recordings is priceless.

That's why an article I read this summer about mounting evidence that some compact discs are deteriorating and turning into nothing but "shiny coasters" made me ill. CDs were supposed to be the indestructible alternative medium. I remember that when they came out, salespeople would (unwisely) whip them across the stores like Frisbees to showcase their durability. Now it seems as though their durability was overstated.

"The poorest-quality CDs will last less than 10 years, and the best will last 50 or more." So says U.S. Library of Congress preservation specialist Michele Youket, as quoted by Mary Nersessian in the Toronto Globe & Mail late last month. Nersessian, the article says, "is leading a four-year study that will help determine whether to transfer the library's CD data onto 'a more stable medium.' "

There's no need for panic. It seems the discs that rot are usually those accidentally produced with poor sealing, allowing air to slip in. And the problem occurs primarily in older discs.

Still, the story got me worrying. Should I run out and buy an MP-3 player and transfer my collection to it? Should I burn all my old discs to new CD-Rs? Why in the heck did I ever get rid of most of my LP collection!

Instead, I decided to wait it out. After all, I haven't actually seen any of my discs rust out.

Who would've thought that a trip to Franklin, Pa., would cure my techno-depression? My wife and I recently visited this river town in Venango County's Oil Heritage Region to hit the extensive bike trails. But when we drove by the DeBence Antique Music World on 1261 Liberty St., we ducked in between rides.

It turned out to be a great decision. This fascinating museum brings the history of automatic music reproduction of the late 19th and early 20th centuries alive. Not only does it sport a vast collection of music boxes, Victrolas, calliopes, nickelodeons, organs, orchestrions and player pianos, but the tour guides play them for you! No ivory tower, dust-collecting museum this. It was a treat to hear the wide variety of mechanical music instruments, especially as they're in such fine condition (kept up by a group of volunteers at this nonprofit).

Indeed, what does it say that a music box metal disc made 150 years ago or a paper piano roll from the turn of the previous century may outlive a digital product of today? It makes me want to pack a 19th-century survival kit: Dangnabit, where are my lard candles, salt pork and wool undergarments?

Because I'm a musicologist by training, anything that illuminates history is tremendous fun for me. But my bitterness at technology was rising on this tour until our guide jokingly referred to a music box's disc as a NQS CD -- a Not Quite So Compact Disc. Then I realized that this museum really was reminding me that all entertainment technology goes by the wayside, so there's nothing to be perturbed about.

Someday the CD will sit in this museum, along with the eight-track and cassette tape and, no doubt, the MP-3 player. Whether because of technology or greed, the music industry will continue to "advance" our musical format, forcing us to go with the new and improved as they phase out the old. It's an evolution as sure as the finches on Galapagos, a message as clear as Edison's "Mary had a little lamb," the first words recorded onto a photograph cylinder in 1877.

That's capitalism, progress and convenience, I guess. But it's natural to feel a little bitter about it even as we love some of the advances. I can only imagine how people with healthy LP collections felt when the industry stopped mass-producing them in favor of the CD, especially as many audiophiles claim vinyl sounds better.

I was born in 1972 and grew up a cassette tape user, with the Walkman being the new wonder. Yet I don't miss cassettes at all. (I created music without technology, too, on things called a cello and a piano.) So maybe I need to stop worrying and learn to love the bomb that is the next thing in music. It seems I must deal with it, even if it means eventually bidding goodbye to the CD.

If only CDs could hold on for just a few more decades! Here's hoping I don't have to throw a massive party in a few years to justify my brilliant set of coasters.