There was a time when music literacy was, if not the most, one of the noblest of all human endeavors. As recently as one hundred years ago or so there was nary a family that did not include a member who was a moderately accomplished musician; or better. Families gathered to listen to a member perform and often to sing along in reasonably decent harmony.
Irony of ironies, a mechanical device, the phonograph first conceived and intended for use in business not for music storage or playback would change everything.
John Phillip Sousa, one hundred years ago:
”The time is coming when no one will be ready to submit himself to the ennobling discipline of learning music. Everyone will have their ready made or ready pirated music in their cupboards. Something is irretrievably lost when we are no longer in the presence of bodies making music. The nightingale’s song is delightful because the nightingale herself gives it forth.”
Irony of ironies, a mechanical device, the phonograph first conceived and intended for use in business not for music storage or playback would change everything.
John Phillip Sousa, one hundred years ago:
”The time is coming when no one will be ready to submit himself to the ennobling discipline of learning music. Everyone will have their ready made or ready pirated music in their cupboards. Something is irretrievably lost when we are no longer in the presence of bodies making music. The nightingale’s song is delightful because the nightingale herself gives it forth.”