Re: [Pen-l] Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and the perils of success

[Doyle Saylor <doylesaylor@xxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
On Jun 27, 2009, at 12:25 PM, Shane Mage wrote:

> Well, well, well.  So someone is even more pessimistic about the  
> survival  of civilization than I am!

Doyle;
Classical music will survive in a museum sense for as long as the  
sense of history of music matters.  As a mass market, Classical Music  
really is a niche that in global terms is being pushed aside.  I don't  
see this as a civilization issue.  The intelligence in or the craft in  
music evolves.  I'm not over fond of contemporary music and I often  
like classical over say hip hop.  In the large scale though, music  
went from either folkish music people learned in their community and  
aristocratic tastes up till when television became important.   
Aristocratic tastes were various depending upon their location.   
India, and China have pretty extensive classical traditions unrelated  
to European Classical music.  Folkish music has a wider selection and  
in general is more robust.

In the U.S. the major mass media transformed after WWII how music was  
made.  The movement toward radio, and movies as the main music market  
had already begun, but there was still a big base of people who  
learned their local favorite instruments and used them in those places  
that offered some means of livelihood for musicians playing in small  
clubs or venues.  That folkish base is gone.  Musicians who work for  
the mass appeal market are usually very skilled and as able as  
classical musicians.   However, that mass market has been steadily  
drifting more and more toward digital solutions to making music.   
Hence the sound of classical music seems more and more remote to  
contemporary tastes.

The question is of course does music continue to be a great skill and  
support ongoing development?  I don't think the hand instrument will  
continue.  Making sound will migrate into computing and the process of  
making music will be more a thought process than before.  And that is  
what will finally kill all the classical traditions.  No one needs to  
learn the hand in violin playing.  In turn the mass music seems moving  
away from the rhythmic sources of instruments to beat issues related  
to dance like activities.  And toward chanting street talk not  
singing.  I suspect because say pop music over exploited the market  
past how tastes develop.  Young people start out fresh with  
contemporary influences which are normally raw and ill refined.  The  
mass market changes (exhausting or making boring a genre) put up a  
wall stopping traditions from transmitting over long time frames.
Thanks,
Doyle Saylor
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