Thanks to my cousin Mona for finding and posting this interesting article. * This reminds me of something the band leader and composer John Philip Sousa said in his essay against the canned music of the gramophone: The Menace of Mechanical Music Lyrics. [Once recordings of music are widely available] ...the tide of amateurism cannot but recede, until there will be left only the mechanical device and the professional executant. Singing will no longer be a fine accomplishment; vocal exercises, so important a factor in the curriculum of physical culture, will be out of vogue! Then what of the national throat? Will it not weaken? What of the national chest? Will it not shrink? When a mother can turn on the phonograph with the same ease that she applies to the electric light, will she croon her baby to slumber with sweet lullabys, or will the infant be put to sleep by machinery? Link to the full Sousa essay here: rapgenius/John-philip-sousa-the-menace-of... * Sousa also testified before congress on the subject saying: These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy...in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape. * Sousa was wildly far from the mark in some of his more dire predictions, but with respect to the decline of amateur singing as an integral part of common daily life, he was at least partially correct. Many do still cultivate an amateur interest in creating their own music and study to improve their accomplishments, but many others have neglected this cultivation of personal ability, grown self conscious, and are now content to let the music from their machines suffice for them. Ironically, recording devices have in recent years encouraged a resurgence of amateur singing in the form of karaoke, though the number of people taking serious voice lessons to improve their karaoke chops is surely small.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 07:22:54 +0000
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