I was going to make some late-to-the-party comments on this subject to the DIY thread but there are now so many nested comments on the part of the thread that I wanted to get stuck into, that no more comments are possible. This is not a complaint about that. It just struck me that for certain generations in certain parts of the world, music assumed a huge significance and now appears to be less important to the great mass of humanity than it did in the last 3/4 of the 20th century, from when it first became industrialised to when the wheels started falling off the music industry juggernaut. Prior to this it was something ordinary people enjoyed without thinking much about it. There were 1) a few hardy souls who took a precarious living from making it, with varying degrees of success and 2) some practitioners who made it for their own and their friends and neighbours’ pleasure while making their livings in other spheres. And that was about it, really.
Currently in the sphere of music there are 1) practitioners like those I’ve just mentioned 2) a dwindling coterie of “music stars” who still do very well financially » Continue Reading.