Even from a secular point of view, people feel the loss of traditional music is something to be lamented. Here, Peggy Noonan reflects on the state of things:
This music is part of our patrimony, every bit as much as the trees and mountains. Our children, in our civic life, have for a generation been denied these songs. The moral and artistic equivalent of river polluters have decided we need to hear--I don't know, what songs do they play now in school, at events? "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"?She's just talking about songs in popular culture. How much more so when we are talking about a patrimony of inestimable value, such as liturgical music?We need a new environmental movement--a musical conservation movement aimed at saving and preserving the old songs. The rivers and mountains and plains are so beautiful and need saving. But what have you lost if you lose the sound of your ancestors' souls singing? Even more, I think.
Peace, Paul.
We are two steps removed from the most traditional approach to music, that is: making it ourselves. In the past century, we've "progressed" to hi-fi stereo, which transformed music from a performance medium to a listening one, then on to the video medium, which emphasizes visual performance as musical entertainment.
These developments have their bad side, evidenced by fewer numbers of people willing to make music, karaoke excluded.
Todd, you are right. Transforming music into a consumable has led people to treat it as a commodity. Once so, its evolution is dictated by market forces.
Pontification: I suppose it is not fair to say that modern music no longer touches the soul as earlier music did, because listeners are certainly influenced and moved by it. But can we say that, by and large, today's popular music is much more superficial than, say, a century ago? Our ancestors had a common Christian culture, and popular music reflected those commonly held values. Today's MTV culture has similarly homogenized the attitudes and values of its viewers, but toward secularism and hedonism. So, music does accomplish that which it was designed to do - touch the soul. But in a secular culture, music will never be a force for good, only an appeal to base instincts. In that case, it is a means of manipulating those with no substantial moral foundation.
Peace, Paul.
Agreed to a degree. But there are important voices in pop music that do stand against the prevalent culture. Not many, but some. I think of Neil Young and Tracy Chapman as two possibilities. And the 60's, for all the criticism it garners on the liturgical front, had a number of countercultural figures in music. As music has become more corporate, we've lost a good bit of that. You might read what Tom Conry has to say about commercialization in music -- liturgical and otherwise.