Dave McMaster wrote:

> Regarding people talking during one's proud demonstration of mechanical
> (or live) music -- the percentage of people who are 'musical' (who
> sense the real beauty of music) is quite small, I would guess maybe 2%.

Do you have some sort of source for that figure, or is it a top-of-
the-head, magnitude-type figure?  I find it intriguing in a ghoulish sort
of way.

My own emotional response to music is so powerful that I find it
impossible to imagine people who can not be similarly moved.  My wife,
poor thing, couldn't carry a tune in a bucket full of glue, but she, too,
has a considerable emotional response to it.  Is that figure a personal
feeling, or is there some sort of research behind it?

> Today, music is used sort of like syrup on pancakes, or ketchup on
> everything else; just a condiment.  It's meaningless to most people.

That much is surely the case.  It has always seemed to me that
"commercial" music, rather than trying to stir the soul, as Bach or
Beethoven would have done, instead tries to invoke some commercially-
appropriate response: slow 'Musak', which tries to get people to slow
down in stores, faster stuff for restaurants to get people to eat faster,
or more -- the soundtracks of our lives.

They have sold their souls for cash.  Even music intended to provoke a
powerful emotional response sometimes fails because we get callused
listening to the commercial stuff.  Sometimes it seems so assembly-line.

It is somewhat paradoxical to me that "mechanical" music can have so much
more impact than that of recorded "live" music.  Perhaps it's simply
because we have not been so hammered by commercial use of it that we
retain more of our sensitivity.  I bet we'd not love musical boxes so
much if every trip to Sears bashed us over the head with it.

regards,
Larry Smith