Sure more and more technology is shaping the music younger people
listen to.  Some young people have gone so techno that acoustic
instruments sound alien by comparison.

The music industry is marketing images and personalities with even less
attention to the quality of the music from their artists.  I think it's
probably a good thing many young people are choosing not to pay for CDs
and the Chinese are pirating the music, or these record companies would
be in an even more powerful position to impose their products on us.

Nonetheless, I want to try to assure MMD readers the music which made
automatic musical instruments great is not going to the grave with us.
In my piano tuning travels and as a horn player, I run across some
very musically sophisticated young people.  Many parents chauffeur
their kids to music lessons in SUVs.  Music teachers are teaching many
kids great old music.  

The music education in schools is much better now than it was.  School
bands, choirs and orchestras expose students to great music.  Religious
institutions teach youngsters some great music from their traditions as
well.  Music colleges are requiring that young people learn about and
perform vintage music of many genres.  Those in MMD and elsewhere will
continue to influence and guide others towards a positive musical
direction.

This 40-year-old listened to hard rock and even heavy metal as a
teenager but now has come to love this great vintage music above all.
If there's hope for me, there's hope for those who are now teenagers.

Bill Maguire