Photo by Michelle V. Agins for the New York Times
This article by Joseph Plambeck is about how retailers such as Best Buy are making up for the loss of CD sales by offering musical instruments for sale. As such, it’s about business and marketing, not music creativity. And yet, this paragraph really pops out:
So far, said Candace Hoyte, a supervisor at the Manhattan store, the instruments have drawn a steady stream of attention, especially from children. They skip past the video game stations and head straight for the instruments, banging away at Roland electronic drums or tapping on one of the dozen or so keyboards, she said.
What–passing up video games?! Perhaps parents might now start to serve up a musical instrument to their child rather than a new video game system.
And what might it suggest about the human condition–and about music–that the desire to express oneself through music is so appealing and such a draw?
I find myself wondering what kind of music education, if any, these children receive. Will they ever learn to play an instrument? To read music? To compose? For the sake of our shared humanity, I hope so!
