The Tragic Decline of Music Literacy (and Quality)

I’m paraphrasing here, but Russ Kunkel, one of the best drummers of our time (James Taylor, Stevie Nicks and a million other hit records) was asked if he could read music and his answer was "Not well enough to hurt my playing." An interesting answer, but I think many trained musicians will understand what this means. The position that music is in decline has been around forever and I won’t be drawn into that argument. What I do think is that listening to music as a solo activity, the way audiophiles do and the way many more used to do it, is on the decline. Now, people are listening to music constantly on their headphones, but mostly as a backdrop to other activities or to occupy their brains while on the subway or whatever. Personally, I do think musical literacy has declined, but I’m old so nobody is marketing music to me. I’m ok with that. Time marches on. Live life the way you want and don't expect others to conform to your views.