Don Pearce wrote in message news:4994fdd3.591739125@localhost...
On Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:21:58 -0500, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

Don Pearce wrote in message news:4992198a.402223734@localhost...

Because classical music is generally far more complex and demanding
than modern pop - it takes a greater degree of intelligence to
understand and appreciate it.

You can extrapolate this from just classical music to much "traditional"
music.

I suspect that the simplification is largely driven by the fact that
spending dedicated time just listening to music is becoming far less
common
as other art forms have become more practical to enjoy.

In the days when traditional music was king, there was no TV, etc.

I remember when just about every house had a piano.

Or an organ or some other solo musical instrument.

Before TVs.

When 45 records
really took off they pretty much all appeared on the market
simultaneously.

Didn't happen that way in the US. One relevant fact may that US homes tend
to be more accommodating of large instruments like pianos.

I bought a really good quality (like Bosendorfer
quality) upright for 5 pounds. Really wish I still had it - stuck with a
Yamaha now.

Acoustic piano sales have declined sharply in the US, but it seems like this
was a strong trend only in the past decade or so. I notice that more piano
stores have been going out of business lately. Before that it was a slow
trend, and new piano stores even opened up in the past 20 years.

Acoustic pianos were *sold* in many cases when the kids wanted to learn to
play piano at school and the school had acoustic pianos.

Guitars and turntables got hip, and the schools now pretty much use
electronic keyboards.