"Iain Churches" wrote in message

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in
message ...


My guess is very very few 'seriously' listen to radio
these days.


That probably applies to music in general. Most people
use it as wallpaper. Very few people seem to be able
to sit,remain silent for the length of one movement of
a symphony, and actually listen.

That's because *just* listening to music has always been an unnatural thing,
one that we only ever did out of desperation.

For all time until early in the previous century, one could see the source
of the music one was listening to, which was one or more human being(s)
singing and/or playing. The exceptions were rare, such as obstructed vision
seating.

Then, in the 1920s some things very that were inherently very substandard
and very unnatural called radio and records became popular. They were
triumphs of art quality over basic human experience because they offered
better quality artistry at the cost of sound quality and actually seeing
the person(s) making the music. They made us all listen to music that was
audibly distorted and also like blind people.

Then in the 1930s the situation was somewhat corrected by film with sound,
later on television and even later on by widely-distributed
consumer-playable video recordings. It again became possible for music to be
experienced as nature had always intended, with the vision of the person(s)
making the music, and improving sound quality.

One must question why people rant so romantically about the approximate 30
to 60 year period when the predominate mode of listening to music was so
distorted, unsighted and thus so unnatural.