Chris Clegg
I was reading through some responses to classical music last week when someone made an interesting point.
To paraphrase, the writer reminded us when the great composer, Johann Pachelbel, composed Canon in D Major in the late 1600s how few people heard it at first. How few is truly mind-boggling when you thing about it.
Today, it seems silly to point out the obvious but there were no radio stations, no record stores, and YouTube was a zillion miles away. In fact, the only people who first heard the great works of the master composers were the royal elite and very rich, who attended concerts or private performances in royal ballrooms.
Today, new music can be released as soon as it is composed and recorded.
How far we have come!
What a shame many people who lived in Pachelbel’s time, and many decades later, never heard his work. You can add the names of many great composers to the list: Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Bach, Brahms, etc.
Imagine if you will that you could never hear Elvis Presley’s work or The Beatles. Later, Elton John. Taylor Swift. Hundreds of years ago, the very best music was only for the very rich. Most of us cannot fathom the reality of that time period.
We truly do take today’s advancements in communications for granted. Today’s populace can whip out their phones and listen to any song at any time from any era.
My childhood goes back to the early 1960s. Today’s youth have no idea what party line was. It was when you shared a phone line with up to three other homes. If you were lucky sometimes it was only one neighbour or two. You could sometimes hear the distinctive click on the phone when talking. It was when you knew someone was listening in. Imagine today how quickly you would end a phone call if you knew dear old auntie was listening on the other line!
Sometimes, if your neighbour forgot to hang up the phone properly, you could hear the supper conversation! It’s true! At least that is what my sister tells me!
And, if you shared a phone line and were yakking, another party could cut in and ask you to hang up so they could make a call. You might argue these were the first “conference calls” but it would be a stretch.
Yes, there were times you had to wait until your neighbour was done with his phone call before you could make yours. It was something we just accepted as the norm because there was nothing better in rural Alberta. Town and city residents had the ultimate luxury of having their own phone lines! Spoiled, entitled brats!
So far away from the string and a tin can!
It truly boggles the mind how far we have come in a short time. Today, as fast as the new technology arrives at the local store, something better has been developed. The cell phone you are buying today is virtually obsolete. I’ll keep mine, however. I am not starving myself for the latest technology. What I have is fine.
Think about it. In Pachelbel’s time, a huge advancement would be opening a hole and amplifying the sound to the next room.
Today, what will the next great advancement be? Being one devoid of such imagination, I can only agree with Fred Flintstone when he said, “What else can they invent? We have everything!”
Indeed, my gene pool must be closer to Fred Flintstone than Alexander Graham Bell or Guglielmo Marconi!
But so be it! Leave the next great invention to someone a lot smart than I.