Being between mp3 players myself, I can see what he means. It’s nice to turn off the radio, and sing a hymn, or try to remember the new piano piece I’m learning. But I’m still saving for a new ‘magic music box’.

For my part, modern technology hasn’t cut down on my own music-making. On the contrary, it’s increased it. I’ve been privileged to grow up in a diverse musical community, but there are things I would probably never hear in my hometown that I access through recordings and electronics. Last year I bought an Irish drum and began learning to play it,  after hearing it being played in several Celtic bands I learned about and listened to on the internet.

But, my point is not so much that folk music and common music-making will persevere despite modern technologies. It’s that the advent of modern recording equipment helps in further eliminating permanent social classes. It used to be that most people couldn’t afford to go to concerts, and the only way you could get music was to make it yourself. But now, anyone can have music. Right now, Wynton Marsalis is in my CD player. I still probably couldn’t afford to go to a lot of concerts, but I have great musicians’ works available to me whenever I want them.

Both expensive concert-hall music and homemade music are available to me. No one complains that everyone can now afford a variety of well-made clothing, and that making your own clothes has now become more of a hobby. We’re all happy that modern technology makes that advance possible. The same should be true for music. I can enjoy listening to recordings of Horowitz (well, I generally don’t, but that’s a story for another time) and still go jam with the bluegrass band the next town over. How can that be a bad thing? The mighty are brought low, and the humble are exalted.