Music: An Endangered Species?

I am concerned.  Every now and then I hear about 'a study' that says that such-and-such a percentage of species in a certain region is disappearing.  The last stat I can remember is 1 in 5 species face extinction in the next generation.  Meaning 20% of everything alive in that region will cease to exist, with largely unknown consequences for the natural world.

And that bothers me, make no mistake.  But I am also concerned about music and whether live music (and acoustic music in particular) should be on our culturally endangered list.  Here are some of the reasons I worry about this:

1.  Digital gadgets are so easy to manipulate and offer instant gratification.  (think Guitar Hero)
2.  Music is 'free' now.   
3. Getting good at an instrument requires discipline and time, both of which seem elusive these days.
4. There are less and less venues for live music, that pay less and less money.
5. Our education system no longer supports quality music education for young people.
6. Community choirs and bands are becoming a relic of the past. Even military bands are struggling. So are many symphony orchestras. 
7. Ordinary people no longer dance in public.

Of course there are exceptions, with the megastars always shape-shifting into something profitable.  But by and large musicians are a disappearing breed. 

I do a lot of conducting and it's getting harder all the time to find musicians with the skills needed to play in a pit band.  Every church used to have a choir, and now, even in a religious town like Woodstock, to the best of my knowledge only 2 choirs sing every week for the congregation.  Now there are lots of guitar heros out there but few people who can tell a trumpet or trombone apart, either by sight or by sound.

It's hard to find the words to explain why these types of situations bother me: maybe because I see the joy music brings to people of all ages and backgrounds, maybe I think about the role music plays in my life and see what a tremendous gift it continues to be, maybe because I believe that music is cultural 'glue' that keeps us connected to each other, and to our past.

And somehow, I don't think that karaoke and Guitar Hero are sufficient substitutes for real people making real soundwaves of their own accord.     I worry about the songs we will lose, the times people will spend sitting at home alone instead of with friends, the elders who won't have any musical consolation in their old age.  We are losing our native species - not just plants and animals, but tunes and the culture that goes with them. 

Many children I teach no longer know the world to "Old MacDonald" or "Three Blind Mice."  This may not seem like a big deal to you, but it's hard to build musicians from people who don't even know what their parents' singing voices sound like.  And it's even harder to see how this decline can be reversed in an age of drive-thrus and ringtones.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not hanging up my musical hat.  But I see it, and I worry.