Tempted by the False God of Convenience

When the phonograph was invented, the composer John Phillip Sousa was heartbroken. In a 1906 article on “The Menace of Mechanical Music,” he worried out loud that recording tools would reduce music from a matter of the heart and soul to a mere mechanical process. To us, this sounds ridiculous. It is clear that we have gained a great deal by the advancement of recording technology, which makes available to us a massive variety of beautiful music.