Does Music Still Exist?

An old musicology professor of mine used to start off his grad seminar with a thought experiment: “If I asked you all — right this moment — to bring me some music, what would you do?” Being good music students, he suggested, most of us would probably start flipping through our folders, or run out to our lockers, hurrying back with sheets of paper, thrusting them into his hands. “Now, when I ask my freshman class the question, they say just this. And yet, how strange it is that none of them ever suggest simply standing there and singing.”