Will Any of Today's Music Last? Probably Not.

[ProfD]

For the most part, pop music is chewing gum for the ears. It's disposable. Much of it will be forgotten.

 

Pop music today won't be pop music next decade, but some of it will be remembered.

As Chip alluded earlier in the thread, the music industry peddles mostly disposable music.

 

Now that anybody can produce music, the internet is filled with disposable music.

 

However, every generation produces a handful of music that will stand the tests of time. Recordings preserve it.

 

The cycle has always been that budding musicians will "discover" and explore "old" music.

 

Some musicians through prodigious talent or hard work will find their own voice and use it to make their music.

 

Some of "today's" music will end up as a sound source (sample) or cover tune in future music.

 

Of course, academia will preserve Classical Music as it has provided jobs for several generations already.

[GovernorSilver]

I have a friend who's really good at what I know as folk music - old songs played in old styles, on obsolete instruments, and sometimes changed a bit to bring the music a little bit newer, but not too much. In the 80s and onward, this was "open mic" music, and the competition (as it was) was a few singer-songwriters.

 

He found steady work as an artist-in-residence in schools. He'd spend a week at a school performing, teaching instruments and songs, teaching history through music, and on occasion (when booked) bring in other artists during his residence period. Then move on to another school. Word got around and he made a fair living doing what he loved. But this isn't something that anyone can do. It takes a special kind of commitment both to work in schools and to keep up his own studies and practice so he didn't get bored playing the same 30 songs for 20 years.

 

I wonder if there are still gigs like this.

 

I recently got an electric mandolin, and found the r/mandolin group on Reddit while looking for help, because my mandolin refused to let me install high E strings - every new string I tried to put on would break when I tried to tune up.

 

It was through that group that I learned that some individuals who develop expertise in folk repertoire such as Bluegrass or American Old Time (they hate being confused with Bluegrass folks) and connect to the right people can indeed land such teaching gigs. At least in the pre-COVID times.