[shermantanktop]

I’m in a jazz band of committed amateurs and most of the musicians are under 30. And this music is not easy to get good at.

The modern era seems to have taken the previous distribution of engagement and hollowed out the middle. People now either don’t care much, or they care a LOT. Applies to music, art, cooking, and so many hobbies.

[vundercind]

The middle in music (and most arts) is increasingly worthless, especially as displayed in public. Has been for decades, but we're finally past "generations are shifting" and into "generations have shifted".

Nobody needs a slightly-talented pianist for family sing-alongs (or: anyone who can sing halfway on-key, for that matter, because who's singing around other people in a typical house unless it's to Disney songs on the TV?) around Christmastime or that old guy who knows some folk & sing-along pop songs tolerably well to bring his guitar to the pub or whatever. We have Spotify. Fuck, the church bells anywhere that doesn't already have a set from 50+ years ago are just speakers playing recordings now.

The only remaining value unless you are very good and also put in a lot of time to sell, is personal, and that's not enough for a lot of folks who, in decades and centuries past, would have been hobbyist musicians. The social value started declining in the early 20th century and took a nose-dive in the last half of it. The generations who even remember their grandparents clinging to those habits, and their parents half-assedly attempting to keep it up out of nostalgia but then not really doing it because nobody wanted that anymore and forgetting how to play, are now old.

That's where the middle went.

[xboxnolifes]

I feel like hollowing out the middle is another way of saying something had fallen out of the mainstream/popularity. So, I certainly agree.

[pclmulqdq]

Yeah, I sing in a chorus, and the rough composition is:

* 10% professional or aspiring professional singers (who are young)

* 20% music educators in their 20's and 30's

* 30% people in their 20's and 30's who are very musically-inclined and studied music a lot as children

* 40% older people who sing as more of a hobby

When I mostly played chamber music, the crowd was also very young and enthusiastic. 21st century composers actually seem to have a better audience than 20th century composers did.

Music in general seems to be fragmenting into many subcultures of very interested people, with the exception of pop music and ironically parts of the classical/opera crowd that see it as a status symbol.

[BehindBlueEyes]

I don't know if the middle is really hollowed out... I for one am in the middle, but I say I don't care much because people who care a lot get overwhelming quickly.

[shermantanktop]

Indeed. Especially when their self-image is being someone who cares a lot about that specific thing. If one-upping behavior starts it rarely stops.