Caution!

Sound, real sound, is going out of style. Once again I heard it make a last gasp in a performance of a small ensemble playing new works: "What's that?" It was a marimba filling in the space between the "live" sounds otherwise acoustically unrelated to one another. Oh, they were all fine players, well-rehearsed, but it felt as if it was all and only about timing, until the magic caught me by surprise, to my great relief.

What has happened to our collective ear that efficiency passes for music? Is it any wonder that we are in the political crisis we face? It goes much deeper than politics: it is visceral disconnect. As a person I craved the connection I have experienced only now in my 80's. I used to find it infuriating that pianists who had no problem with technique played as if sound didn't matter. I now find it intolerable.