Hi Ray, (REH) <<<< How about a 98% unemployment of highly trained professionals? Would your heart sink upon hearing a magnificently trained concert pianist who makes his living working in a bank, an insurance company or the U.S. Customs? >>>>
My heart doesn't sink, actually. I'm certainly sad, but no more than for my ex-brother-in-law who was a superbly trained pattern-maker, whose life was wrapped up in engineering, but who had to change his job completely because of changing technology. He had to adjust to reality. I think that the aim of producing perfection of performance is very boring. Perhaps this is why the sales of classic CDs with all their perfect performances are now declining steeply with no end in sight. I like the music of earlier eras when music was more fun -- when the composers of even the most solemn sung Masses often based their tunes on popular songs so that the congregations would enjoy the music. If perfection of performance had been such a high aim of mankind, then Neolithic men would still be sitting in their caves comparing the relative degree of burnishing between one flint axehead or the other. Surely Ray, it's the performing of the music that's important, not the ultimate performance. "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." (R.L.S.) Keith Hudson __________________________________________________________ �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
