Decline of musical skill in general; was: Re: [Harp-L] feasible goals

["George Leung" <gleung4@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

As someone who is a few monthes from being 21, I am probably relatively 
young to the rest of you guys, but still older than these newcomers who's 
younger than me and play better than me.

That being said, just be glad that they are new people willing to play 
harmonica. Many people are just plain afraid of playing any instruments 
nowadays... I know a friend who is very good at drums, so I decided to give 
him a Big River (and a book). His first reaction? "But I can't play any 
music!" heck, I found many people who said that recorder is hard... the only 
music that they can make is to use the mouse and some *coughillegalcough* 
MIDI software to arrange notes for music, strangely either Eurobeat or 
techno.

So yeah, there are lots more people who plays guitar, but compare to the 
past, it's much less... and let's not go into mandolin, banjo, or even 
dulcimer (mountain or hammer), who have even less people knowing about it, 
or willing to touch it. Even other classical, "proper" instruments have less 
people playing: I know a girl who gave up playing her trumpet, even though 
she was in the school band for an year.

So for what it's worth, I am glad the fact that there are people still play 
harmonica. At least compare to other instruments, the situation isn't as bad 
as we thought it will be.