Before iPods, before Computers, before CDs, before TV, before Magnetic Tapes, before Radios, before Records, before Phonograph cylinders … Music couldn’t be "saved" or "transmitted" from one place to another.

So people who liked music had to either learn an instruments or simply visit a concert.

It was not very easy to listen to a famous Tenor or Opera, unless you lived in the same city or were lucky enough that that person or performance would play in town.

So many great performances were only done once and never recorded. Today nothing is forgotten and has lead to a new phenomenon: that we listen and cling onto performers long dead. Living musicians have to compete against dead ones. So called "classics" hog shelf space and sales, it makes it hard for young musicians to make a living and achieve fame and stardom. They will always compared mercilessly with recordings from superstars …

Sometimes forgetting and "dying" is a good thing. It makes space for the new and young. But thanks to recordings certain moods or markets become the de factor standard for our ears. For example Steve Wonders’ "Happy Birthday" seems to be the one and only song for that occasion.  There seem to be more and more established theme songs that cover our "emotional range" in private and movie moments.

Will future generations still be pestered by the Best of Rolling Stones, Best of Celine Dion and Best of Elton John?!