[MusicTlk] Instrumental and solo music

[Humberto Avila]

Hello Mike,
Your "philosophical" question is an awesome one to ask. Yes, I can agree with you, definitely, on some aspects of your comments.
I am only in my late 20s and yes, I still love the instrumental genre as much as those of you who aren't as youthful. Anyways, it is probably one of my most favorite kinds of music to listen to and play as well. Sadly, however, it does seem to have gone away. At least, that music isn't as mainstream anymore as it was 50, or even 30 years ago. 
I listen to a radio program in my local Oldies FM station, called American Top 40, and from what I have noticeed, at least, during the 1970s, there were sometimes many instrumental acts showing up in the Top 40 chars which means that, yes, people were listening to and buying that stuff, hence being also played on the radio. Today, I tune in to my local Top 40 hit station and there is 0.00% of instrumental music, only those beat'-enducing, two-to-three chord style hiphop that is only I guess, generated by complicated computer synthesiser algorithms. Even today's live audiences don't seem to care that much about the lovely sound of instrumental music. 
It's not all dead though, like how Don McLeen said in his famous song The Day the Music died. I guess you can always use a streaming service like Spodify and Pandora, and search for instrumental music. You may also find instrumentals around on iTunes and other music-downloading services, but I myself haven't had that much luck, but I know if one searches deeply enough there is. 
I think this is a great artform that should never go away. I think in general, music is being watered down, but you would say that for many other industries like food today, and yes, I hope something can be done about this soon. For those of us who love instrumental music, there are always a vast array of media platforms to keep it alive, like Youtube and SoundCloud, to name a few... that's what's awesome about our technology and the many services the Internet offers us today, taylored to our needs. 

At any rate, enough of my lecture, and I hope you do have a very pleasant day today. 
Sincerely,
Humberto

> On Feb 12, 2019, at 3:16 PM, Mike Jolls via MusicTlk <musictlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone … I have a philosophical question I’d like to ask.
> 
> I’m working on building a music library.  Right now, I’m looking for instrumental only music to put in my collection, specifically played by Chet Atkins.  As I listen to his body of work, the question occurred to me  … “what ever happened to the instrumental and solo album genre?”.
> 
> Back when I was a kid (I’m showing my age here) instrumental albums were everywhere.  Chet Atkins, Herb Alpert, The Ventures, and others.  There were a LOT of good instrumental and solo albums.  Some just played guitars.  Some were solo artists.  Some had orchestras in them (Moody Blues for example).  Then it seems that in the 70’s, that genre started to die.  By the 80’s as I recall (except for movie soundtrack albums such as Star Wars or Superman, for example) they were pretty much gone.  Maybe even the movie soundtrack album no longer exists.
> 
> I’m a musician, a guitar player, and an aspiring pianist, so instrumental music and playing solo is near and dear to my heart.  I grew up with this playing style.  I don’t hear it these days (except in recordings).  At least I haven’t heard it on the rare occasions I’ve listened to pop music (when I wanted to hear what my children were listening to).  I just wonder, what happened?  Where did the torch not get passed?  I do understand that music styles change, just as big band couldn’t last forever, or 50’s rock, or even 60’s rock.
> 
> Still, it seems that a wonderful artistic style has died, and has been dead for quite a while.  Too bad.  The modern generation is missing out, but I suppose “old fogies” have been saying that for years.
> 
> Anybody have any comments?
> 
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> 
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