They come to my class largely unprepared and not well-served by their education in the Baltimore public schools. At first, I questioned my role in their hurried curriculums. Gradually I came to realize that these people certainly could use a little beauty in their lives, and a thing of beauty, Keats has it, is a joy forever. And when I teach my pop-music class, I find that they know little more about the music they claim is near and dear to them. For most of my students, music happens in cars.
Music comes out of headphones, facilitates dancing.
It is not a thing to be contemplated solely. Another job I have is lecturing at the Peabody Elderhostel. There, I lecture to retired people who live comfortably in the fourth movements of their lives. When they ask me what happened to Classical music, they might as well be asking what happened to the Nineteenth century. They might as well be talking about city parks, or libraries, or museums, or any of a number of large institutions that are crumbling in a slight rubato with the pace of general urban decay.