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In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph–the record player. We all know what happened next–an explosion of recorded music.

You may have heard that one of the valuable contributions of inventing recorded music was that it saved much American folk music that had started to die out.

Truth is, record players are the likely reason much of that music was disappearing.

But that was just the beginning.

Around 1900, most homes in America had at least one musical instrument. Families bought sheet music and learned to play and/or read music. Playing music was a common form of entertainment and community activity; people played together, sang together, learned from each other.

But, less than 50 years later, most people didn’t have (or play) musical instruments; music was almost exclusively made by professional musicians and released on records for mass consumption.

Today, despite the massive popularity of recorded music, bands and mass-produced instruments, few people actually learn to read or play musical instruments themselves–only a fraction of Americans attempt it. Popular music, once diverse, regional and personal, became a slick, globally-distributed “product”. We now consume it hungrily then demand more, new product. It is, in fact, now a commodity.

John Philip Sousa, whose military marching music was the first recording ever released, saw the future:

The time is coming when no one will be ready to submit himself to the ennobling discipline of learning music. Everyone will have their ready made or ready pirated music in their cupboards.

Excuse me while I go put some stuff on my iPod.