A quite large section of The New York Times Arts pages is headed "New Music." I look at the photos of the album covers and think to myself that the heading should really be "old" not "new." Old as in same old.
Tune out seems to be the order of the day, in whatever genre. I am struck by the predictability of the listening experience in whatever genre. One reason to listen to impassioned a cappella singing is that the timbres of the voices change constantly. The same singers singing the same repertoire will strike you completely differently on different occasions.
Hopefully we will never get this sign of life trained out of us, whether on the singing or the listening end of it.
