The local music shop

We found at total random today the local music shop. I say at total random as it is situated out of the center of town, in a neighbourhood which you usually access by car. We went to the local brewery and stopped there on the way back. It is a very small shop, filled with guitars, a bit of music sheets and not much else. There was a clarinet, some violins, a cello, I think I saw a trumpet too, but I think they were on display just for the look.Objects can be aesthetic, even more so instrument used to practice an art.

Anyway, those guitars on display got me thinking. I think it might be the only instrument people bother to learn nowadays. That is the feeling I had walking in. It is true that it was a small shop, a local one. But I remember being a teenager and what else teenagers my age were playing, why would they go to a music shop except to buy some guitar picks? My friends used to say that sales of guitar picks got the music shops survive. I looked for some opera lyrics sheets, there was nothing. A bit of musical comedy stuff, but that was it. It speaks volume about the state of music today.

I might look like I'm thinking poorly of guitar players. I'm not. It is after all the instrument of modern music. I am also glad that any musical instrument is being sold in the days where pop stars, chick groups, boys bands and the like have plagued the music industry, maybe to the point of creative sclerosis. I had the discipline to learn music, but never enough to turn it into a profession and the only instrument I have left is my voice, which I never developed as I could have. That people develop musical talents, however modest, even as a simple hobby, and learn music, genuine music, is enough to be happy. I might stop by again, chit chat with shopkeeper. I might even buy something.