I muse upon changes in music life across the expanse of the rise of talkies and radio. You would think that radio & talkies made music more accessible, therefore, the average person's appreciation of and participation in music got better after culture started to be put in an electronic form. Here's a suggestion that the opposite is true. Some things we know, to suggest that nearly everyone sang, are that in the decade before World War I, there were 300 piano brands in the U.S. (Most customers were middle-class, but some poor children could get a piano.) There were ten,...