When was the last time you saw a live music show? If I happened to ask this question at exactly the right time and you went to a show yesterday, how many times a year do you typically go see live music?

Through various applications and websites such as Spotify and YouTube, not to mention the ability to carry hundreds of songs around with you on your phone, music is more accessible than before.

While this accessibility can open doors to musical worlds you never knew, it can also result in a devaluation of music. What makes each individual piece so special? Each individual band?

The biggest impact of this abundance of music always readily available is that it has become just something that’s kind of there. Music is constantly playing everywhere and always. It is playing in every store and restaurant.  It is playing in our earbuds while we study, ride the train, walk the dog, run, and even sleep. It has become something we listen to while we are doing other things. Rarely do we have the attention span to solely listen to music.

My dad always talks about the times he would put on a record and sit there listening to it, just him and the speakers. No phone to look at, not while he was doing homework, he would only sit there and take in the music for what it was: a true piece of art. And that is the exact piece that I think is being lost in all of this.

We’ve stopped actively listening to music; therefore, we’ve stopped appreciating it for its true art. Music used to be an experience in and of itself; for a lot of people today, it has become background music for whatever we are experiencing.

Why does anyone want to pay to see their background music live?

Some argue that live music is declining because it isn’t cost efficient.  DJ’s at weddings or parties are certainly cheaper than live bands, and there is a greater variety of songs available, but even cheaper than that is plugging in your own iPhone for Pandora or Spotify.

We’ve lost sight of how valuable the music experience can be. Live music isn’t declining because it has become too expensive, it’s declining because we view our iPhones as an equivalent entity to live musicians.