Before the automobile, the piano was the darling of the Industrial Revolution.  Classical music soloists were treated like rock stars.  (The last may have been Van Cliburn. I'd love it if you'd check my review about him.)
     Well into the 1960s, pianos occupied the corners of many homes, and most middle and upper class kids studied some kind of instrument.  School bands and choirs were a rule rather than an exception.  Songs were sung and tunes whistled with confidence.
     There's got to be something to Bach and Mozart because they're still "with" us.  Today's economy is destroying orchestras right and left, however.  Art museums, once free to the public, charge ever larger admissions.  And the first studies to be dropped when the budgets go haywire in public schools are almost invariably music, art, and dance.
     Are the classical arts just stuffy, boring and old?
     Or WHAT?