Death of Public Singing:

There use to be a time when song was for everybody. It was a community function. A public activity. A joy! But today everybody is too cool to sing in public anymore. And all we have left of the phenomena are a few bouncing ball cartoons like this 1958 Famous Studios cartoon Comin` Round the Mountain.





What killed off the joy of publicly raising voice with neighbors and made us too cool to sing? I think I may surprise a few people here when I say that it is not coolness that keeps us mute, it is stark fear of not being good enough to match the best singers in the world. For that is who you have to compete with today.

In the old days we, the people, were is a much smaller world, a smaller pond. When we compared our talents it was with our neighbors. Now thanks to radio, and TV, and I-pods, and MTV we have to measure to the best talents the world to offer and the joy of song has gone out of the world. We stand during the National Anthem and move our lips in church but nothing comes out.

I am first generation Television -Watching-Man, a mental mutation that forever separates me from my forebearers, and I am as guilty as anybody else of fear of public singing. Maybe more so because my voice breaks above a base register. But a couple of year`s ago Jere Guldin of UCLA Film and Television Archive invited me to an animation screening of films that ASIFA-Hollywood, UCLA, and others had helped to preserve. When the bouncing ball came on the screen and the audience all started to sing along with Ethel Merman there was a real joy not often found it today`s too cool world.

Sing with me now . . . she`ll be comin` round the mountain when she . . .