In the olden days, everybody sang. You were expected to sing as well as talk. It was a mark of the cultured man to sing.
– Leonard Bernstein
100 years ago today, one of the most shining lights of American music joined us. As a composer, conductor, educator, and more, Leonard Bernstein casts a long shadow, indeed.
Americans stand on his shoulders whenever we make music. But he, too, stood on shoulders – in particular, the shoulders of the generations of humans who sang as comfortably as they spoke.
The truth is, we all still sing – just some only do it in their cars or their showers. Bernstein seems to have thought, and I agree, that the world would be better if we all would sing out loud a little more readily.