Perhaps a connection

MARK SWED tells us that the age of downloading has arrived, that the LP and CD lasted about a quarter of a century each and, with the world’s music now at our fingertips, we may use it to isolate ourselves [“A Musical Global Village?” Aug. 20]. “We have,” Swed writes, “as McLuhan ... predicted, an electronic medium becoming an outright extension of the nervous system.” I can’t help but recall the great “March King” John Philip Sousa’s predictions for the phonograph record. In 1906: “I see a marked deterioration in American music and musical taste ....When a mother can turn on a phonograph, will she croon her baby to slumber with sweet lullabies or will the infant be put to sleep by machinery? What of the national throat, will it not weaken?”

He did make recordings for the old Victor Talking Machine Co., but only 10 were actually conducted by him. Induced to give a testimonial for the label, he was remarkably restrained. “Victor Records,” he wrote, “are all right.” Here’s hoping that Swed’s prophesy will be as inaccurate as Sousa’s.

HARVEY GELLER

Tarzana