What Will Be Your Legacy?
This past summer while visiting my parents, I was given some papers that contained genealogical information that one of my distant cousins had assembled. Most of the names on the list had no relevance to me; there were a few that did. In one little branch of this genealogical chart, I was able to trace my heritage back to one pair of my great-great-great grandparents. That was the first time I had ever seen these names, but it struck me at that point that these were just two of thirty-two great-great-great grandparents that I had. I also realized that I would most likely never know anything more than names and dates for that generation of my family. I then began to consider how my
descendants might eventually look at information regarding me, and it became very clear that they will know far more about my generation than I could ever dream of knowing about my forefathers.
With the amount of information that we are posting to the internet, it is completely possible that our descendants will be able to not only find out important dates, but they will probably be able to view photographs and videos of us. In fact, it seems possible that they might even be able to read our inane and mundane comments from some of the various social media sites. The thought that was most
present in my mind was that as we are collecting all of this information, we are also cataloging many of our musical performances. There was a time not too long ago in which it was difficult and quite expensive to produce a professional recording. The only people who were recorded were either so famous that people demanded recordings or they were able to put together enough money to produce the recording themselves. We now have the ability to post a concert to a
Dr, Grant Dalton
website like YouTube within just seconds, and all that is needed is a smartphone. We now can capture and catalog musical moments that might seem rather unimportant at the time, but they are, nonetheless, preserved for posterity. I find this possibility both exciting and a bit intimidating, but it has provided me with another reason to practice harder and expect more from my students. Who knows who will be watching those performances in future years? It might just be my great-great-great grandchild. Or yours.
Dr.Grant Dalton is the professor of percussion studies at Samford University where he directs the Samford Percussion Ensemble and Samford Steel,
the
university’s steel drum band. He is also the assistant athletic band director and teaches several academic courses.
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