In my first “Before the First Lesson” post (Oct. 27, 2017), I set as the context for this series the fact that despite an unprecedentedly crowded field of unprecedentedly large-bodied candidates entering an unprecedentedly extensive system of formal higher education in music and opera, we have little to show for it by way of voices capable of satisfying the demands of the greatest roles in the greatest works. I further stipulated that these entries would consider some of the environmental, sociocultural, and technological factors that influence vocal development (or lack thereof) in advance of training. And I followed the lead of New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in presenting the first of these factors, the heavy and pernicious presence of the chemicals known as endocrine disruptors, with their scary and vocally intriguing effects on sexual maturation and obesity. ^(I)

In the second of the series (Dec. 22, 2017), I wrote about some of the ways our “technologically determined secondary aural environment” governs the largely unconscious modeling of the ear-voice loop that now conditions the vocal upbringing of everyone save for rare off-the-grid souls, who are unlikely to include many budding Tristans or Aïdas. In that discussion, I touched on two aspects of what I’ve decided to call the Digital Covenant (see below): the fragmentation of attention and the tyranny of the Now, with their concomitant losses of orientation and context. These are perhaps the components of the digital culture most commonly cited as problematic by educators and cultural commentators concerned with how minds are being structured and personalities formed. Today I’d like to enter some preliminary thoughts on a subject I see discussed less often, and that is the effects of our digitized life on emotional development. In a way, these thoughts follow a thread I’ve been tugging at since my first posts, concerning the unique intensity and, at times, the apparent waywardness of the emotional bond we form with musical and dramatic happenings. (See, especially, my article of Feb. 2, “How Are We Moved, and Why Do We Like it?” But, as I say, it’s a thread.) Until now, I’ve spoken about the receiving end of the bond—the taking in of emotionally directed events, our response to them, and our incorporation of reception and response into our storehouse of memory and expectation. What about the conditions on the sending end, with the artists themselves, who after all begin as receptors, too? Might the recent shifts in the ways we all mediate the world (especially with regard to relationships) also be mediating (I was going to write “stunting”) the ability to mobilize emotional, visceral energies—or even the recognition of the necessity to do so?—among potential creators and interpreters of the most emotional and visceral of the arts? Obviously, if I didn’t have a suspicion that the answer could be “yes,” I wouldn’t be addressing the question.