Oh I agree, growing up I was surrounded by music, from my Dad belting out operatic arias while driving me to school (very occasionally) with me cowering in the back seat afraid someone would see me with this crazy person, to my brother and sister practicing their piano and me plunking along with my attempts at it. My brother was always in a band and our home was filled with budding musicians.

Heck,  I even remember going around door to door singing Christmas Carols on New Years Eve with little or no provacation.

None of my children play piano but I have two sons that play guitar. One that is truly excellent at it. Now that they have left home, the house is more quiet but singing and songs are forever living in my head, so much so that I sing at work----constantly, sometimes without even realizing it. Often the patients join in recognizing some song from a musical I'll be humming and the caregiving takes a turn for the whimsical as we belt out the tunes. Yikes I have turned into my crazy Dad.

And let's not even get into the sound studio that some call a shower!

I guess you forgot to factor in the cost of a piano ?

And oh more people are working longer hours and don't have time to harp tunes ......

And being a starving musician is losing it's coolness , can't raise a family on that chump change

How did we lose regular use of the lute, harpsichord, spinet and all other instruments and musical genres?  Simply, music and forms of entertainment evolve and take on different formats.  Music is still a big part of most people's lives...cms

None of us that sang thought we were budding musicians. Some of us couldn't even sing but it was fun.

My girlfriend's grand parents had a player piano. I often wonder what happened to it and the rolls of music.

my kids and \i will break into song at the drop of a hat we may not all sing in the same key but we sing with gusto. \yes even in public and we do sometines get looked at as if we are crazy but most of the time we get huge smiles.

My kids are still singing all the time.  The ability to play an instrument is certainly on the decline but I don't believe that people sing any less.  Different music, certainly, but still engaging musical activity...cms

But do you gather and sing?

I don't think we sing as much because music has become more individualized.  We listen to music in our cars (often alone), and on our MP3 players.  You're less likely to belt out a song with a group of people when you have earbuds in.

What I witness with younger people is that they sing along with music.  They will get together and sing the lyrics of their favourite songs.  If they go to a concert, they sign with the band - a practice generally frowned upon at the opera...

When I was a kid it was not unusual for a group of us to gather at dusk, in a bach yard or at a 'fort' in the woodlot and bellar out songs:   Old Mrs. Leary Put a Lantern in the Shed;  Early in the Morning, Down by the Station, is the Little Engines all in a row; Oh Susanna;  Row, Row, Row your boat.  And many more.

As a teenager I would go camping with a group.  We would sit around the campfire and sing:  Oh the Wayward Wind;  The Coke Song; etc and so on.   Sometimes we would gather in somebody's house and be accompanied by piano or guitar played by ear but often we sang unaccompanied.

Many of my friends were Country fans:  we sang Johnny Cash and Hank Williams songs.

But now, suggest a sing song and half the people will say that they don't sing.  And somebody else will inquire about who can play, and where will we get song sheets, and next thing you know it is organized like a choir with music and and song leader and most people sitting mute.  Or the idea just peters out altogether. 

When did we lose the joy of singing spontaniously?  Why does it have to be a production?

We don't "gather" and sing, just for the sake of singing.  We sometimes sing around the campfire.  Several members of my family, including myself will break into song anywhere anytime with the right lead . . . for example if someone mentions "Saturday night" we will immediately bellow out "It's Saturday night and I ain't got no money . . . " etc.

Occasionally at different stages of my life at parties there would be someone with a guitar and we would sing "Take me home country rodes" "Me and Bobby McGree" "I See a Bad Moon Rising" etc. etc. etc. When I was really young and went to visit my cousins, one played the piano, and I remember standing around the piano singing especially "beautiful, beautiful brown eyes", and "in the meadow we can build a snowman".

I think ghetto blasters, ipods, etc. have taken the place of instruments in the lives of our youths.

Yeah, we hear a lot of recorded music, and that has pretty much replaced the old time singing, but people do still spontaniously start  up with a modern folk song. In our house that tends to be songs from Greese, the Beatles, old english folk songs, children's songs we remember from our own childhoods. (I cringe when I catch myself singing the Wiggles!)

I remember once I was on a gloomy, silent comute to work and school with my Dad one morning, and a black man pulled up next to us in the traffic, just a belting out a happy song with a big smile on his face and he smiled and winked at me, and that cheered me right up!