Easy access to information is not always better. A number of reasons: information had easily isn't valued; information that requires effort teaches determination and self sufficiency that will always be required when you get to the limit of easily available info; an abundance of info can be daunting (information overload) and demoralising. Finally, there's less sense of achievement when you e.g. read about something rather than figure it out, and a lower probability of innovation from not knowing the current "best practices".
I still think easy access is better, but mostly because I'm grown up with hard won learning skills. I'm less certain that easy access develops the right kinds of skills. Primarily because not everyone is a genius with exceptional talent; some of us need skills too.
That said, it seems you had a lot on your chest and it feels good to get it off
We don't tell beginning programmers, "Go read the Linux kernel, it's the best way to learn." And, we shouldn't tell beginning musicians, "Go listen to an incredibly complex work recorded on 24+ tracks, with dozens of overdubs, and pitch-correction, and compression, performed by professional musicians with years of experience, and copy them."
I struggled when learning stuff as a kid, for years. I did it, but it wasn't productive practice. If I'd had competent ear-training, interval training, and sight-singing instruction at the beginning of my musical life, I would have found learning from records by ear much easier and much more productive within a year.
Kids today have access to those resources, even if they aren't lucky enough to go to a school for music. Will they do it? I dunno. I did tedious stuff even when more fun stuff was available; I had video games, friends in the neighborhood, a bike and skateboard to ride, etc., but I banged away at my guitar, making slow progress.
Making it less tedious, by making it more productive, seems like it's more likely to work out for more aspiring musicians. Learning by ear, when you don't have a framework of musical knowledge to hang it on, is among the most tedious things I can remember from learning to play guitar...and, it wasn't nearly as productive as it could have been, in terms of learning.
I think about folks like Lorde; she was writing fully formed, mature, and extremely competent, music at a ridiculously young age. I doubt it could have happened without tech.
Kate Bush was 19 when she released Wuthering Heights (and had been writing for years before that).
Stevie Wonder signed to Motown aged 11. Not sure when he started writing his own stuff in earnest.
[Edit to add, from Wikipedia:
In 1961, when aged 11, Wonder sang his own composition, "Lonely Boy", to Ronnie White of the Miracles; White then took Wonder and his mother to an audition at Motown
First self-penned number 1 hit aged 13. Wow!]
I've been comparing Lorde to Kate Bush for ages now, so I agree with you on that comparison (and I'm a huge Stevie Wonder fan, including his childhood songs..."Up Tight", recorded when he was 15, is among my favorites to holler along with while cooking dinner). But...there's gonna be a lot more of those kids. I'd bet there already are and I just don't follow pop music.
I can name maybe a half dozen super-talented kids that have come along in the pre-internet age; they were exceptional. But, I think they'll be less the exception as time goes on...partly due to tech.
YouTube recommended Grace Vanderwaal to me just last night. Her music isn't really my thing, but it's hard to argue she's not stunningly skilled for her age.
Not so much tech per se (although I also like your point about apps for music practice and other things) but the social changes and prosperity that are partly driven by tech.
I disagree. Not about the "just looking up a tab" bit, but about the general gist of your argument that "the hard way teaches you better". Easier access to knowledge is always better when you want to learn things, and the internet is absolutely the best access to knowledge that has ever existed.
I've been playing guitar since long before the internet made it easy to find a tab or chord chart for almost any song. I learned the "hard way". I've taught guitar lessons (also before all the modern options for learning came along), took college level music classes (in high school and in college), etc. All that knowledge was hard-earned, and I appreciate the time and effort it took to learn, but if I could go back in time and give my twelve-year-old self Rock Band and the Internet I sure as hell would.
To put it into perspective, in addition to guitar I tinkered with drums even back in high school and college (though I never had my own real drumset until adulthood). When I played in bands, I'd always push for at least one song where we'd switch it up so I could play drums for a little bit. I wasn't good at drums, but it was fun and I could hold down the rhythm for a simple song. As a grown up, I started playing Rock Band. Damned if my drumming didn't go through the roof in terms of quality and confidence. And, it happened fast, too. Within a few months of playing Rock Band maybe three or four hours a week and occasionally watching a video on YouTube about problem areas, I was a completely different drummer.
What I'm trying to say is that educational tools matter and the tools provided by technology today are incredibly better than they were when those of us over, say 30, were learning to play.
Not only that, I can browse YouTube and watch hours of instruction from professionals in any field. I've watched master classes on composition for orchestra by people who do it professionally, for example. I had that kind of access to really knowledge pros for a brief window when I went to a high school for the arts and to a lesser degree during college, but after that and until the Internet, it was something I had to get from books. Learning from professionals who're speaking directly to you in a video is way more valuable than slowing down a record and listening to it a hundred times (though there's value in ear-training, the tools for that are better now than ever) or reading a book about the subject.
Anyway, the point of my rambling is: Don't let nostalgia for how it used to be to cloud your view of how much better it is today. There will likely be younger prodigies in every musical genre than ever before because of the Internet (and Rock Band and apps that let you practice your intervals, etc.) if kids still want to learn how to play instruments. I think about folks like Lorde; she was writing fully formed, mature, and extremely competent, music at a ridiculously young age. I doubt it could have happened without tech.
And, I don't know if it's awful that kids may spend time learning to play other things rather than guitar, drums, bass, and piano; maybe they're learning sequencers and samplers and such instead. It may just be different, not worse. I learned a lot about music making mods in a tracker on my Amiga back when I was a teenager. It allows one to understand the whole song in ways that banging it out by yourself on an acoustic guitar might not.
I try not to let nostalgia cloud my appreciation of art that's happening today. And, there's a lot of great art happening, in music, too, including some real rock and roll played on real instruments. Pop music has never been about the guitar, even though the guitar was ever-present in pop music for a few decades. So, it shouldn't be all that surprising that pop music isn't going to cling to the guitar; all pop really cares about is pretty faces and very catchy repetitive songs.
So, while pop goes wherever the wind blows, there are plenty of guitar rock bands being started even today. Most major cities have a great music scene of real bands playing real instruments. They may never again rule the charts the way album rock did in the 70s, but they aren't extinct.