For example, buildings and houses more than a hundred years old keep getting more and more rare, and often have an aesthetic that stands out, more ornate or with a particular style that most people can’t afford today or that is not financially convenient etc. But back in the day, that’s how things were built and most people didn’t put much thought into it.
Another example, illustrations for advertisements ( either billboards or magazines). Up until the 60s (declining from the 70s onwards) a lot of ads had hand drawn illustrations, which required a lot of skill and talent to make. Yet people took them for granted, it was the standard quality of illustration for ads.
So the question is, are we currently mass producing something that will be seen in a similar light in a couple of generations? Thoughts?
Vintage clarinets can be very beautiful, but modern more standardized clarinets are also often beautiful (I’m quite partial to a lot of the Backun designs, but I have an old Selmer I really like too)
I can’t think of any instruments that aren’t made as “beautiful” as before. The only differences are that modern ones are just made… better, like way better. A $200-400 guitar now surpasses the quality of a guitar costing thousands of dollars from a few decades ago, and there’s way more diversity in the designs.
That being said, I don’t see what the point of musical instruments that aren’t “utilitarian” would be. It’s not a sculpture, it exists to make sound, there’s no reason for an instrument that sacrifices sound or design quality to have fancy aesthetics, unless it’s for a movie/play or something and the sound doesn’t actually matter.
While I agree that instruments should generally aim for sound and ergonomics over appearance, those things don’t always have to clash with each other. To take Selmer clarinets as an example, since you said you liked them, it’s normal for the keys and posts to have a highly-polished silver appearance, but you can get the signature model with matte black keys and posts if you want. That’s a totally visual choice that won’t change anything else, but it makes for a really distinctive-looking clarinet. Same goes for all the decorative inlays in the wood.
Besides that, though, I don’t necessarily mean the visual appearance of the instrument. Check out the synth that the other reply to me linked. It barely has any concessions to aesthetics at all, but someone has clearly experimented with ways to get a highly-personalisable playing experience. My dad and I are both guitarists, but we set our instruments up for totally different sounds because people experimented with stuff and we got to follow in their footsteps to pick what we subjectively liked best - the clear treble sound of thin roundwound strings for him, the rich warmth of thick flatwounds for me. Those are also things that came about because someone, at some point, had the curiosity and ability to just try it out and see what it sounded like, and I love that we get to enjoy the fruits of so many of these experiments now.