When I was a kid back in the 70s and 80s, as people of my age can remember, music was all around us. The glorious radio days were an introduction to this marvellous universe for most of the people. I remember having to rush home from school to listen to a specific radio producer who would play all the new rock releases before anyone else, or listen to experts on classical or jazz music tell you all about the recordings they were playing down the who the sound engineer was, or where the drummer was playing before this group and so on.

Our fixation was to be allowed to buy a good ‘stereo’ system for our room, a new turn table, a cassette player an amplifier, equaliser and good big heavy speakers, because we didn’t only want to listen to music but we wanted it sound the best possible, in detail and loud.

I remember that one would listen to music all day long in his house, car, office, everywhere.

Then, the revolution of the ‘image’ came, and today most people listen to music only in relation to a video. This is a good thing, believe me, and coming from a film composer, I tell you that music and image is one thing and it should be, no question about that!

What I am trying to say is that the medium of video does not allow space in our lives to listen to music the way we used to. Nowadays if people want to share a song or a piece of music, they create a video for it, even if this is just the cover of the album and they upload it to YouTube. When you listen to it you have to be either at you tablet (which most of them have extremely bad sound because there are not made to be music devices) or watch your smart TV.

OK, is this a bad thing? Yes. Why? Because the average adult (I am excluding the youngsters who spend time watching their pop idols video clip all day long) if in front of his tablet or smart TV, will spend much less time listening to music than doing other stuff, watching TV series, the news, etc. People used to listen to music also when doing other things around the house, even when cooking or washing the dishes. Now you do not do it, you need to be in front of the device… hence less and less music in our lives.

Is this what has destroyed the music record business? Absolutely not. It’s the mentality of the record companies that couldn’t follow what was happening technology-wise. But the fact that people now do not buy CDs anymore, that could listen to his CD player, adds to the fact that there is less and less music in our average day. More and more talk shows, more and more telemarketing, people who try to set our minds for or against something…

I am certain though, that people are more unhappy not only because of the global financial crisis and all the political situation, which obviously are all valid reasons and sources of misery. I am positive that our stamina, our mental and emotional strength is diminishing because we do not allow space for more music in our lives. I dare you to try it for a week. Try to listen 2 to 3 hours of more music per day instead of watching TV, and see how you will feel by the weekend…

Music is a natural soothing medium for the soul. It contains the whole universe DNA, a balance of space, numbers, bio-rhythm, an ocean where our mind and soul dives and unlocks powers of thinking in speed and distance impossible via any other activity. We use language as a tool of thinking, which is a useful thing, but with music we expand our inner self in a unique way. Elementary things a musician would say. Everybody knows that. Sure. But listening and experiencing, feeling less music allows less and less of all this to happen. There is no rest for our souls anywhere, and we become agitated, miserable, lost in many ways…