Music and me

Music has been in me, and I have been into music, since birth. The seed of musical passion was planted in my soul probably from the first lullaby my mother hummed even when I was still in her womb, until I was born, and through my growing and adult years in a home where music was the family’s source of pleasure and relaxation.

Just recently, I was in spirited yet cordial discussions with my readers through a chat box about how music as we know it today has evolved (or devolved) from the poetic repertoire of Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water to the no-brainer beat of Psy’s Gangnam Style. They were all surprised to find out that I have no problem at all with K-Pop and other popular genres as long as they can get me to tap my feet and bob my head. Yes, I extremely enjoy Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe and the Wondergirls’ Nobody But You, and you can even Teach Me How to Dougie.

Why does it seem like, in music, the situation is always “us against them”? One faction becomes condescending of another group’s musical favorites. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach have had their share of “rejection” from the stiff-upper-lipped critics who considered their works too “common.” Okay, I agree: comparing Psy to either Bach or Mozart is a real stretch, but the point I’m making is that different genres have their respective market niches. Having a broader range of musical preferences does not make me better than other people; nor does it make me unique. All over the world, there are other enthusiasts like me whose relationship with music is uncomplicated. 

I am both an audiophile and music lover. As an audiophile, I have been trained to be critical of the way sounds are faithfully reproduced. This part of me has led me to embark on a journey — experimenting with different audio gadget combinations to seek the best music reproduction (otherwise known to some as an audiophile’s Holy Grail, and to others, Music Nirvana). The search for faithful sound reproduction should translate into such an improvement of your sound system that developing a deep appreciation of different music genres would be its natural progression. With a well-set-up stereo system, what used to sound like noise to you becomes music to your ears.

Perhaps, this is the reason my music preferences have expanded over the years. I have learned to love different types of music as they started to sound good, then better, and finally superb, while I went through the course of putting together the pieces of what I consider my perfect musical puzzle.

As your sound system gets better you’ll grow to understand the mysterious magical process that artists go through to create music. You will discover that music is very much a part of how you get through life, through all the ups and downs. You will mark each soundtrack as it defines your generation. You will learn how and why music can move millions of warm bodies to fight for a cause. If you get to that stage, you will realize that you have graduated from being an audiophile to a true-blooded music lover.

It is in this spirit that “AudioFile” and The Philippine Star will be sponsoring a room in this year’s staging of “The Hi-Fi Show” to be held on Nov. 10 and 11 at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati. We will be putting together the best of Filipino audio designers to recreate my personal audio journey. What you will see there are sound gadgets — amplifiers, preamps, speakers, phonostages, turntable, power cables and interconnections — that best define what I personally believe are the right ingredients for an excellent stereo system.

“The Hi-Fi Show” will be an opportunity for me to meet up with those of you who have supported this column all these years. I will update you on other details of the event in my succeeding columns. With this audio exhibition, you will see for yourself that the creations of our homegrown audio designers can hold their own against pricey and branded sound gadgets. I hope you will find the time to drop by. I want you to hear music the way that I do, so you may understand why my relationship with music has never been complicated.

* * *

For comments or questions, please e-mail me at audioglow@yahoo.com or at vphl@hotmail.com. You can also visit www.wiredstate.com for quick answers to your audio concerns.