Whether we like it or not, music plays an important part in our lives today. Music can have a calming effect, or it can jar on the nerves, depending on where you are and what sort of music is being played. If you pay to go to a concert, be it classical music or pop, you have spent your money and taken your choice. But what about the shopping malls, shops and supermarkets, who insist they know best and treat their customers to a none stop diet of background music. The expression, “One man’s meat is another
man’s poison,” springs to mind and although I like classical music and brass bands, I must confess to also being a “Beatles” fan in my youth, but they never seem to play any of these do they?

I have always secretly admired people who are skilled with their hands, stone masons, sculptors, joiners and carpenters etc, which brings us to one of the world’s finest master craftsman, the Italian violin maker Antonio Stradivari. With the help of his two sons, Stradivari created some of the world’s finest violins in their Italian workshop in Cremona. The Stradivarius, as they became known, is still one of the most sought after and expensive violins you can buy. It is said that when Stradivari went out to select wood for his instruments, he chose the part of the tree that faced north, because it had been buffeted by wind and weather he declared that they gave the sweetest music.

How like life, so often we also find that the people whose lives have been touched by hardship and sadness are somehow strengthened in the process and seem to develop that extra depth of character, which can be such a blessing to themselves and others.