The interval between two silences. That is noise. And as the popular definition goes, music is noise that is pleasurable. However, this is a very general assumption. What is pleasurable to one person may be utterly detested by another - I love 80's rock, but give me modern day gangsta rap and I run looking for the nearest pair of earmuffs. Due to this discrepancy, there can be no positive identification of pleasurable and non-pleasurable noise. One man's meat is, as they say, another's poison. However, a more clear definition can be made if we talk relatively. That is, we can define music to a person as noise found pleasurable by that person.

Why, primarily, am I writing this article? Firstly, because I am bored. Secondly, and more importantly, to mourn the passing of the enjoyment of music. I am not talking of the passive enjoyment of music - listening while multi-tasking on the computer and the phone while making oneself a sandwich - no, I am talking of sitting down, just your music and you, and listening, with no other distractions, absorbing every note and every quiver of sound. Equip yourself with a decent pair of headphones and a good player, and this is an experience that will send shivers down your spine. You will suddenly find yourself looking at a song you have heard many many times before in a completely new light. Try it.

Your grandparents, and even your parents have probably told you of those precious times when they hung out with their friends at the record store - for Mumbaikars, that would be 'Rhythm House', my father tells me - and spend an hour or two browsing through the latest records, laughing and discussing. Yes, we do have CD's now, and Virgin Megastore does exist, so technically we can go and do the same, but hey, where's the fun when you can download all the albums and singles that you want - for free - from the Internet in a couple of seconds. It even saves you the trouble of ripping the songs to your MP3 Player. Who uses CD Players anymore? Even my home theatre system features a hookup to my MP3 player. The age of the Music CD, to me at least, is long gone, a sad situation, but largely unavoidable.

What is avoidable, however, is the treatment of all kinds of music as background music, simply to be heard while doing so many other things, maybe even just to show people that you're someone who listens to music and thus deserve entrance into a specific clique or something of the sort. Whatever. The reason does not matter. I, however, firmly believe that music is an art form, as much art as literature or the drawings and paintings that hang upon the walls of the Louvre, and thus deserve as much, if not more, attention.

A new fad has sprung up in India. It might be prevalent all around the world, I have no way of knowing, but I have been reading about it in Indian newspaper articles. Mentally depressed, despairing individuals collect in groups and listen to the soothing tones of a Sitar or Guitar for an hour a session, and for around ten sessions or more, as per the individual, every year. And astonishingly, its working. People are emerging out of depression and attribute to none other than the power of music. All Hail, people.

The message that I am trying to get across? Sit down, and listen. You'll be surprised at what you hear.

r.

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