Like everyone else, I've wondered what it's doing to us all to be plugged in for so much of the time to our iPods, smartphones and other electronic gadgets. As a musician I can't help being aware that this is an awfully big change. Hearing music was, until quite recently, an unusual event in everyday life. Unless you sang or played music yourself, or someone made music in your presence, you wouldn't hear music; this was particularly true with instrumental music, obviously more unusual to come across than someone humming in your vicinity. The opportunity to attend a performance was something that people savoured and looked forward to, and wrote about afterwards in their diaries. Music was a spice of life, something to give a special flavour to the day, the month, the year; the visit of a renowned musician to your town would be a red-letter day, perhaps even a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you weren't able to be present at such an artist's performance, you would only ever know how they played by hearsay, and that of course was the nature of most people's relationship to the famous musicians of the day.

Now, because of electronic devices, listening to music as we carry out everyday activities has become a commonplace thing.