I was listening to a radio interview of a so-called up-and-coming local musician who volunteered this memorable comment. He stated that in a musical score, “the base is the heart of the music”.

Excuse me. I was always told, and facts bear me out, that the melody issued from the treble line and that was where the “heart” was. Musical composition has always been like that, with the base line serving as a mere accompaniment to the melodic lines such as the basso continuo of the early baroque to the present time. Some exception can be made where Bach’s counterpoint blurred the distinction.

The young man interviewed was obviously musically trained and his remark might have touched a raw nerve. He was, however, reflecting the modern musical idiom and how right he was. To me, modern popular music has lost its melodic strains. It probably died with the Beatles and Abba.

Nowadays, beat music is all the rage. It will be a challenge to any aspiring modern composer to write a piece of music without employing percussion instruments like bongos and other drums. They will be lost and might have to resort to virtually note-free scores involving rap and hip hop.

It is sad how music composition has deteriorated to this extent. Modern music is now only fit for discos and for gatherings where its musical value is secondary to the activity taking place.

Has modern music, if you can call it that, eliminated all chance of hearing again the great ballads and tunes that meant something to the listener, such as a pleasurable experience for its own sake.

I am not refering to the greats like Mozart and Bach, they are immortal and will still be heard and enjoyed by generations to come over thousands of years. I have catholic tastes in music and I lament the fact that modern music composition is no longer written for its own sake but to fulfil a function such as disco music or for mass gatherings at concerts where amplifiers and tone controls and stage effects like smoke set the scene to enable the mainly young to meet and interact and enjoy themselves in the atmosphere provided.

Not, mind you, to enjoy the musical potential of the performers; that is secondary to the main purpose of the night. If anybody was serious about music, any music, the best way to derive maximum benefit from hearing is at home on one’s hi-fi. Music is subjective and personal and cannot be shared with hundreds of raucous arm-waving individuals.

That is no way to appreciate music. Modern music does not much encourage enjoying music for its own sake. Sad really.