Music Is Life

Welcome to The Brighter Side of Everything.

This newsletter serves a simple purpose → To help you build optimism, resilience and a solution-focused perspective.

Each week, I’ll share actionable insights that not only brighten your day but position you to be a leader within your own life and seize life’s opportunities.

Read time: 15-20 minutes.

Hello, Brighter Side readers! ☀️

You rock, thanks for being here.

Music has been a backdrop to my life, as I’m sure it has for many of you.

It’s carried me through the chaos, the joy and everything in between.

One of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned is that the right music at the right time can hit you right in the feels when words fall short.

It can reset your mood and unlock old memories or instantly change the direction of your day.

This weeks newsletter is all about that spark.

I’m digging into why music moves us, the science behind it and real stories of melodies moving mountains.

Lastly, I have a quick favour to ask?

If this newsletter has brought you a little clarity, comfort or encouragement lately, I’d be very grateful to hear more from you.

If you’re open to sharing a short testimonial I can feature on my site or in future issues, just hit reply with a few words and and how you’d like your name to be shown.

Think of this edition as a little mixtape for your week.

Built to lift you up when you need it most.

Have a great week 🎶

See you on the Brighter Side,

Chris

P.S. Please feel free to send me feedback on how I can improve. I respond to every email.

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Music has been a constant through every stage of my life.

It’s provided a soundtrack to my experiences.

It carries my memories.

It’s shaped my mindset.

Constantly lifting my energy and reminding me over and over, that I’m part of something so much bigger than just myself.

People often say “music is life.”

Which can sound cheesy.

But to me, it feels like a statement of fact.

Music has shown up at every turning point: childhood, teenage chaos, early adulthood, marriage, fatherhood.

It’s provided a soundtrack and been an emotional regulator.

Often the only thing that could say what I was feeling when words failed me.

I didn’t find my way to this point as a musician, though.

I arrived here as someone that fell in love with what music can do.

Connecting moments to memories and offering a sense of comfort when needed.

It’s been both a companion and source of inspiration, guiding me through life's ups and downs.

Sure, I’ve taken my swings at learning to play.

Piano, guitar, harmonica and plenty of other instruments over the years.

Each attempt introduced me to that brutal learning curve.

The one where practice stops being fun and becomes a humbling grind.

My fingers have refused to cooperate with my brain more times than I can count.

That struggle is exactly why I respect musicians so much.

It takes hours of repetition, frustration and showing up when no one is cheering.

I still keep a guitar and a piano around and play the basics when I can.

I’ll never completely walk away.

Why?

Because I love it too much.

I grew up in a family that loved music.

Not a family of trained musicians, but a family where many days had their own soundtrack.

Mum holding her hairbrush like a microphone as she sang in the bathroom, I can still hear her voice when I close my eyes.

Impromptu karaoke sessions and dance parties around the stereo were often just what we did to close out the day.

There was Madonna blasting from my sister’s room every time she opened her door, and my younger brothers making their guitars talk in a way I’ve never been able to replicate.

The cherished moments sat around my Nana’s piano as she serenaded us.

Or visiting my Dad who, after a couple of cold beers, could somehow hold a crowd with nothing but a lagerphone and a pair of spoons.

It was ridiculous in the best possible way.

Music had threaded its way through my life long before I ever entertained a thought about why it mattered.

It lived in the kitchen, the living room, the car, turning ordinary spaces into mini stages and giving our days a rhythm that didn’t care about perfection.

I remember certain songs like they were people.

I remember buying my first cassette, my first CD, my first record.

Those details are all burned in.

The covers, the shop, the feeling of walking out with something that felt like actual treasure.

It’s easy to chalk all of this up to nostalgia.

But in truth, there’s plenty more going on.

When we listen to music we care about?

Something special happens.

Our brains light up the areas involved in both emotion and memory, which helps lock those experiences in far more vividly than everyday events.

Try it out.

Hearing a song can place you right back in a room you haven’t stood in for decades.​

I can hear an old song today, close my eyes and instantly I’m back in our family living room in 1991, dancing around the record player like the lounge room is Massey Hall.

Or I’m at a tiny venue with my wife, watching a band that means the world to us.

Or on a road trip with friends, everyone yelling lyrics into the wind and patiently waiting for their turn to choose the next song.

There were backyard parties where nobody cared how off-key we were, shed jams with our would‑be band, the shows I saved for weeks to attend in my teens, camping solo at Coachella back to back years and my wife walking down the aisle to one of “our” songs.

More recently it’s my daughter wandering the house, her headphones on, belting out her first ‘favourite’ song or our son taking his first steps while we grooved at a festival in Montreal.

Some of these memories are forty years old and still crystal clear.

Purely because of the music.

Researchers call this “music‑evoked autobiographical memory.”

Certain songs act as powerful cues because they’re tied to strong emotions.

They can unlock vivid, detailed memories.

They can even gently shift how those moments feel when you revisit them.

Music doesn’t just remind us of our past.

It helps us process it.​

On a day-to-day level, music is the most accessible ‘emotional’ technology I know.

It’s always there and can shift my internal weather in a way almost nothing else can.

The right playlist has pulled me out of slumps and calmed me down before big decisions.

It’s helped me focus when my brain felt scattered and given me a safe way to feel things more deeply when I’d been avoiding them.

Listening to music you enjoy can reduce stress, lower your blood pressure and increase the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine and endorphins that lift mood and motivation.​

In practice, you can choose certain albums/songs/playlists for specific states.

One album that slows my breathing when I need to de-stress, another that helps me get words on the page, another that turns a tired Sunday morning into something beautiful.

The flip side of this is music that clashes with your state of mind.

It’s not just background noise.

It can keep you stuck.

That’s why research consistently shows that being intentional about your listening choices and timing leads to noticeable benefits.

Music can be cathartic.

Or it can be a way to stay lost.

It can stabilise you.

Or keep you spiralling.

The difference often comes down to whether you are choosing it to serve you or just letting noise happen to you.​

Very different.

Over the years, a strong belief of mine has really settled in.

There is too much great music in existence to blindly follow what’s popular.

Algorithms and charts have their place in the world but they’re blunt instruments.

Just because a song is everywhere doesn’t mean it belongs in your life.

Listening to music you don’t enjoy is like letting someone else write the subtitles for your day.

The words don’t match what you’re feeling, and after a while, it becomes exhausting.

There’s also something special about losing yourself in an album that was built as a complete thought.

We live in a world that encourages us to shuffle, skip and snack on singles, yet some records are designed as journeys.

Take an album like Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.”

You can absolutely throw on a single track and you might enjoy it on it’s own.

But listen to the whole thing?

Headphones on, phone away and absorb it from start to finish?

It becomes something else entirely.

A mood, a narrative, an experience.

A moment in time where countless lessons flood your mind.

Studies suggest this kind of immersive, structured listening deepens the emotional impact of music.

It can also support focus, learning and memory.​

This is where my relationship with music mirrors how I write this newsletter.

I’m not interested in shortcuts or surface-level sound bites.

I care about context, structure and meaning.

A single quote can be fun, but a full idea can be life-changing.

Music works the same way.

That belief in depth is part of why ten years ago I decided to buy a record player and stepped away from the chaos of endless streaming.

I wanted to listen with intention again.

To let albums shape the mood at home instead of bouncing aimlessly between an algorithms “recommended” tracks.

There’s a simple, grounding ritual that surfaces when choosing a record.

Sliding it out, placing it on the turntable and committing to the full side.

No skipping.

No half-listening.

Just presence.

Here are some practical tips from my lifetime of music obsession:

When I sit with all of this.

With each memory and every moment.

What rises to the top is gratitude.

Gratitude for the artists who grind through years of discomfort.

To learn their craft and create the songs that become our life markers.

Gratitude for the records that have turned into chapters of my story.

And for the countless nights, car rides and kitchen dance floors that would have been flatter and quieter without a soundtrack.

For me, “music is life” isn’t a metaphor.

It’s a literal description of how this whole life thing has unfolded so far.

Music has shaped my outlook, my work ethic, my mood, my friendships, my marriage, my experience of being a Dad and my sense of what it means to be human.

It’s been the most generous teacher and companion I could ask for.

If there’s one thing I hope you take from this, it’s an invitation to honour your own soundtrack.

To be deliberate about what you let into your ears.

To seek out the albums and artists that genuinely move you.

And to give them the time and attention they deserve.

Because one day you might look back and realise, as I have.

That you honestly couldn’t live without them.

If this resonates with you, or if you’d like to learn more about what music is actually doing inside us?

This 15 minute TEDx talk from neuroscientist Alan Harvey is a brilliant place to start:

Sometimes optimism is refusing to treat something beautiful as “just entertainment.”

Refusing to let it fade into background noise.

Refusing to stop asking bigger questions.

Bill Barclay has built his life around one of those exact questions.

What is music really doing to us?

Not just in our headphones but in our bodies, our memories and our relationships.

Even in how we make sense of the universe around us.

While most of us press play and move on, Bill has spent years turning that question into a living, breathing project.

One that travels the world with a full orchestra in tow.​

Bill Barclay is a director, writer and composer who spends his life in that fascinating space between art, science and storytelling.

He is the Artistic Director of Concert Theatre Works and Music Before 1800 in New York, creating “concert‑theatre” experiences.

They blend orchestras, theatre, history … and ideas.

Before that, he spent seven years as Director of Music at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, one of the most celebrated theatres in the world.

Overseeing music for more than 100 productions and helping early music feel vivid and alive for modern audiences.​

Most recently, he created What Music Is.

A documentary that pulls together astronomers, neuroscientists and musicians to ask why music exists in every known culture.

And what that might say about our minds and our stories.

Bill calls himself an “everyman” who just cannot stop wondering why music moves us so deeply and what that reveals about being human.

As society attempts to reduce music to 15‑second clips and background playlists, this kind of curiosity is quietly radical.​

Bill could have settled into a safe, respected lane.

Conducting here, composing there, doing excellent work inside familiar boxes.

Instead, he decided the boxes he was confined in were too small.

He began designing concert‑theatre experiences.

Hybrid performances where orchestras don’t just play pieces, they tell stories.​

In his projects, music shares the stage with:

With What Music Is, he pushes the idea even further.

He connects the overtones in a chord to patterns in planetary motion and the physics of vibration.

He invites scientists to talk about how music lights up multiple regions of the brain.

He stands in front of a full orchestra and invites the audience to see the entire “creature.”

All the different instruments and personalities, breathing together as one.​

It would have been easy to dismiss all of this as too weird.

Or too ambitious.

Bill chose to push forward anyway.

Knowing that audiences are still hungry for depth, and wonder.

There are plenty of virtuosos in the music world.

Bill’s gift is different though.

He refuses to separate beauty from meaning.

He treats the concert experience as a portal, not just a performance.

Today, when attention is becoming the rarest currency.

He’s building experiences that ask for full presence.​

Phones away.
Eyes up.
Ears open.

He trusted that audiences can handle being challenged and lifted at the same time.

That we can sit in a hall, listen to an orchestra and walk out slightly more awake to our place in the story of everything around us.​

There’s a quiet resilience in that.

Projects like his take years of research, fundraising, rejection, late nights and logistical headaches.

Pitching something that doesn’t fit any existing category.

It’s not “just” a concert, not “just” theatre and not “just” a documentary.

And then pushing ahead anyway because the question you want to answer won’t leave you alone.

That is optimism in motion.

The belief that curiosity, along with expertise and care, is worth betting your life’s work on.​

I found this short film fascinating.

What stands out most about Barclay is not simply that he loves music.

Millions of people do.

It’s that he’s willing to treat that love as serious material for his life’s work.

He kept asking questions that most people would leave the behind.

He gathered orchestras, experts and audiences around a single, stubbornly hopeful idea.

That music is more than noise.

More than entertainment.

It’s one of the clearest ways we have of remembering that we belong, to each other and to something larger than ourselves.​

Maybe that serves as the challenge for you within his story?

Look at the thing you care about most and ask:

What if this isn’t “just” a hobby or a way to kill time?

What if it’s a doorway?

And what might happen if you were brave enough to walk through it.

Want to watch What Music Is yourself? Check out here on YouTube:

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Every now and then, a documentary comes along that shifts how you see the world.

Alive Inside is one of those films.

It begins in seemingly ordinary nursing homes and long-term care facilities, but within minutes you’re watching something extraordinary.

People living with dementia “wake up” when they hear the music that once mattered most to them.

It’s moving, surprising and at times overwhelming in the best possible way.​

The film follows social worker Dan Cohen, founder of the nonprofit Music & Memory, as he explores a simple but radical idea.

That personalised music can restore a sense of self and joy for people living with dementia and memory loss.

Director Michael Rossato-Bennett documents these moments with a gentle, patient lens.

Letting the reactions speak for themselves.

As once withdrawn residents begin to sing, sway and share memories thought to be lost.

If you’ve ever watched someone you love seem to fade behind illness or age, this feels both heartbreaking and hopeful.​​

What makes Alive Inside especially powerful is its mix of intimate moments and big questions.

You witness families seeing a loved one “come back” for a few precious minutes when a favourite song plays through their headphones.

Incredible.

It also gently challenges the way modern healthcare often leans on medication and routine alone.

Rather than connection and creativity, to support people in care.

Interviews with neurologist Oliver Sacks and musician Bobby McFerrin add scientific insight and artistic perspective.

This helps us connect the relationship between the brain and music.

But it’s the everyday scenes, eyes lighting up, feet tapping, voices joining in, that stay with you.

It’s no surprise the film won the Sundance Audience Award and a string of other festival honours around the world.​

Kindness can be as simple as a playlist: A small collection of someone’s favourite songs can unlock stories, smiles and a sense of self. Moments that might otherwise stay hidden behind illness or routine.​

Connection doesn’t always need words: The most powerful scenes are quiet. Just someone listening, moving gently to the music, or making eye contact. A great reminder that presence and shared moments speak just as loudly as conversation.​​

Systems matter, but so do individuals: The film highlights the challenges of a healthcare system that often defaults to efficiency and medication. But also how one person, with a simple idea (and a dose of courage), can change lives and shift the culture of care.​

Joy is a powerful form of care: Watching someone go from withdrawn to animated when their song comes on underlines an important truth. Joy isn’t an extra in life, it’s essential. Our emotional well-being isn’t separate from care, it’s a central part of it.

Alive Inside is the kind of film that lingers long after the credits roll.

It nudges you to think about the elders in your own life.

The music that shaped them and how small acts of attention can restore a sense of dignity and connection.

It’s also shows us how, even in heavy spaces, there are sparks of joy waiting to be discovered.

If something as simple as a favourite song can bring someone back to themselves, it invites a bigger question:

What else might we be overlooking in how we care for each other?

At times this world can feel overwhelming.

This film confidently displays that there is always a brighter side.

And that each of us play a role in helping others find it.

Keen to watch it yourself?

The full documentary is currently available on YouTube::

Please share; I'm always keen for great suggestions.

Have you noticed how a simple melody can say more than words ever could?

Music often speaks straight to the heart.

No subtitles required.

You can feel the lift of a hopeful chorus, the comfort of an old favourite or the thrill of a beat that gets you moving.

Even if you’ve never heard the lyrics before.

It’s a kind of magic in that it can deliver connection, without explanation.

Music moves with us through our lives.

Soundtracking the good days, softening the tough ones and often marking the moments we remember most.

And it’s not just a feeling.

Research has shown that music really does transcend borders and languages.

A Harvard study found that music appears in every known culture and carries universal qualities.

With people across the world able to recognise the purpose of a song (like a lullaby or a dance tune).

Even when they don’t know the language.

While many choose to point out our differences?

Music reminds us we’re more alike than we realise.

It brings people together.

And sparks memories that need no translation.

All of this is true whether you’re sharing headphones, swapping playlists or just humming in the shower.

It’s there for your celebrations, at kitchen tables and for those solo drives when you want to feel a little less alone (or want to sing as loud as you can).

No matter what’s going on in my life or where I am in the world, I know music will meet me right where I am.

What always amazes me is how the right tune can move us.

No matter what language the lyrics are in.

Sometimes the words don’t matter at all.

In fact, my wife walked down the isle to an Icelandic song sung in a made up language about jumping in puddles and life’s simple, messy, carefree happiness.

The voice itself becomes another instrument, blending seamlessly with the melody or beat.

Music reminds me that connection doesn’t always have to come through understanding, but also through feeling.

No matter where we’re from or what we’re going through, a great song has the power to reach us right where we are.

What’s a tune that’s moved you lately, with or without words?

Transform your daily routine with my specially crafted gratitude journal.

Start (or end) each day with a moment of reflection and positivity.

As you develop daily your gratitude, you're also helping grant wishes to children facing critical illnesses.

It's a powerful cycle of hope and optimism.

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