by Andy Medina

Created on: October 26, 2009   Last Updated: October 27, 2009

The focus is so often on what is bad about the music industry. But is that really always the case? Take the example of this teenager: his mother died in fire when he was just eight-years-old. The fire destroyed his home and all his belongings too. Words could never describe the horror of this situation. A happy-go-lucky young boy one day, a broken, vulnerable scrap of humanity the next.

There was to be no easy way out, no knight in shining armour, no sudden happy ending to make all the past worthwhile. Only slow progress over the next years. This poor boy with everyone around him who still loved him...still cared for him. Yet alone and missing the one person he would have chosen above all others. Alone and adrift in a sea of emotions, struggling not to drown.

He had lost so much, and now he lost his way. He stopped making friends. Lost the ability to relate to his peers. And everyday he questioned why he should live, why he couldn't be with his beloved mother.

To compensate, he sought approval...sought love...from everyone. He desperately ingratiated himself to those around him. But he no longer knew how to be himself. No longer knew himself at all. All a boy wants at eight or ten or twelve is the approval of other boys. But other boys want cool, they want trendy, they want funny, they want strong. They don't want sad, they don't want vulnerable, they don't want scared...desperate.

So life became an ever spiralling descent, an ever descending spiral. Boys are cruel, and he was ripe for bullying, ripe like a shiny new apple ready to be picked. Ready to be crushed, pulped, enjoyed. This wounded boy.

But hidden somewhere inside was a tiny light. A light that had been hidden. A gift. This boy loved music. He understood music, like an instinct. He was never trained, never coached. True, he wasn't Mozart, but he heard music with such clarity, he understood it as clearly as day. He could focus on melodies, and chords and harmonies. He heard the nuances in voices, and the expression in sounds.

When he was eleven, he went to senior school. Here there were music lessons, here his light began to shine. But he was scared. His gift made him stand out, it made things worse. He hid his light, he refused to sing, refused to display his knowledge. Pretended he didn't know, couldn't hear what he heard. The nuance, the expression, the melody, the harmony, the rhythm.

He never stopped listening, alone in his room. In the car with his Dad. In the malls and supermarkets and the

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