The real deep text of music and the whole reason that it has continued with the profundity and urgency that it has for over a thousand years, has to do with what the notes say, what the notes witness, different experiences of hope or doubt that people are able to distill and encode and pass on in this way.

And what classical music does best and must always do more, is to show this kind of transformation of moods, to show a very wide psychological voyage. And I think that's something that we as classical musicians have underestimated.

When I first was conducting as guest conductor in Europe 25 years ago, I would propose doing American pieces and grudgingly it would be accepted from time to time.

Pop music, which I deeply admire and wish I could play better than I can, is based on expressing one mood, one feeling at a time. Classical music is by its very nature involved with different kinds of music, constantly transforming one another, which is more akin to the way our experience of life really is.

But without the experience of actually singing or playing these things yourself, you don't have the same kind of involvement or understanding of what these musical moves mean. And that is a very big problem in addressing the future of music.

The big difference between human happiness and sadness? Thirty-seven freakin' vibrations.

If you're alive, you have all the experience necessary to understand classical music.