How Our Home Environment Makes Us Who We Are

I've just come home after attending a concert. It was an evening of excellent musical performances, brought together by the spritely energy of 82 year old conductor, Vladimir Ashkenazy. We were treated to Grieg, Mendelsohn and Dvorak - beautifully tuneful, complex and hair-raising stuff.

I spent my formative years - from birth through to leaving home at 17 or 18 - surrounded by classical music. My parents both loved to listen to it and my brothers and I all learned the piano and a second instrument. My father played cello in our local amateur symphony orchestra and we all spent several years as members of the Hampshire County Youth Orchestra.

If I'd wanted to, I couldn't have avoided listening to and learning about classical music. As it was, I absorbed its complexities and its deeply moving nature without ever really noticing. It was just there. All of us were immersed in this musical way of life and I think we all gained a huge amount from it. My eldest brother went on to be a wonderfully talented musician and teacher, playing on the world stage and still enjoying a fulfilling musical career. Me - I never put in the work.

I don't often get to concerts, but when I do, I am always transported back to my days in the youth orchestra. I made such good friendships and found like-minded others for whom it was normal to be singing passages from favourite symphonic works and carrying around a large, cumbersome musical instrument (I played cello - not easy to hide when you're walking past the cool kids on your way to school).

The culture of my family was centred around music. With four of us, there was always someone having a lesson somewhere or a rehearsal with friends. If we all practised at the same time, you can imagine the cacophony of viola, violin, flute and cello, with piano thrown in for good measure, all working on different pieces of music in different parts of the house! But it was just the way it was. We didn't know anything different.

There were times when I just wanted to be like ‘normal’ people. I wanted to listen to pop music and watch Top of the Pops (which I did, sometimes). But my life has been highly influenced by my parents’ love of music and I wouldn't now have it any other way.

Our lives are shaped by our environment growing up. I don't think it's necessary to push our children to be a certain way, but what surrounds them will influence them. The way we are with each other in the home, how we treat our friends, how we respond to strangers - all of these leave a lasting impression. We don't always notice or understand this while we're in it, but on reflection, it's clear.