  I grew up in a house filled with music. My father was at one time a composer, commissioned by a major pop production company. He had composed several songs that became popular well before my time. He never seriously made a living out of it, choosing instead to devote his time and talent as an executive to a semiconductor MNE. But once you have music in your heart, which he does, it never goes away. I grew up listening to him strum his guitar.
I watched him tinker his fancy synthesizers. My fondest memories were hearing him spontaneously play Antonio Carlos Jobim's urlLink Vou Te Contar , re-titled Wave in its English version, on the keyboards. Everywhere around the house we were reminded of how music plays so large a part in our lives. We had two working phonographs, one large component with three-foot-high speakers, and countless cassette players of all shapes and sizes scattered around. We had two keyboards, one piano, several guitars, and I suspect my pitch pipe is still within the house, lost somewhere in one of the storage boxes. It was a magical place to grow up in, and I and my sister made full use of what we found.
We listened to Porgy & Bess, the Flight of the Bumblebee, Connie Francis songs, the Sound of Music soundtrack, all in vinyl. We were purists early on. Then we learned how to custom-make our own cassette tapes from these. And Disney movies, especially the ones with song, hardly ever left the the VCR. I've tried my hand at music when I was little. My mum enlisted a piano teacher for my instructions.
I never really had the patience to play it the classical (or traditional...? ) way, and it was right about the time my instructor pulled out the "Theme from Voltes V" music sheet that I freaked out. I decided that piano wasn't for me. No more lessons. (I have, however, re-composed the entire Voltes V score and saved it as a ring tone in my phone. In three movements.
) We've since grown up and had more important things to attend to. Music takes a back seat when you want to get into nice colleges, when you prioritize official and personal responsibilities, when you yearn for professional growth. But music is still tucked neatly in my heart, and more so in my sister's (who plays three instruments and now also composes). Music never went away. There's never an emotion, a thought, a desire or frustration or expectation, that hasn't already been translated into music. It's what we turn to when we need empathy.
Vou te contar, os olhos já não podem ver, Coisas que só o coração pode entender. .. ...Let me tell you what the eyes cannot see, things that only the heart can understand. 
