Music in our lives...!

Music is, and ever was, a constant in my life.

I grew up listening my parents playing the piano. I still remember my first piano class.

Today I like to play different kind of music. Of course I began with the classical music, which is a universo it self. There aren´t just one kind of classical musical. We can find a big group of music called Early music, that is music composed and played from XV to begining of XVII century.

Before Early music, you can talk about Medieval music, that are divided in Juglar music and Church music.

But after Early music, we begin to listen Baroque music, wich is singularly beautiful.

Of course I learned listen a lot of music and I asking to my self what kind of music the people listened in other times and making links between some historical character and the music in his or her time.

I enjoy Jazz, Blues and Rock and Roll, which are big groups of many differents kinds of music.

But I think that classical music has the power to amaze people who are not used to listening, or even do not know very well that kind of music. We can see it in films. I really think that a big part of success of any movie it i son its soundtrack.

I think my favorite composer is Bach. Of course I enjoy hundreds composers of all times, but Johann Sebastian Bach is really unique. I always remember a TV documentary that remember a quote of a biologist called Lewis Thomas. When he was asked what message he would choose to send from Earth into outer space in the Voyager spacecraft, he answered, "I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach." After a pause, he added, "But that would be boasting."

As you can read, music is very important for me and my life. As the teacher wrote, hearing is one of the first sense that human being develope before the birth.

Today I still play the piano in my free times. I have a little son that is learning cello with a particular teacher. I hope he knows how to appreciate good music as I think I do.

My favourite book or film

I think that I don´t have just one favorite film. I just enjoy some kind of film and I always try to have a great time in cinema. I read some books at school, and I remember some of them but I really enjoy other kinds of books. I like, for example, biographical and historical books and films. I think because, in some way, I can keep and connect real known facts that I have studied, with the fictional ones on the film.

Forrest Gump, The Elephant Man, Immortal Beloved, Waterloo, The Mission, Mishima are just a few very good examples of what I´m talking about.

But, once again, and due the talented and emotional compositions for cinema, there are many films that I really love its music. Composers like, John Williams, John Barry, Alan Silvestri, Ennio Morricone, Basil Poledouris, Danny Elfmann, Philip Glass, Nino Rota, and many others, have made real artwork films through their compositions.

I think one good example is the film 1981´s “Conan the barbarian”.
The composer of the film was Basil Poledouris. The film, itself, doesn´t have many dialogs, so the music is of great importance for keeping the line of history.

Of course I enjoy entertainment epic films for cinema, like Star wars and Lord of the Rings, where the music, again is an important factor of it success.

Walking towards powerfull small technology

It´s very hard to choose just one, or the most important piece of technology. Maybe there are many through my life, in different stages, I think.

When I was a kid, I remember listening to my music in vinyl player called LP mini component. In this time I heat milk with a kind of pot over the fire. Today we have the widely used Microwaves, and I heated my mug of milk in a minute.

Maybe the using of personal computer changed my student life. Made the researching and talking to anybody around the world really possible thanks to internet.

Other important change of technology was the cassete player to a DVD player.

And the changes go and on more quickly than years ago.

So, I think that the issue here is the saving of a large amount of information as possible. In that way, you can realize that the new pieces of technologies are smaller but more powerful saving a big amount of data and files that you use it diary.

Why did I choose my career?

I think that when I was very young, I really loved science as a philosophy of life. I still do! Finding the meaning of little things ever was a challenge to me. Then I had an encyclopedia where I looked for the subjects in a first approach of the theme.

But my liking was changing a little when I asked myself how to cure illnesses of the world. Thus, I focused my attention on some careers that work in this subjects. One of these, and maybe the most important, is studying pharmacy.

I know that biochemistry and pharmacy is the same career in some countries, but here in Chile are separated.

When I took the PSU test I finally chose Pharmacy at the School of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Chile, but I think that I never could unite this liking with music, that is another great liking. Some people think that there is no relationship between pharmacy and music, but recently I´ve read an article talking about music as a way to develop many mental and somatic reactions, making music a kind of medicine. Maybe this is a kind of link between music and pharmacy. I still have to discover it!

Introducing my self

Rafael Riadi Mahias is the fourth of five kids of my parents. I was born in São Paulo, Brazil, but my parents are Chilean. At the ´70 my father go to Brazil to find a better future for his wife and his 3 sons. They are my mom and my siblings that stay in Chile while my father settle down in São Paulo. After some years they reunited and live in Brazil where I born few months later!

I studied in school in Brazil and I finished my school studies in Chile. So, I have many friends in both countries. I begin my studies in Chile in Liceo A-67 Alexander Fleming, then I went to University of Chile to study Pharmacy at School of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences.  

I always enjoy classical music too. My parents play the piano and I always wondered how beautiful will be to move my hands on the keyboard and play music. So my mom put me in piano classes with a very nice German lady.

Today I can say that I enjoy science and music in the same way, with passion and seriously.