Music, like most things, is ripe for reinvention. It’s composed one way, interpreted another and, whether or not it becomes a classic, is somewhat of a blank canvas on which an individual artist can make his or her mark.

David Campbell, son of Jimmy Barnes, has put his stamp on some of the iconic songs of the 1980s – including one of my personal favourites Shout to the Top by The Style Council – but his new album is conspicuously lacking any covers of songs from his father’s band Cold Chisel.

You’ll have to read Interview (P14) to find out why, but suffice to say, David has had enormous fun adding a big brass and string spin to dance-pop songs he grew up with. I haven’t heard the album yet but can only imagine an improvement on the one-hit wonder Come on Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners.

Also this week, you’ll meet another musician, an Englishman intent on demystifying classical music.

Duncan Lorien promises to have people reading and playing Bach within three days (Portrait, P19).

The aim of his seminar is simple: to empower people to do something they might have thought impossible, and then use this sense of achievement and confidence to realise other dreams.

I like where he is coming from. All too often it is easy to say we can’t do something, either because we haven’t tried or we’re afraid of failing, but the danger is that we become bystanders.

We watch from the sidelines as life passes by.

Duncan, who has trained 30,000 people in 35 countries, says one of the saddest observations in his travels is that people are increasingly becoming listeners and spectators, instead of picking up an instrument and getting involved.

We only go around on this earth once – why be passive when being active is so much more exciting?