On a Tuesday afternoon in April 2007, I sat in a TGV (French fast-speed train) departing from the train station of Douai, in the North of France, where I was living at the time. The train was taking me to Paris where I was going to attend a sociological seminar on the topic of 'mediation and culture' at the Ecole des Mines, conducted by French sociology Professor and leading music sociologist Antoine Hennion. Like many people of my age, I accompanied any of my commute or travels with music. I was at the time the owner of a USB MP3 player that contained 512Mb of storage space, and which I could fill with about 120 songs. Before the train even left from the platform, a middle-aged man sitting across the passage asked me to turn down the volume of my MP3 player. He justified his request by saying: 'I cannot hear the music'. I apologized for the disturbance and lowered the sound of my MP3 player. In looking towards his seat, I noticed that he was not in fact listening to any music, but he was reading a music score. I then assumed that this man was a conductor, and he was on his way to Paris to lead a recital or a symphonic concert.