There's music in the air. From the bouncy tune on the radio to the triumphant swell of a symphony orchestra, music is the backdrop to our lives.

But like electricity we may all enjoy it, but few of us really know how it works or how it got here. Channel 4 is set to change all that with a new series called Howard Goodall's Big Bangs, which began last Sunday.

The series charts the key moments in musical history over the past 1,000 years.

Your guide on this journey is Oxford composer, Howard Goodall, a one-man musical umbrella with choral, musical, television and theatre scores to his name.

He began his own musical journey in Thame, where his father, Geoffrey Goodall, was headmaster of Lord Williams's Grammar School. He was a chorister at New College, Oxford, before going on to read music at Christ Church. Oxford contemporaries included Rowan Atkinson and writer, Richard Curtis, both of whom fatefully he met on his first day.

Artistic collaborations followed, continuing after university when Goodall penned the score for Blackadder, The Thin Blue Line and Mr Bean. He can also take responsibility for the irritatingly catchy theme tune of Red Dwarf and the classical, The Vicar of Dibley.

With Big Bangs he is once again bringing music to the viewing masses.

He says: "To my mind there are two types of music programmes - performance programmes, which are not very televisual and can be quite dull, and stories of great composers, outlining their lives and horrible deaths. But there haven't been any on what makes music itself tick and why crucial things have happened in its development."

"The series is a Life on Earth for music and there's an enormous amount of energy, movement and travel in the programmes. It helps if you aren't being bombarded with huge amounts of information directly, it's more enjoyable to watch things being explained on a number of levels." Hence the arresting sight of Mr Goodall in a gondola, on a London bus, on Eurostar and at a gipsy wedding in Romania as he explains the watersheds of musical history.

He cannot fail to get the message across. This is classical music after one too many glasses of Champagne - enjoyable, lively and unpredictable, and Mr Goodall hopes it will help people to make some important musical connections.

In particular the joys of classical music, which might seem light years away from the strummings and wailings of the pop charts, but shares crucial common roots. Ancient Greek mathematician, Pythagoras for example, stands responsible for the origin of notes and the creation of the equal opportunities movement that allowed Oasis and Mozart to bare their souls to us.

"I think classical music is due for an overhaul to make it accessible to more people. People have to feel they have a connection with it so they don't feel left out. It has a distant, mysterious feel to it, like you need to belong to a private club to appreciate it. "The point is to demystify it so that everyone can enjoy it. Classical repertoire has fantastic treasures that need to be shared and it's a question of approach."

But Mr Goodall doesn't stop at guiding us through music's historical back-catalogue. He has also been busy looking to the future, recently arranging music for the opening ceremony of the Millennium Dome, composing a number of Millennial commissions and working on an album, entitled We are the Burning Fire, due for release in May.

The album features songs from around the world, with contemporary arrangements by Howard Goodall, and is sung by the choir of Christ Church with whom he has strong links. The choir also premiered a composition for the Choir Schools Association at the Sheldonian Theatre last month, part of a musical event due to tour Britain's cathedrals throughout the year 2000. Now living in London, Mr Goodall still travels to Oxford regularly to collaborate with the choir, and to visit his parents, brother and agent who all live here.

He says: "Making the Big Bangs series over a year has been a fascinating journey to make, and I learned a lot about music I didn't know."

Music's journey might have begun in Ancient Greece, but Howard Goodall's downbeat remains in Oxford.

"Oxford is the place that inspired me to write music in the first place," he says.

Story date: Thursday 23 March

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.