music institute in rural India and when
I wasn’t getting drenched under the
monsoon rain I was learning about new
vocal techniques and the styles of
different composers but what I didn’t
realize at the time was how much
subconsciously my identity was being
shaped by the music I grew up hearing
that music tunes our minds and I’m sure
that a lot of us have heard about the
benefits of classical music for kids and
concentration and I know that all of us
use music as a tool for relaxing or
lifting our spirits but we don’t always
recognize how music is actually changing
the way we think intrinsically and for
me it wasn’t until I started moving
forward in my own musical journey that I
really began to realize how much music
has shaped my thought process for the
better for the past several years I’ve
been training as a singer in South
Indian classical or Carnatic music which
is an intricate art form that consists
of ancient compositions set to melodic
scales called raagas and rhythmic cycles
called talas but the most unique
beautiful and challenging aspect of
Carnatic music is the process of
improvising within the grammatical
confines of the given raga or ‘the allah
in Carnatic music improvisation is
called mono Dharma which loosely
translated from Sanskrit means as
pertaining to the mind this relates to
the vast scope of possibilities that an
artist has to create their own music on
the spot as they draw from the
repertoire of conventional knowledge and
theory so to a student like myself this
process can seem incredibly technical
and pretty overwhelming and while it
does require true dedication and
practice I always try to keep in mind
what my music instructor told me on my
first day at the Institute the goal of
music and all art is to communicate
address ax
simply put Russell means the essence of
human experience to feel and when I
always think that we know the point of
art and music but it’s a simple message
that we don’t always know how to
pinpoint the goal of creating art or
experiencing art is to invoke or induce
feelings now this is what explains the
importance of being connected to music
especially in today’s world where we’re
more disconnected and polarized from
each other than ever before music builds
empathy so if you look above me we can
see the definition of empathy the
ability to understand and share the
feelings of another let’s break it up
into three parts we have understand
share and feelings so in my experience
with Carnatic music and with improvising
there are three ways in which I’ve been
able to access these three parts that
make up empathy let’s start with the
most basic which is feelings and that’s
something that I’ve been able to access
through actively listening we all know
the logic behind listening we hear
something our brain processes and then
prompts us to react either verbally or
internally from the very first note or
beat you hear in a song you immediately
enter this sort of cause-and-effect
process where the sounds you hear form
unique associations in your mind and as
you keep listening the faces of your
friends and the places of your past get
blurred between the sound and your
heartbeat and you’re building this
completely multi-dimensional
personalized experience while you’re
listening to music subconsciously you’re
building on your own all of your
memories building deeper connections to
the emotions associated with them simply
you’re allowing yourself to feel and in
doing so you’re one step closer to being
able to appreciate these feelings as
experienced by another so now that you
have these feelings it’s probably best
that you’re able to understand them
and that’s what I’ve been able to learn
through practice on stage when
improvising the musician has the goal of
delivering something fresh and creative
but also has to maintain musical
convention so one of the techniques that
my music teacher has taught me in order
to be able to improvise with relatively
more ease is to take a free from moraga
and try to sing it in as many ways as
possible so for example Sonny the bum
can be sung like Sonny the bah
or Sonny the bum and so on and like that
you build a cache of ideas to pull from
when performing and you also discover
all of the possibilities that this one
tiny bit of music has to offer so
translating this into real life
musicians imbibe the skill to consider
something from every angle before coming
to a conclusion that’s meaningful to
them every time we practice we open our
minds even wider define the beautiful
and something that we might not have
initially considered to be so whether
you’re a musician or not we should all
think like one because thinking like a
musician means that we’re actively
seeking out the beautiful and everything
we come across constantly challenging
ourselves to be excited by differences
now that you have feelings and you’re
able to understand them the next step to
achieving this empathetic attitude is to
be able to share and the way that most
musicians often share their feelings is
through performance but we often think
of musical performances as a very
one-sided process where we sit back and
passively listen to whatever the
musician belts out but that definitely
isn’t and shouldn’t be the case a
Carnatic concert is so special because
the audience is an integral part of the
process it sort of works like a cycle
where the artists present their music
initially drawing from their mood which
then causes the audience to react either
vocally or intangibly with a general
sense of feeling in the room then
then influences the singer and the
accompanying artists who play off of
each other by adapting and adjusting
continuing this dynamic and interactive
process all in real time this really
illustrates the power of music that an
entire room filled with mostly strangers
is connected simultaneously by a shared
experience that still somehow remains so
individualized to each person listening
performance makes the message of empathy
clear that music like most things in
life is all the more meaningful when we
share it with someone else so now I’d
like to invite you to share with me the
experience of part of the piece that
would be performed in a Carnatic concert
unless you speak ancient Telugu you
won’t be able to understand the words of
the piece which is okay because the
music itself if done right should be
powerful enough to invoke the goal of
creating or experiencing art which is to
communicate
Arase as you listen to the music I
encourage you to engage yourself with
all of the thoughts and feelings that
surface into your head and try to pick
out the details in the music that stand
out to you and make differences in your
mind after the song and after when
you’re in the lobby I also encourage you
to talk to the people around you about
what you discovered about yourself and
experience yet another way that music
so I’ll be performing a composition of a
19th century composer a Soubirous
Shastri the melodic scale is called VT
goalie and the ascending scale is Sogeti
gamma-gamma in ISA the descending scale
the rhythmic cycle is a seven beat meter
called Misha Chaput which goes like one
two three one two three four one two
three one two three four so because of
time constraints I’ll be performing an
improvised framework of the melody as
well as a portion of the piece
[Music]
[Music]
the Beretta
[Music]
the the
[Music]
the the Deena
and I’d better
ever read
[Music]
there
[Music]
and
[Music]
the retina
ah
nah
[Music]
I know
nah some more guinea – Adama
eenie meenie minie
[Music]
minami nominee me Nina
[Music]
Oh bunny Sunnyside
ah nice a goddess a nice a gaga
my gag is a nice a guy
a nice I got
sorry Sonya Gaga mah gah gah gah gah gah
gah
Nissa Nissa Nissa gaga Mega Money the
more Nene Sasha Gaga my good we got
green isa Nene sunny the mom I gave Issa
up big ever harem
more jer go
mmm
Nina
[Music]
Jenna
nikka meet the da da
and uh
ah me three
genique amita the three
you gotta Baba
lovely girl ah bah bah
laughs son
three-second
[Music]
three Mira Vedika tsukada
yeah Keanu Choon a new venue chilaka
lychee tini retama Gitana you any more
ado vini
Valon who pro to tech we have a wicked
are a Louvre in Houma edy Ganem Otaru
Namita Kripa salut pootaroo saga
sadducee rockello chorizo Fosse Nita
[Music]
the giver
[Music]
Nina
[Music]
you
thank you [Applause]