Week 3 and 4 // What is Art?
A little mid-week update and a rebrand
Investor reports didn’t have the right sound to it so we’re rebranding to a weekly (or so) sound check. We’ll continue to find our voice but I’m certainly happier with this naming. It also gives us flexibility to have special “investor” updates that don’t interfere with these weekly sound checks.
I found myself asking a question as we practiced our cover of the Bollywood song “Pardesi”. Are we making art?
For me, music is a way of connecting with a feeling that I may not even know I have. It’s a tool to reach deep into my soul, stir up the pot and really figure out what’s going on in there. That is to say … I think our rendition of this song IS art. Pardesi means foreigner or alien or someone not from here. Well, I’ve always been from not here. Something that I feel when I’m walking down the street and smiling at people. Something I feel at parties surrounded by friends (who live all around the world). Many of us are not *from* here. We are not of this place and yet we must find home here. I used to fight this feeling and strive to figure out where I belong. It’s an old realization with a new resolution. I’m comfortable being uncomfortable.
Certainly while performing music, but in many cases after listening to a particularly good song that sticks, the melody and lyrics rattle around in my head for days. Music is the most acceptable form of inception. It opens us up to new possibilities.
In this case, it made me think long and hard about being a foreigner. How I still view myself a foreigner. How I’m a foreigner pretty much *everywhere* I go. It’s a strange feeling and with music I get to obliquely point to it and engage in a public contemplation. We recorded it in Bindhu’s room and got our production setup going. It’s pretty janky (you saw a picture of it last week) but it’s going to get the job done. We’re still missing a few connectors and knick-knacks to be fully stocked but it’s slowly getting done. Here’s the audio product of our efforts:
I’ve also found myself asking “why even make art”? The answer “self-expression” seems tired and incomplete.
It’s certainly not for money. The arts should get funded because some eventually turn into public goods. Public goods of course benefit everyone (Steve Jobs famously loved Bob Dylan and drew a lot of inspiration from his life). Steve Jobs, cofounder and former CEO of Apple. The Apple that has the highest market cap of any public corporation. So art does have real value. But I don’t really think art can be in the pursuit of financial viability. One of the innate characteristics for the artist is a drive to make sure that piece of art exists - this necessarily drives the price down to zero. Why would anyone pay for something that will exist and is not meant to be exclusive?
Eventually art does get monetized so that artists can support themselves, but I’d argue that’s not the primary purpose.
Additionally, I think good art is orthogonal to skill. Or at least it’s separate from it. As a child, performing Carnatic classical music was an exercise in seeing how far a boundary could be pushed. Athletics of sort. Bindhu and I are both used to making music with a lot of skill and not much of our own art whereas now we’re trying to make more art with severe, acknowledged skill gaps.
All this to say, we’re trying to make art here folks and what we lack in skill we make up for in navel gazing explanation.
Quite interesting points about being a foreigner aka Paradesi and how art's primary purpose is not financial but much more. Those of us who have experienced music as a 'hobby' or 'parallel career' have definitely experienced the freedom of participating in concerts and performances just for joy and fun rather than 'to pay the bills'. Professionals who rely upon art for their livelihood would have a tougher time being selective of who they perform with or where they perform. May the tribe of music artists grow and succeed along with people who appreciate listening to the art and share the joy.