Ambika Thiagarajan
4/20/2021
4/20/2021
Music
Music can take me to the strangest of places. It can transport me to the most random of memories, so specific that I'm often shocked that I even had it stored in my medium sized head for this long. Where are these little pockets of stories kept? Maybe there's a tiny entryway that leads to a bunch of different compartments and every time a new memory is created, these compartments diminish in size until they are completely tucked away into the backs of our heads and rolled off down our spinal cords. Somehow though, these random memories find a way to simply linger....
I often swing my Spotify to the 2016 pop playlist. This was the year I moved to LA to explore a career in Acting at the New York Film Academy (yes I know that can be confusing- it is located in LA). My feelings were everywhere, I definitely made the move with confidence but as soon as I heard that we were meant to audition right in the beginning even before I had developed a single skill, my palms started to sweat a little. I had no idea what I did even today, I remember completely winging it by simply watching a couple of YouTube videos. By the fifth video I decided I knew how to act now, and did....something at the audition. However good or bad that audition went, I recall stepping out of that room and feeling so excited. I loved every second of it.
I soon came to the understanding that at this school I could completely be myself and express everything I needed to in front of my classmates through the means of 'acting'. It was the most liberating time of my life. I would wake up in the morning going through my numb morning routine, walk to my class in the hottest of hot suns (also the year I started having the worst of breakouts), grab a quick breakfast at the cafeteria (usually a hummus salad, I was soon named Hummus by my buddies), so I had some amount of energy to release my deepest of thoughts and emotions within the secure walls of the classroom. I did forget to mention that during my walks over to class, I always listened to some intense 2016 music, usually rhythms full of soul and passion. And this was the same playlist I pull out even today, songs that remind me of that year, all these feelings I was in a way forced to experience, but when I did it was the greatest sensations ever.
I remember back in college in Chennai, India, when my painting buddies and I spent hours and hours on our canvases together in class, listening to our own music. It was an experience beyond the ordinary, where we all used our creative instincts to build an image on surfaces while being drowned in music that helped glide the strokes of our brushes. These marks of time were made uniformly with the flow of melody. Some even enjoyed club thumping beats which brought out deep and powerful colors and impressions, and I always enjoyed watching them dance to their Art. Sometimes, this was also me. It reminded me that music can bring out so much out of you all at once, and when in sync with imaginativeness and visions, it can only produce magic.
Music enables freedom and can be so oh so gripping, inspirational, and meaningful all at the same time that sometimes when I have it blasting in my studio space, I'm transported to a place in my mind where I'm feeling extremely safe, comforted and valued. A place filled with faith, a place brimming with optimism. I can even tell the difference based on how expressive I am on my canvas whether I had music on while in the act of creation or not. I don't need to necessarily have music playing every time I paint, but at least sometime during the course of that same day. The power music holds is simply immeasurable and I owe it oh just so much.
Music can take me to the strangest of places. It can transport me to the most random of memories, so specific that I'm often shocked that I even had it stored in my medium sized head for this long. Where are these little pockets of stories kept? Maybe there's a tiny entryway that leads to a bunch of different compartments and every time a new memory is created, these compartments diminish in size until they are completely tucked away into the backs of our heads and rolled off down our spinal cords. Somehow though, these random memories find a way to simply linger....
I often swing my Spotify to the 2016 pop playlist. This was the year I moved to LA to explore a career in Acting at the New York Film Academy (yes I know that can be confusing- it is located in LA). My feelings were everywhere, I definitely made the move with confidence but as soon as I heard that we were meant to audition right in the beginning even before I had developed a single skill, my palms started to sweat a little. I had no idea what I did even today, I remember completely winging it by simply watching a couple of YouTube videos. By the fifth video I decided I knew how to act now, and did....something at the audition. However good or bad that audition went, I recall stepping out of that room and feeling so excited. I loved every second of it.
I soon came to the understanding that at this school I could completely be myself and express everything I needed to in front of my classmates through the means of 'acting'. It was the most liberating time of my life. I would wake up in the morning going through my numb morning routine, walk to my class in the hottest of hot suns (also the year I started having the worst of breakouts), grab a quick breakfast at the cafeteria (usually a hummus salad, I was soon named Hummus by my buddies), so I had some amount of energy to release my deepest of thoughts and emotions within the secure walls of the classroom. I did forget to mention that during my walks over to class, I always listened to some intense 2016 music, usually rhythms full of soul and passion. And this was the same playlist I pull out even today, songs that remind me of that year, all these feelings I was in a way forced to experience, but when I did it was the greatest sensations ever.
I remember back in college in Chennai, India, when my painting buddies and I spent hours and hours on our canvases together in class, listening to our own music. It was an experience beyond the ordinary, where we all used our creative instincts to build an image on surfaces while being drowned in music that helped glide the strokes of our brushes. These marks of time were made uniformly with the flow of melody. Some even enjoyed club thumping beats which brought out deep and powerful colors and impressions, and I always enjoyed watching them dance to their Art. Sometimes, this was also me. It reminded me that music can bring out so much out of you all at once, and when in sync with imaginativeness and visions, it can only produce magic.
Music enables freedom and can be so oh so gripping, inspirational, and meaningful all at the same time that sometimes when I have it blasting in my studio space, I'm transported to a place in my mind where I'm feeling extremely safe, comforted and valued. A place filled with faith, a place brimming with optimism. I can even tell the difference based on how expressive I am on my canvas whether I had music on while in the act of creation or not. I don't need to necessarily have music playing every time I paint, but at least sometime during the course of that same day. The power music holds is simply immeasurable and I owe it oh just so much.
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