What is the function of Music and Art? What I learnt from interviewing 10 Artists and Musicians.

In 2021, I undertook the Xook project for the City of Sydney with Alison Navarette. The project was a series of interviews with 10 artists and musicians that sought to explore individual attitudes and perspectives to music, art, and artistic practice. What we found was that each artist used their art to penetrate deeply into life, culture, and society. Whether as way to connect with ancestral legacies, continue cultural traditions, alleviate stress, or to know themselves more deeply, we found that music and art defined their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Pic: Music Producer Andro Martinez

The Project

We interviewed ten influential artists across varying disciplines of art, music, dance, and music production in Australia and abroad (interviews are available here). Artists include LA vocalist and violinist QVLN, London music producer Atjazz, Australian indigenous artist Blac Douglas, Colombian-born singer guitarist Oscar Jimenez, music producer Andro Martinez, South Asian dancer and choreographer Shyamla, and pianist Daniel Pliner. The interviews culminated in a live performance at Tatler in Darlinghurst, Sydney, where artists performed and got to meet.  

Objective

The project sought to explore the deeper significance of art and artistic practice, aiming to shed light on why artists and musicians embark on a life of art, and how it impacts them. The interviews explored topics such as art practice, performance, tradition, spirituality, and culture, with questions allowing each artist to engage with the topics in their own unique way. It resulted in many great moments and provided insights into the mind of an artist.

One such highlight was when Chilean musician and dancer Lily Guerrero was asked how she felt when playing the charango (a small Andean guitar played in Chile). This question triggered a wave of emotion which Lily explained was from her feelings of connection to the charango. For Lily, the charango is her “companion” when she was feeling sad, which alleviated her feelings of loneliness. Lily says her connection to the instrument is so personal, that it “hurts” when it’s not with her. She compares the instrument to her living family, part of her personal and ancestral connection to a spiritual home.

Music as vehicle for spiritual growth and well-being.

The example of Lily shows how music provides cultural contact leading to enhanced personal meaning, purpose, and sense of community. It highlights the role that music plays in the health of the artist, often providing a sense of the spiritual as evidenced by the following example.

Music producer Atjazz, who’s career spans over 30 years producing iconic records, suggested that producing music feels like a meditation. He recalls how the studio facilitates immersion and directed attention, stilling the thinking mind to allow creativity to flow.  For Atjazz, creating music produces a sense of timelessness, a lack of self-awareness, and creative inspiration that is a joy unto itself. He points out the importance for musicians and artists to “disappear”, both literally and metaphorically, by immersing themselves in their studio so everyday life can dissolve through the art of creation. 

The spiritual role of music is also important to Mexican-Brazilian singer and violinist QVLN , who speaks of music being able to access the intangible within us. Because of its ethereal and intangible nature, QVLN feels that music links us to our own intangible spiritual or soul essence. He suggests that music’s ability to evoke feelings, memories, or sensations is what makes it a powerful conduit for touching a deeper part of the human experience. For QVLN, music is a way to connect internally, while at the same time, beyond the material world, enabling a deeper connection with the audience at an unconscious level.

Expanding the scope of human emotion

Music’s ability to evoke emotions is critical for pianist Daniel Pliner. He distinguishes between “music for commercial attention-seeking purposes” aimed at immediate response and impact, to music that explores the “subtle range of human emotions”. In the latter, music provides a service by evoking unconscious feeling layers that expand the audiences’ emotive experience. Daniel says the development of these musical skills requires time, discipline, and sensitivity, but is critically important for expanding our vision of the human condition and providing access to the full spectrum of human emotion.

Social commentary

Music and art can help us access deep emotion, but also usher in new ways of thinking. Indigenous artist Blac Douglas uses metaphoric art as powerful social commentary to evoke cultural and social change. His visual metaphors express the “deep angst” that has befallen the Aboriginal people in Australia. Such metaphors include traditional symbols, such as grandfather and grandmother spirits reflected in the images of sun and moon, and contemporary symbols that challenge the popular depictions of Aboriginal art. Merging tradition with post-modernity, Blac Douglass uses metaphor in the traditional style of Aboriginal art as observed in ancient caves and rock overhangs. Douglas says these ancient traditions used ambiguous metaphors to force the viewer to attend deeply to arts meaning, thus, making the audience into active participants. Douglas sees this approach as his spiritual contribution to the Australian art scene, by bringing forth the cultural legacy of his people in new ways to reflect the current social climate.  

Bridging worlds

The ability of art to bridge culture and tradition is vividly expressed in the work of South Asian dancer and choreographer Shyamla. Asked about her perspective on the nature of art, Shyamla replies that “art happens at the boundary between the inner and outer worlds”. Shyamla sees performance as a way of going inward to establish connection with a deeper self that is then expanded out into the audience. She states that the importance of dance is to enable the audience to feel beyond their conscious mind, which is described as “sacred”, for it establishes an ancient energy that is experienced by all.

Creative flow

Creative flow is important for music producer Andro Martinez, who talks about the creative process within the music studio. He suggests that deep creativity is established through dedication and discipline. Andro likens creativity to a metaphoric wheel. Effort and discipline is necessary to get the wheel rolling, but once going, the creative ideas start to flow, and the artist makes use of the moment by getting out “as much creativity as possible”.  Andro uses this method of “channelling energy”, as if creativity was an external entity that needed to be summoned, then captured through the recording of ideas. This is not an isolated view, seen in the ancient Greek ideas of the artistic daimon. This view holds that creativity is experienced as external to the individual: a higher spiritual force that creates beyond the artists’ conscious will. It is through this extra-ordinary presence that Andro comes to experience the world at a deeper level.

Experiential knowledge

Music has the potential to facilitate a deeper investigation of the world, leading to experiential knowledge and insight. This view is held by Chilean singer-guitarist Stephan Aguilera, who says he “understands the world better through art than by any other means”. Stephan highlights the importance of the creative process, not only for expressing inner feelings of inspiration and dissatisfaction, but also, for adding to the cultural canon and social fabric. Like Blac Douglas, Stephan uses music as social commentary, but embedded within that commentary is a spiritual offering that presents and alternative way of living and being in the world. He suggests that his commentary provides value for society by offering new ways of being which are directly experienced through the music, a type of ‘dress rehearsal’ for potential social change.   

Restoring Connection

Music and art are a way to develop strong ties to ancestral practices, transforming them for new audiences as a means for cultural exchange. This is the case with Ana Maria Parada, a Colombian textile designer, musician, and DJ whose work is strongly influenced by her ancestral connections to Muisca indigenous culture. Ana Maria’s work highlights the effect that art has on the expression of social consciousness by bringing traditional ideas into modern consciousness. Whether though her music, performance, or textiles, her work imbues her cultural legacy into a modern context, making the traditional roots of her cultural homeland accessible to Westerners. This not only invokes the voice of her ancestors, but provides a way to build bridges between cultures separated by time and space.

A similar approach is used by Colombian-born musician Oscar Jimenez (a.k.a Kaiman Jimenez) who views art as a language capable of changing human perspectives. Oscar sees his music as a cultural bridge, bringing awareness, enjoyment, and knowledge of alternative cultural viewpoints and ways of being. This isn’t achieved through detached story-telling, but through intimate personal insight where Oscar shares personal feelings about his homeland to evoke powerful cross-cultural identification. Oscar’s music is a meeting of the individual and collective, a way to resolve the disconnection faced when migrating to a foreign land, while simultaneously connecting individuals at a universally human level. Through his own pain of separation, he offers Australians a lens from which to experience another culture, a living bridge between people and land. For this reason, Oscar describes the power of music as a “magic tool”, allowing us to connect cultures and express personal insights that are universally accessible to everyone.

Outcomes

The interviews offered a glimpse into the lives and perspectives of local and international artists, highlighting some of the key themes in the creation of art. Music, art, dance, and production is a method for exploring inner and outer worlds. For some artists, it acts as a meditative tool that allows the social ego to dissolve, for others, it’s a “sacred” process that allows connection with self and audience. We found that the spiritual nature of art is important for many artists, appearing in a variety of forms- from exploration of Self, to connection with cultural tradition, to social commentaries that suggest an alternative way of being. Social commentaries through art are spiritual when they serve to resolve the tension between traditional and modern cultures, or when they seek ways for harmony and connection between people.

But it is the very nature of art itself, its mysteriousness and ambiguity, that provides the sense of awe that captivates many artists. Through art, something intangible is being brought into consciousness. Whether the subtle emotions lying dormant in the human psyche, or a resonance within the human soul. Music and art seems to link us to the intangible and magical, putting the human into contact with the incomprehensible largeness of nature. The metaphor is its language, used by artists to tap into new ways of seeing the world.

Through creative exploration and performance, artists manage to alleviate their sense of loneliness and alienation, while simultaneously, connecting audiences to an ancestral home and cultural legacy. It is this explorative journey that provides for the world. Through their deep explorations of Self, artists excavate human emotion, develop cultural knowledge, and transform traditional practices, a process that bridges worlds and brings into awareness the universal connection we all share.