Can art change our lives? Why does creative expression matter so much?
And to whom does it matter? Should “great art” be confined to those who’ve achieved some recognized level of skill/talent/recognition in a world where we don’t define value as the impact it makes on others, but on its ability to be commoditized. Or should we equally appreciate all attempts of creative expression (even if some may touch us more than others) as an offering from one soul to another, and perhaps a mutual healing?
These are questions I’ve been thinking about ever since I returned to piano and stuffed all the baggage about my musical family, creativity, and judgment (by both self and others) into Imperfect Pitch, a memoir, I’ve yet to publish. But recently, my good friend, Lanette Sweeney, (whose blog, Paying Attention: A New Mindfulness Method, I highly recommend) told me about Vijay Gupta’s Restrung: A Memoir of Music and Transformation.
Like me, Gupta had perfect pitch. And like my younger child, he started Suzuki violin lessons at four years old and figured out in a couple of weeks how to play all of Book 1 when he was supposed to be standing on a pizza box and learning how to bow. But unlike either of us, Gupta was, perhaps, a child prodigy, or perhaps pushed into that box. His very scary, overachieving parents, who hit him when he wasn’t practicing enough or to their liking, and several years later shamed him for only coming in second in a prestigious concerto competition, brought him 90 miles into New York City several times a week, so he could train with highly ranked teachers. By the time he was nine, he was touring as a soloist. At the age of 19 he became the youngest player to ever gain an orchestra position with the LA Philharmonic–the dream dangled before many conservatory students who labor and train for years to try to “win” a job with a reputed orchestra.
But for Gupta, this was not the dream. As passionate as he was about the music he played (which is obvious in the memoir from his descriptions of pieces he performed) he felt empty. Still reeling from his parents’ abuse and subsequent estrangement, he turned to overeating and alcohol to numb his pain. Until he found himself with a small group of players giving a “charity performance” on Skid Row in LA, where the audience, not adhering to the classical concert etiquette of deathly quiet listening to the point of doing everything you can to suppress a cough, freely emoted whatever they were feeling as the musicians played.
As Gupta listened to the stories of the audience members sharing their lives and their pain, he began to see the reactions of people in Skid Row as a sort of reciprocal music, a mutual gift. He realized that the musicians weren’t there in the role of experts or to change or heal people. In fact, through the experience, they were the ones being healed. Without knowing it, Gupta says, every time I walked into a shelter or clinic with my violin, I was loosening the grip of my own story, rewriting my relationship to my instrument, to my music, and to myself.
Gupta founded Street Symphony, an organization where professional musicians and community members engage in musical collaborations and perform in homeless shelters, prisons, transitional housing and other spaces that are often deprived of the ability to create and engage in artistic collaboration. Its core programs include a songwriting and mentorship series led by survivors of homelessness and trauma and a project inside the Los Angeles County jails that brings together professional musicians and incarcerated artists for shared rehearsals and performances.” Gupta explains in this three-minute video why these kind of collaborations matter so much (and also gives us a taste of his juicy playing).
What I loved most about this book was Gupta’s humility and honesty. So many “music memoirs” I’ve read sound snotty, making me feel (as much as I might want to be) like I’m not really “a member of the club,” but this book focuses on the flaws of being human–Gupta’s, his parents, (whom he describes with admirable understanding, despite the way they treated him) and the many people the Skid Row community he encounters in his work with Street Symphony. Highly recommended as a story of #artforchange and why music–or any creative pursuit–absolutely matters.
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Yesterday, as I went outside to meditate, the sun was just beginning to creep over the mountain, and I thought about the direction I wanted to set for this year: Open without Overwhelm.
Once again, as we passed through the harbor, I thought about my own history with the Statue of Liberty, which I wrote about shortly after going to the refugee camp on the Mexican border in 2020. Here’s the piece. It was originally published in Prose Online in 2023 (You can hear me reading it, 
