Sridhar Ravichandran : Writings

Bye bye, Soundclick!

Melakartha by sridharsmusic

Dusty roads. Bicycles ringing bells. Cows lazing. Farmers and bullock carts. Children playing cricket. Wealth in reality, poverty in existence. Happiness in little things, sadness in even smaller things. Solace in the world’s biggest things. Comfort on reassurance, discomfort in oblivion. Beauty in it’s diversity, magnificence in her unity. This is my country, and Folked are my people.

Click to play and download single ‘Folked’

I found this pretty amazing analogy in Derek Sivers’s summary of The Art of Learning.

The Hermit Crab grows inside until its shell is no longer able to accomodate it, when it leaves and goes on to find a new shell. It is at the most vulnerable state in that period of transfer, prone to predators.

Entity theorists think “I am smart at this” and attribute success or failure to ingrained and unalterable level of ability. They see it as a fixed entity that cannot evolve. Someone stuck in an entity mindset is like an anorexic hermit crab, starving itself so it doesn’t grow to have to find a new shell

I’d like to draw a parallel here. It is that state of vulnerability that one fears, when one must take up new challenges and or responsibility, or even embrace change. People forget that the end result is always growth, the crab only leaves when it has outgrown its shell.

And in the even bigger picture: In order to achieve complete excellence, you must be vulnerable at some point or the other.

Sometimes I tend to think hard, rather too hard on writing a ‘great’ song. Funny thing, results are almost always the opposite of what is desired. I find that the most beautiful music flows through me when I’m approaching it with an open mind. A defenselessly vulnerable state of mind.

During such moments I feel the music, and I know it’s not coming from me.

When was the last time a melody, a progression, a moment of sonic genius, a phase, a passage came crashing down into you, your heart, your brain and your body – bringing along with it a whole load of emotion and memories? I had my moment right now.

It may prove futile to try and convert my current state of awareness into a redundant, linear pattern of prose – a job that gets harder with my limited vocabulary. However, this is the essence of music, folks. Something you begin to love the deeper you get into it. As you start associating every aspect of your life with music, consciously or subconsciously, it begins to behave as a harness, a running hard disk cache of those ‘moments’ your everyday life. Here’s to more of those moments.