The Importance of the Arts

Imagine this: you go to work, as usual, watching everyone dressed in leaves on a grassy plain. Afterward, you entertain yourself by throwing a ball around. You miss dancing. You have nothing to dance to. Music doesn’t exist. You return home to a box that you found the other day. Houses collapsed long ago with business buildings when architects stopped. You fall asleep thinking about that old movie poster that you threw out and you wonder if your children have ever heard of movies or plays. You realize that they will lead lackluster childhoods–after all, roleplaying, singing, and watching movies are all now impossible. You’ll have to memorize what they look like. The world officially deemed photography to be “art” and threw it out. How will your kids survive the winter? With fashion designers gone, who’s left to create clothing?

That’s the world without art.

The arts create humanity every day. They shape us, whether we’re art majors, STEM majors, custodians, therapists, cashiers, or CEOs. They permeate everything that we think, say, and do. They're part of our cultures, our passions, and our lives. So why do people call it “unnecessary?” The jokes always come up in daily life, sometimes thoughtless (“You value your hobbies more than making a living.”) and sometimes intentionally harmful (“You’ll never get anywhere in life. Your degree is useless and so are you.”).

Three types of people scoff at art: those who fear, those who ignore, and those who worry.

If the arts are really so insignificant, then why are they always the first to encounter censorship? I believe that people know the importance of music, of paintings, and of “Internet memes,” even on an unconscious level. They know how easy it is for a powerful song to make someone feel surges of emotions (like how Adele's songs seem to make people cry over partners that they never had). They know that what starts as a simple melody can become rallying cries of protestors (see also: the national anthem in the French Revolution).

They’re not laughing at art because they think that it’s nothing; they’re laughing because they’re scared.

Others ignore the arts. Some people refuse to be in touch with their emotions. They believe that living life with practicality will make them successful. It will. They’ll survive and earn a living, maybe build a family off of their income and be in love with their careers. But undervaluing the arts hurts them. They want funding for arts education to be cut, but they also want their movies, their shows, and their advertisements. They want to wear professional clothing to work every day, but they don’t want to support the people who design it. It’s possible to live with the acceptance of both STEM majors and art majors. Even doctors find the time to form orchestras.

Angry critics will always argue that the arts are almost entirely emotion-driven. I agree. Isn’t that what makes art so powerful? Emotions form identity and if the arts can’t exist without identity, then every form of art is who we are. Art is being. Whether we are the bright-eyed innocents of small statures and great imaginations or the wise-eyed veterans of the world, we cannot be without it, nor it without us.

Don’t worry on the behalf of fine arts majors and artists. We’re aware of the hardships in this field. We hear it every day and we choose it anyway. Besides, the “starving artists” stereotype often comes from people who aren’t sure what to do with their talents. Times are changing. Art entrepreneurship has now become widespread as more courses and programs delve into the subject. We’re taking care of ourselves. We worry too, but we’ll be okay.

Everything plays a part in the structure of this world, but the arts are there to connect them. When humans die away, when the last wars have been fought and the rains fall without us, every form of art that outlives us will be the true captured essence of who we are now. Dear critics, I’m asking you to let go of your fear that we’re throwing away our lives for nothing. Let it go and let us make art. Let musicians, designers, producers, singers, performers, and painters continue to serve you, and we’ll let art continue to tell your story and ours.

I just can't seem to say goodbye.

I'm an affectionate person: easily attached and never really able to un-care.

In my last year of high school, I thought I was so ready to leave. I wanted to leave what had become my comfort zone, to expand into the world and all the opportunities laid out there for me. And in a way, I have. I've left comfort zones I didn't even know I dwelled in, grasped opportunities I never dreamed would exist anywhere within my world. I'm in love with the people I see every day, my professors, my friends, my classes, all the different perspectives I hear and take in.

And yet. I always walk around with a little bit of wistfulness, some part of me longing for people and moments that were just magical. 

Almost everyone who talks to me hears, at some point, about John Carmichael's concerto that I played in 2014 with the SLHS orchestras. I don't think anyone ever quite believes me when I talk about it, because words are so insufficient - how can I ever begin to talk about why I cried the last time I performed it? It certainly wasn't just because it was the last time. There's just a certain magic in that particular piece, in looking out not at the audience, but at my conductor painting the air with her hands, at my friends making it happen, at the piano keyboard in front of me and marveling how this all ever came together to form this moment.

It was one of those moments that I can spend my whole life chasing a career just to try to feel one more time.

But I've learned how, in being so in love with that moment, I have to let it go to continue with my other Magical Snippets of Time. It's a lot like saying goodbye to my best friends, now moving on in college and living their dreams, now in high school and about to embark on their self-created paths, now here, tomorrow somewhere far away. You won't always be able to replace their part in your life; you just learn to live without. And a lot of it is about acceptance of the bittersweetness of it all. I keep thinking that I'll never have that moment again - I may or may not ever play another concerto with an orchestra, and it could be "bigger," but it won't be the same. And now I'm learning that it's okay. There's something different to enjoy in everything. I just need to be able to say to these moments and to my best friends of now, of the past, of the future... thank you for stopping by.

Music in opening pathways for connection

Three years ago, my youth group worked with Burmese refugees, or Sun Youth with their adjustment to America by teaching them about the English language and American customs. We did a lot of activities together to learn about culture and tutor them to get them ready for exams or job applications.

One instance in particular stands out to me: during our first time meeting them, a man in a corner of the room caught my attention. He refused to talk to other people, but he was cradling a guitar and I just wanted to listen to him, so I sat next to him. He glanced at me, but ignored me and continued. Suppressing the nagging fear that my presence might worsen his unease, I remained, listening to his singing and to the beautiful melody with foreign syllables. All I knew from the way he sang was that the song was incredibly special to him. 

I expected that listening remotely would be the closest interaction that this man would allow, but when he finished, he looked at me - paused - and handed his guitar to me. Uh oh. I returned his gaze with widening eyes, trying to indicate that I was just an amateur (who literally knew nothing but the simplest chords from Taylor Swift songs), but he insisted. It struck me then, that this was a crucial moment; instead of the other way around, he was reaching out to me... So I played. I played the few songs I knew and as I sang, I looked up at him and found that he was listening. His eyes darted between me and the instrument, but the curves of his mouth held a hint of a smile, prompting me to continue. I wanted to grasp this moment of connection for just a little longer, and by that point, I had forgotten everyone else. When I looked around the room, what beheld me was a small group composed of both Sun Youth and youth group volunteer members sitting in front of us, watching me curiously, at which point I both marveled at how quickly they'd gotten to know each other and became too shy to continue.

When I returned the guitar to the man, I thought he would continue ignoring me, but he just smiled, and, in broken English, haltingly spoke of his village and his past. The foreign song, he said, had been popular there. He revealed his name and we talked until the session was over.

From then on, we conversed easily at every meeting, but I view music differently now; it's not just a studiously practiced form of entertainment, but also a language in itself. As a writer, I used to think words were everything, but music, I've recognized, transcends that. Truly, "when words fail, music speaks."

(Fun fact: this is the experience that made me interested in music therapy. Still deciding between Piano Performance and that...)

Interpersonal connection, memories, and music

In our Music Pathways class this week, we talked about residencies, and one of the things we focused on is what makes people connect with what we perform. 

Why does music make people happier? What strikes a chord in the hearts of those who can’t speak? What connects us as performers to those in the audience who have lived decades longer than us?

Several students spoke up and offered ideas and experiences from performances we’ve done in care centers and community areas. Some of us play classical music with explanations of musical jargon. Some of us play movie music. Others perform Christmas carols, while others play simple art songs.

We focus so much on evoking emotion from our audiences that sometimes, we forget where the root of these emotions is: memories. 

Isn’t it? 

Why do people love Christmas carols? Music from old movies? Why are so many songs from the past so enjoyable to people of all ages now? What makes something timeless?

Not all of us can come together to love certain genres of music. Not all of us will even LIKE music. But even in the angriest of people, a fond memory just touches something that we wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise.