Arjun Verma
In all fields, imagination allows us to cross the chasm between the status quo and a brighter future.
In my life as a sitarist and composer, imagination is the fuel that runs my creative engine. One of the ways imagination takes form in my work is through the experience of creative epiphanies.
When an epiphany arrives, it feels like a singular, magical experience. But there is often a pattern to how one emerges:
First, there is focused effort. We need a goal or problem to focus our energy on.
Next is frustration–most creative endeavors eventually hit an impasse.
Then, there is surrender; letting go. With no visible way forward, we put the project aside–but not out of mind. The vastly more powerful nonlinear and intuitive parts of our being go to work on the problem. They connect the dots across multidimensional matrices of knowledge, wisdom, and experience.
You might think the next step is an epiphany, right?
There’s one more small thing that often happens, in my experience.
It’s a little tickle in the back of the mind. A soft feeling saying “there’s something here”. A message from our vast nonlinear minds.
And if we then investigate that soft feeling; open the message; be quiet and listen, then all of a sudden. . .
EPIPHANY!
It arrives.
In a way, this happens every time I compose or improvise. It’s a process of discovery with each note, in ways I hadn’t planned. Many small epiphanies, and now and then some big ones. It’s like walking through a dense jungle and with each step, the foliage clears, and you see the next vista.
After 31 years of playing the sitar, I’m still discovering entirely new realms of sound to create through the instrument, and imagination is my vehicle to discover and explore them.
Arjun Verma is a sitarist and composer trained by Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, Alam Khan, and Roop Verma, who has performed in the United Nations, Prague Castle, the Fillmore, and on NBC TV, and whose latest album is entitled, Epiphanies.
Joshua Nash
1 year agoThere’s no doubt the guy (Arjun) is crazy!
Really after the giants Nikhil Banerjee, Ustad Vilayat Khan and many talented musicians of Indian classical music who changed the sounds of the sitar and the way is played today, to set a new challenge.
Many years after the hand that greeted the loved Nikhil Banerjee laid her hand on Arjun Verma.
Arjun brings a unique sitar sound, when you close your eyes the sounds paint the imagination in colors we were not familiar with.
Every fret on his sitar, sounds like a super perfect technique by Ustad Vilayat Khan.
In a personal tone to what I love,
the sound does not have to be super perfect, but the piece should be deeply touching.
There is still a very long way to go and a lot of hard work, the direction is right.
The most important thing at the end is to win the love of the listeners.