A lot of people at SaPa, a lot of kids, where we kind of teach, our academy, The Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts, a lot of them have varied interests. It's great to embrace that because you may be creating an entirely new space for yourself that other people don't have.
1. Tell us more about your background and journey.
Well, I started learning the violin when I was three from my father, Dr. Subramaniam. It was just something that when I started, you have these tiny violins, and I would kind of sit with my dad and try to imitate what he was doing. So in that sense, learning wasn't very quote, unquote or formal.
Slowly I developed a love for music and the violin, and later, of course, we also learned how to sing, how to play the piano and different things. It was kind of an emergent into music at that time where we all had the great fortune to meet some great musicians. You meet different people and you realize how much effort and hard work they all put in.
So for me, it kind of started very organically. Then of course, later the classes became a little more formalized, and then by the time I was 13, I started performing with my dad regularly on stage, and then slowly the solo concerts started coming after that as well. So, yeah the journey has been very interesting and it’s just the start, of course.
So like I mentioned, it was very natural and it wasn't something that was, kind of, a decision I had to take very early on. It was more about exposure at that time. As I started playing and enjoying it a lot, I think by the time I was 13, I decided that I wanted to become a musician.
But by that time I already had a lot of exposure, and I've met a lot of people, a lot of different musicians, so I had a fair idea of what I would have to kind of go through or the hours that I have to put in, the seriousness, and all of that if I wanted to become a professional musician. So, yeah I think that happened when I was around 13.
There are a number of artists. To be honest, I think the great thing about music or any art form is that you don't necessarily have to choose. So you can get up one day and say, OK, I want to listen to this Gypsy violinist or I get up one day and say, OK, fine, you know I'm really in the mood for hip hop or something completely different.
So, I think as an artist I love the fact that I get to meet so many artists with so many different thought processes and that's really cool because sometimes you meet different artists, you see the way that they look at music is very different from the way that you look at music. So you grow so much by meeting different people and understanding where they come from.
4. Can you throw some light on opportunities one gets as a violinist?
I think as an artist, it's important to keep working on your skills because sometimes you may get an amazing opportunity out of the blue, and at that point, you're either ready for it or you're not. Like a lot of times, this happens where suddenly somebody comes with this very exciting project, and then if you don't have that skill set at that point, you cannot kind of learn it. You can't pick it up in a week or 10 days.
So, I think as an artist like personally, I try to keep going through different skillsets and trying to understand different things that excite me so that when some opportunity comes, whether it's composing something or playing with somebody or, you know, curating something or mentoring somebody, you kind of are ready at that point.
5. Is formal training required or can one train themselves purely on the basis of talent?
I think both go hand in hand and formal training never does any harm. In that sense, I think it definitely helps, it's good to have some structure and I see the value a lot in learning any classical form, whether it's Indian classical, Carnatic or Hindustani western classical. Any of these things, for the main reason that the method of teaching has been kind of developed and polished for so many years.
For hundreds of years people have been teaching and learning these styles, so the structure of how you learn, at least for the violin, how you pick up the bow, how you're supposed to hold your hand, how you're supposed to get a better tone. All of that is kind of well defined. And then, of course, whatever you like to do from there is entirely up to you but formal training definitely helps.
6. What piece of advice would you like to give to future and aspiring artists?
I think the most important thing is skill-building and sticking with something day in and day out. Skill-building is very important because often it is very difficult to predict what will happen and what opportunity you are going to get or how the entire landscape is going to be in two years, five years, or 10 years.
So sometimes you're practicing and you're trying to work on things when you don't know what the scene will be. When you're kind of ready to be a professional artist or professional in whatever you do. And sometimes people say that OK, you have to choose between being this or being that or being something else, but I think if you work on skill-building, especially when you're younger, it's always a good thing to follow the different things that fascinate you.
A lot of people at SaPa, a lot of kids, where we kind of teach, our academy, The Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts, a lot of them have varied interests. So you see someone with, you know, who is very good at the violin, but also good at math or somebody good at songwriting and also good at design, somebody who's very interested in technology, but is also interested in singing classical voice and I think that’s okay.
It's great to embrace that because you may be creating an entirely new space for yourself that other people don't have. When you start your career, you might be able to bring all these different things that fascinate you and create something that only you can create for yourself and that's important. But also when you decide to follow certain things, consistent work is important.
There's a difference between saying OK, I like these three things, so I'm going to really try to do my best in that and saying that OK today I like these three things, tomorrow I like another four things. So, it's important to also do that consistent work and try to see things through.
7. Which is your favorite book and why?
So probably I'll talk about a book that is completely unrelated to what I'm doing. I really enjoyed reading Freakonomics first. It's a beautiful book that kind of totally made me see the world differently. I think those kinds of books are increasingly relevant, and you're seeing more and more of these kinds of books. So, that was a great book for me personally, and I kind of changed my entire perception about things.
- Ambi Subramaniam
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