Music

I have always had a connection to music. I started playing the piano in Kindergarten, and picked up the viola in the 5th grade. While I played both for a while, I found that viola was my calling and gave it my all. I adore the viola, and I've found great joy in practicing and performing classical music, in orchestra, in chamber music, and in solo work. While I think the peak of my participation in classical music was in high school, in particular when I was performing the Clarke Viola Sonata (which is to this day still my favorite viola piece of all time), the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia, Borodin String Quartet no. 1, Beethoven Symphony no. 7, et al. simultaneously, I certainly continue to play and perform to this day, and I have no intentions of ever quitting this instrument I love so much.

In college, however, I have grown fond of an entirely different musical community, which grew out of a dare. I am a member of ARRR!!!, a pirate-themed a cappella group at Brown University that performs sea shanties and other labor tunes, maritime songs (from a variety of places, included, but not limited to England, New England, Australia, New Zealand, and the West Indies), Irish, Scottish, and Appalachian folk, and modern folk. As you can see, it's hard to properly describe and categorize the music that we sing, so we often simply refer to them as "shanties", despite the fact that a shanty refers to a specific type of labor song. My love for this music has grown well beyond simply performing it at college, and I'm a regular attendee and participant at shanty sings and concerts in whatever area of the world in which they exist that I find myself in.

My musical interests in many ways are opposites, but I love them all the same. You'll find posts about both traditions below.

Articles on Music

music - chai harsha