“Our entire ethos as a band is to try to create art that inspires empathy. And part of the reason we would say “art that inspires empathy,” is to be human is to also be connected to something bigger than just yourself. ”
With special appreciation to the musicians I have the gift of working with…
-Allie
Allie Ramsey: So, today we are talking about music and humanness from the perspective of two people who create beautiful music.
David Gungor: Thank you.
Allie: I was hoping to talk to you on this topic of music and humanness because I think your music, in particular, is something that I go back to over and over again, in order to draw out something in me that feels small that I want to become more robust. Or to draw out something I haven’t been able to fully connect to on my own. Can relate to that, or are there other musicians that do that for you?
David: Thank you. Our entire ethos as a band is to try to create art that inspires empathy. And part of the reason we would say “art that inspires empathy,” is to be human is to also be connected to something bigger than just yourself.
A lot of times in the West, in America, we tend to think through a Cartesian model of thinking, like, “I think therefore I am,” and it’s only about myself. Our starting point is, to be fully human is always to be a relational being. And we’re always connected to the other. In certain traditions and in certain upbringings, for instance in South Africa, you have the word “ubuntu,” which means “if you are not well, I am not well.” And our connectedness to each other and to the earth and to all of the cosmos. And so part of our band’s ethos is art that inspires empathy. Empathy towards the other will always lead to empathy back toward yourself. Because it’s connected.
John Arndt: I guess my favorite aspect of making music, and The Brilliance is a really great vehicle for this, is it’s an opportunity for me, for us to express ourselves, and to express things we are feeling or things we can’t fully understand, or things we’re struggling with. And the miracle of this process is, in doing that, we create things that somehow resonate with other people. That somehow becomes a voice and a part of their own story. And so in my life as, I am a full-time artist, I’m a full-time writer, and sometimes I’ll have these [moments of], you know, “What are you doing? You should have a salary and a mortgage, and that kind of thing.” And the thought that I have that brings me the most peace about what I’m doing and what we’re doing is, at any given moment on the planet right now, our music is resonating in different rooms. And in different peoples lives, and on some level, our music and our hopes and our dreams are vibrating in the earth and in some way - I hope - making it a little bit more peaceful and a little bit more whole. That thought of the connectedness that comes from us expressing ourselves is a miracle and I’m grateful to be able to be a part of it.
Allie: That is really true of my experience. Your music has resonated in my soul in a powerful way.
John: Thank you
Allie: I was curious, given that music is so powerful, and can be such an impactful way of inspiring empathy, inspiring a sense of connectedness to all of humanity, or to others who enjoy that song or piece -- what it's like for you two as artists to wield that sort of power?
David: I think one, is there is a certain burden, and there is a certain thing where music transcends language. So like melody, if you’re drawn into it you can wrestle with an idea, and you’re feeling it first (and I know this is somewhat metaphorical) but you’re feeling it first in your body, before you’re really comprehending with your mind what’s happening. So I feel like when you have that type of thing with music, when there’s a melody and a thing that’s moving people, there is a certain responsibility to not just try to manipulate things (where you’re trying to write in a certain way that will just cause an emotional response). And a lot of times lyrically that can happen, when you’re writing something, it’s really easy to feel like you’re the hero, or you’re the person that believes the right thing, or you’re the person that controls this power.
John: So, the huge pit fall in my life in regards to this is I’m always chasing a feeling. My favorite experiences in music, they have to do with hearing something and then having a physical response to it. And for me it's like a feeling in my chest and down my spine, I would say. In general, if I hear something that moves me, it's like a physical sensation. So for me oftentimes, the creative process is an uncovering of that sensation when I discover an idea, or a collection of sounds paired with an idea, that I experience that feeling, and I go, “Ah! This is a thing.”
What happens when I’m pursuing that on a day to day basis, even in the process of making a song, the big pitfall in my life is becoming a feelings junky. You know, it doesn’t always feel good, and oftentimes it’s work, and how about the 300th time you listen to this same song you’re working on. Just about every song we’ve ever made has been at one point my favorite song I’ve ever heard and my least favorite song that I’ve ever heard.
(laughter)
And all of those perspectives on some level are valid. You put a song out there in the world, you’ve got people that go, “That song’s complete bullshit,” and they can have a perfectly valid reason for saying that, and I don’t think they’re wrong, because I’ve probably experienced that perspective too. So what’s tricky then as a result of this, is we want to make music that’s powerful, I want to make music that’s powerful, but then I also want to have a stable emotional life, not get too high, not get too low. So I don’t really have a good answer for that, but I recognize the pitfall in my life.
Allie: Yeah, that’s so interesting. It makes the music, whatever song you’re working on, sound like its own human to me.
John and David: Yeah.
Allie: You see all the good parts and all the bad parts.
John: I was just talking with someone we had been working with that had been sort of offended or hurt by us deleting something. They worked on something, and then we deleted it, and we didn’t even realize, we were like, “Oh, this isn’t quite the right thing,” deleted it, and then it was kind of hurtful to her. And we ended up having this whole discussion about how in my creative life, and in every creative life, the most vulnerable thing about it is you spend all this time, and you discover an idea, maybe its a visual idea, a musical idea, whatever creative idea, and then say you’re working on a film score, working for a client, or whatever, you offer this baby up to them, and oftentimes, you’ll get a response like, “Eh, no. It needs something else, try something else.” Or, “Oh that didn’t really move me.” And you’re like, “It didn’t move you. That’s my baby we’re talking about. That’s my last -- how many hours, how many days?” It’s like, “I was just weeping over that. What the hell are you talking about?”
(laughter)
And learning how to separate yourself, because for me, there’s also this element with creativity where to get to a good idea, you often have to get through a lot of ideas that aren’t that good. But you never would have gotten to that good idea unless you actually took the pathway of these four ideas that led to each other, and all of them end up getting deleted, but they lead you to the fifth idea, which is this incredible song, and you have to be willing to have all this dead stuff you loved as part of that process.
Allie: Yeah.
“A lot of times in the West, in America, we tend to think through a Cartesian model of thinking, like, “I think therefore I am,” and it’s only about myself. Our starting point is, to be fully human is always to be a relational being. And we’re always connected to the other. In certain traditions and in certain upbringings, for instance in South Africa, you have the word “ubuntu,” which means “if you are not well, I am not well.” And our connectedness to each other and to the earth and to all of the cosmos. And so part of our band’s ethos is art that inspires empathy. Empathy towards the other will always lead to empathy back toward yourself. Because it’s connected.”
David: And I think that the most difficult thing about being a person that’s creative, and maybe this will play into relationship ideas as well, but ideas on one hand, we give them human traits, because they come from us, which is awesome. But our ideas are not us. And the reason why I think that’s important, is just like John was saying, if you throw out an idea, and someone for whatever reason rejects it, even if they’re not rejecting it because it’s bad, but just it doesn’t work right now, sometimes we feel like, “You reject my idea, you reject me.” And that’s back to that thing of, whatever your thoughts are, they’re not just you. So you have to be able, in a creative relationship, to have enough humility. And especially in a working environment, your talents and your ego -- I’ve heard this before from my dad, where he’s like, “Your ego is like your fingernails, where if it goes unchecked, it gets really gnarly. (laughter) And on one hand it's good to have some fingernails, you don’t want to have no ego. You want to have some self confidence, you want to have some sense of, “I’m worth this.” But if it goes unchecked, it gets gnarly. If you’re working with people who, [in response to] “Hey, what about this?” are just like, “You’re an idiot. You don’t know. My idea is the right idea, always.” And that’s where I’m like, there's some type of balancing act. It comes out of you, and there is an emotion, there is a baby nature of it because it comes out of you. But it’s also not just you. You are more than just your idea.
Allie: Yeah, that makes sense. And that makes me wonder, because I know you two have been creating music together for a long time. I’m curious how you have navigated that process of creation together. What’s your collaboration like, and what is it like to go through that process with someone else? How is it for you, experiencing the creation of something that takes on a life of its own, and then sharing in the refining of that with someone else?
David: I think it's very much like any other friendship or relationship or work relationship. John and I have been friends our entire lives, since diapers, we have pictures of us doing stuff. And it’s a friendship that transcends the work relationship. Within the work relationship, we believe and love each other, but also can be honest with one another. And there have been hard times, but it’s also one of those things like in any relationship, there needs to be communication. Sometimes we have a hard time working together, [due to] my bad communication or a misunderstanding, or not being able to talk about things. But [we also work on] fostering and encouraging what you’re good at, and knowing when to limit. So for instance, we’ve always worked from afar. And one of the things is I have to learn how to edit better in Pro Tools so that when I send John something, it's not a hot mess. And when he is honest and communicates about it in a kind way, it’s like “Oh, I really need to take time in this.” But sometimes it’d be like any other relationship where it’s “Oh, this was bad,” and “I worked so hard on this, it’s bad?!”
John: You want me to pick up your laundry man?! You want me to pick up your laundry for you?
David: Exactly.
(laughter)
David: And that’s where it's like any relationship, and in any work relationship, there’s gonna be tensions, but I feel like learning how to fight well, learning how to communicate well, learning how to trust each other, encourage each other. Learning how to bring out what you do and your weaknesses and actually try to address those weaknesses. But if you ask, “Well what's the bedrock in that?” It’s our friendship! And it doesn’t have to be the only thing that defines our whole life. If John’s only thing is this friendship from a musical side of things, or a life side of things, that would be too much dependence. So there has to be a healthy independence and also a healthy [dependence].
Allie: Yeah, I like that.
John: I guess the only thing I would say is any song, any album, any project is the amalgamation of hundreds of creative decisions. And so it's really important for me, whatever I can give room, where there is a creative decision I don't feel strongly about or I’m not ready to die on that hill, leave room for your collaborators to express themselves, to offer their best ideas. Like “Oh, I didn't think of that,” Or, “Oh, that’s different than what I thought, but that works!” As much as I possibly can, I am leaving space to that, so that when I get to things that are like, “This has to be, it has to be this, [for me]” it can have some weight. Because it’s really easy, especially coming from a classically trained background, there is this desire, or there is this myth that goes around about the creative genius: this sole person who has all of these amazing ideas and is the mastermind. It can be this fantasy that you can get lost in. But any person is better if they open themselves up for collaboration and editing. There is going to be improvement if you can get outside of yourself.
Allie: Yeah. Oh that’s so interesting. I could see the draw of that kind of fantasy though, because it seems like it would feel reassuring in the process of all the vulnerability of trying to create something.
John: Right.
Allie: Another thing I was really curious about - you spoke of the power to move emotions through music and how we start out having a bodily experience of that even before our brain can catch up with it - how do you think about the elements of music and how that impacts humans? Like beat, or I know you included a lot of orchestral elements in your most recent album. What are your thoughts on that?
John: We grew up in a charismatic church, and my first musical education was, to say it bluntly, how certain sounds change the temperature of the room, and certain sounds can derive certain emotions. So if the pastor was talking about a certain thing, or there is a certain type of prayer meeting going on, one of [my first lessons] in musical education was how music, how certain sounds affect people. But then it was later on that I learned technique and theory and history, but yeah the first thing for me was learning how to manipulate people with music.
David: My brothers are also both into this. And John is more educated than me on music, so I think he would be able to say it better. But there are ideas of chakras in music, where you hear a frequency, and it affects your body differently. And it is funny because, I don’t know how backed it is by science at all, it might be all pseudoscience, but it’s funny like when you hear a normal A, when someone is tuning, when they hit 440 Hz is an American A. But then you go to certain places and they do it differently. Right now in New York, some people tune to 441 Hz, which means it’s like a little bit more sharp, and it seems a little more intense, while in other music, the A, would be like 432 Hz or something. Which is a little more like chill and it affects you differently.
Allie: Oh, wow!
John: What’s weird is if you go on YouTube and you search 432 Hz vs 440 Hz patterns, you can see in sand and in water that 432 Hz frequencies (so tuned down a little bit) actually create way more stable looking geometrical shapes in matter. Which is, I don't know what to say about that!
David: So, there are theories then on, I mean John would know this better - John, what have they traditionally said is like the saddest key? Or the saddest chord?
John: I mean I guess it depends on your perspective. Different composers had [different thoughts], like E flat would be heroic and I think C minor might be the most tragic
(laughter)
David: Which I mean, on one end that is totally subjective, but on another end it is funny that in a way music really does move you bodily. It's an actual physical reaction.
Allie: That’s intriguing, I love hearing your thoughts on that. Is that something that you take into account as you create different pieces? Or is it more of an intuitive process for you?
David: John how would you respond to that?
John: Would we take into account how it affects people?
Allie: Yeah, different elements and how that affects people.
John: I mean, I don’t know how to get anyone to listen to something let alone connect with it. But the idea comes and I’m moved by the idea, then the challenge is, how can I package this idea so there is the least amount of barrier between that idea and the people who listen to it. I find that probably most of the time, I end up getting in my own way of trying to deliver an idea. Like, maybe if I put these sprinkles on top, or I add some extra gravy, it will get down the hatch, get someone to like this idea. And it can easily be overdone.
Allie: What is most meaningful or rewarding to you in the process of creating music right now.
David: We’ve had stories -- there’s a person whose wife was giving birth, and the child was born not breathing. And he was totally shocked, the room was totally silent, the doctors and nurses were working on this baby, and then one of our songs from our first album came up, Breathe. And the baby breathed. And for them it was this incredibly emotional moment.
John: There’s this big long dramatic intro, and then the first lyric is breathe. And the baby breathes.
David: So for him, that song is connected to probably his most traumatic moment but also his most intense moment of life. And there are other stories. A lot of times it’s people getting through sadness. I mean there’s some joy and there’s a lot of sadness, where people have lost loved ones or children and our music has meant a lot to them in those times. Or maybe they’ve been dealing with existential anxiety or loss of faith, or different things, where the music has gotten them through something. And that’s where you’re like, “This is so much bigger than us.” Because through the person who is engaging the music, it takes on a life of its own, and it moves from being just an idea. When it’s shared, now it really does have a life. And that life doesn’t just belong to us. And that’s where we find the most meaningful things: different stories of people engaging with the music, and it's so much bigger than us. John what would you say?
John: That is a big part, a huge gift. And our conception for making music as The Brilliance has always been: it comes from us it comes from our hearts, but it’s always connected to something bigger. So for some people at first glance the name The Brilliance is like “Oh man, sounds like we’ve got some egos here.” But for me The Brilliance has always been about something bigger than us. So whatever it is, there’s always something bigger in play. So in our lives, we’re partnering with organizations. This fall we were on a tour with Preemptive Love who do all this work in places affected by war. And World Relief, in partnership with DACA Dreamers, and we’re often involved in a mission of some kind, and that feels amazing and also makes it feel like we have a real job and are helping people. I love that.
But then also in my life right now, I just moved to Paris, so one of my dreams about my Paris time -- and I think this has to do with my midwestern upbringing or something, I have a hard time making music if i don't feel like I’m serving something or working, there's some kind of midwestern work ethic, like, “What is this, all about yourself? You know, you’re just sitting around tinkering around, dilly dallying? You should have a mortgage by now.” That kind of thing. (laughter)
But one goal I have, outside of The Brilliance (we have a lot of music coming up, and a lot of really beautiful stuff that I’m so excited about), I really want to make something beautiful just for the sake of it being beautiful, and not connected to any outside justification, or philosophy... just a beautiful thing. I’m gonna wander around Paris and make something pretty, because I can also do that in this world. And I feel so grateful, I don't take it lightly. So I'm pursuing that as much as I can.
Allie: Wow. Well thank you both from the bottom of my heart. It's a real privilege for me to get to talk with you.
The Brilliance, a band made up of long-time friends Jon Arndt and David Gungor, is an eclectic CCM/worship music duo who combine indie pop, folk, and classical elements. They released their official full-length debut, 'Brother,' through Integrity Music in 2015, which garnered critical acclaim, peaking at number 36 on the Billboard Christian Albums chart. 'All Is Not Lost,' the duo's much-anticipated sophomore Integrity release, arrived in 2017, this time reaching number 20 on the Christian chart and breaking into the Heatseekers chart as well. In 2018, the Brilliance turned their creative attention to politics -- specifically DACA and the plight of the undocumented DREAMers facing deportation in the U.S.
Allison (Allie) Ramsey is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Therapist. Allie works with individuals on a broad range of issues, including anxiety, depression, relational challenges, faith integration, divorce, and aging.
