The ‘bach’ in this website’s name refers to J.S. Bach. And my name is Ike Harijanto.
The ‘bash’ refers to a mock party I threw to celebrate his birthday one year. It was inspired by the Bach in the Subways movement which calls on musicians to perform his music live in public spaces every March 21, the date of Bach’s birthday. My casual participation was an experiment on assuming a playful attitude, because I felt I’ve gotten to a point I was living my life a little too seriously. Done in the spirit of play and to see what would happen, I challenged myself to play for and in front of others, as I had been mostly a closet musician up to that point. Looking back, it was only a beginning of a series of efforts I did to challenge my attitude toward and assumptions about playing music. I had operated in a framework that puts burden on music-playing by complicating it with ideas such as talent and genius, setting it so far apart from other creative endeavors such as photography or graphic design.
I created a blog, named it bachbash, to put the result of the experiment and share it with friends. I wanted to see how they would respond, whether a little silliness would lead me to being stoned to death. With relief I discovered that no one threw a shaming stone at me, and I remained intact. Though now the blog is developing into this website, I keep the name here as a self-reminder for the spirit with which I want to practice making art: play.
But among all other musicians, why J.S. Bach, in particular? Read here to find out.
Read here for my own journey with art.
