Meet Abhi Ananda

Today we’d like to introduce you to Abhi Ananda.

Hi Abhi, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born in Jakarta, Indonesia. If life is like a trilogy, I would say that I wrote my first chapter of my trilogy in Indonesia. I developed my passion in music, especially in songwriting when I was 14 years old. From that time, I already realized that the connection that I have with music is special and this is something that I really love to do. I started doing my music seriously after my college graduation by starting my original project. After about five years of struggling, I felt like it would be impossible to have a music career (especially the one that I want) in Indonesia. So, I decided to relocate to the United States since I’ve always been dreaming to do my music here and couldn’t think of a better time to do it. My journey in the US is probably my second chapter of the trilogy and it’s still ongoing. I started this chapter by enrolling at McNally Smith College of Music in St.Paul, Minnesota. I lived in Minnesota for almost two years before the school was shut down due to a financial problem. After that, I made a daring decision to move to LA where I’ve been staying until now.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Definitely, I had a rough beginning in LA. The hardest challenge for me was to find a job and a place to stay. It took me a year to finally get a proper living place. Before that, I had to live probably in 9 different places, AirBnB, hostel, couch-surfing, even sleeping in my school because I just didn’t have any money back then. The other challenge probably was the lockdown during the pandemic. That was a very challenging period.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and composer. From a musical aspect, I’ve been writing songs for 20 years and I’m proud to call myself a good top-liner. I believe that melody and harmony are the two most fundamental things in good music. I’m a lyrics nerd as well, but as an instrumentalist, my brain just deals with melody and harmony differently. My approach of a good music is simple. If you can play the song in piano–not with singing the vocal — only the chord on the left hand and main melody on the right hand, then it’s a good one. From non-musical aspect, I try to be authentic and genuine about myself as a person and as an artist. During the post-pandemic, I gained a lot of new perspectives about mental health and, in the end, I decided to quit all my social media. I really believe that social media will make it difficult for artists to be authentic and true to themselves. So, this is probably my statement: “Yes, I’m building my music career without social media!!!”

Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Playing music, definitely. And meeting people, especially if you can relate with them. As a performing artist, I think I’m lucky enough because I can do both. My greatest happiness probably is when I share my music, either by performing or just having people listen to my music, then have my audience tell me if my music has inspired them or so.

I’m also playing a show in LA on August 3rd in K-town.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://abhi-ananda.com/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcYKyvAg5DwcCx0nObF9eDQ
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/abhi-ananda-835068136
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7koOQZDLwk7uTjSZ2WkmFJ