Chad Lawson does not believe in filling silence. The American pianist, known for his meditative compositions, has collaborated with Indian flautist Rasika Shekar on Awakening: The Stillness Within—an album that treats quietness as its primary instrument. Their first single, Still Waters, is precisely that: still. We speak to the musician to learn more about the single.
Take us through your album Awakening: The Stillness Within and the single Still Waters.
Well, let me answer with a question. When was the last time you took a breath? Like, really noticed it. This question sits at the centre of the album. Awakening: The Stillness Within is an invitation. It's nine pieces that ask the listener to pause, close their eyes, and simply feel. Sometimes we know how to pause, we know how to close our eyes, but the feeling part can be intimidating or even confusing. And that's okay. We've spent so much of our lives being rewarded for moving quickly, for staying composed, for not lingering in what's hard. So when we finally sit still, the emotions don't always know where to go. This album doesn't ask you to feel any one specific thing. It just holds a quiet space for whatever shows up. Joy, grief, restlessness, gratitude, all of it is welcome here.
The album is a conversation between my piano and Indian classical music, made with the extraordinary musicians who have spent their lives inside that tradition. Still Waters, the first single, came from sitting beside Rasika Shekar and her bansuri and letting the music arrive on its own. I literally said "Do you just wanna start?" and she set the entire tone from the very first note. It was transcendent to be honest. The whole song is about reflection. Water never tries to be anything. It just sits, and when it's still enough, you begin to see who you are in it. That's what I wanted the listener to feel.
You've said this project came from a place of "listening more than playing." As a pianist, how do you resist the urge to fill the silence with notes?
Space is my favourite note. Space is where the magic happens. It's where the listener's only option is to pause. I've come to believe the silence is part of the music, not the absence of it. When I sit at the piano now, I'm not trying to fill anything. I'm trying to listen for what wants to be there. A single note placed inside silence carries more weight than ten notes crowding each other for room. Restraint isn't really restraint when you trust it. It becomes its own kind of phrase. The hardest thing for any musician to learn, at least it took a while for me, is that the rest is not empty space. It’s where the emotion lies.
How did the idea for the album germinate?
I had a call from Devraj Sanyal (Chairman & CEO, Universal Music Group, India & South Asia) who said “Ever been to India?” I jumped at the thought! He explained his passion about what he and the team at Vedam Records were building and I could sense something beautiful was waiting on the other side of the phone call. It was all things my-heartstrings from the start as the label exists to create music rooted in stillness and healing, and the moment I stepped into that conversation, it felt like the album I didn't know I'd been writing in my head for years.
As someone who has practiced transcendental meditation for many years, studied breathwork, and is a self-proclaimed practitioner of asana-based yoga, and given that India has a sound tradition that understands silence and breath, how could I turn down such an invitation!?
How did the collaboration with Rasika Shekar happen? Tell us about working with her.
Rasika and I sat in a room together and started playing. That's really how it began. There was no big plan. Neither of us had brought in a melody or a song to work on. Before we started, I asked her, "If there was one word or feeling you're sitting in right now, one you'd want this music to hold, what would it be?" Then I asked the same of myself. Once we shared our words, those became the anchor we tethered our emotions to. What's special, at least for me, is that those two words stay between us. No one else needs to know them. They were the truth of that moment, and that was something really special to be a part of.
Within a few minutes we were breathing in the same rhythm. Working with her was one of those sessions where neither of us felt like we were inventing anything. We were just paying attention. She listens with her whole body. There is nothing decorative in her playing. Every note is felt. Still Waters is the song that came out of that first listening, and I smile every time I hear it because it brings me back to that moment of creative peace in the studio.
What did the addition of the Indian flute (bansuri) bring to the piano soundscapes that you hadn't experienced with other Western instruments?
Breath. That's the simplest way I can put it. The bansuri is a breathing instrument in a way no Western flute quite is. You hear the human in it. You hear the inhale, the pause, the release. When the bansuri sits next to the piano, it teaches the piano how to breathe alongside it. The phrasing slows down. The space between the notes becomes audible. Indian classical music has spent centuries perfecting that relationship between sound and silence, and you feel that lineage every time Rasika lifts the flute to play.
With digital content often leaning toward short-form trends, how do you approach creating music that invites the listener to step back and engage with a longer, more immersive track?
I don't think I'm in the business of convincing anyone. The music finds the people who need it. I'm a big believer that the emotion is always present. It's only a matter of when the person is open enough to find it. Sometimes that takes moments, sometimes years, and sometimes, unfortunately, it never happens. But it's not as simple as opening an app on your phone and instantly feeling comfort for 30 seconds before scrolling on for a really great recipe.
The world is loud right now, and I believe a lot of people are quietly looking for something that lets them slow down without asking anything from them in return. A long, patient piece of music is one of the few things left that doesn't compete for your attention. It doesn't go anywhere. You can come back to it whenever you're ready. It’s patient :) If even one person presses play and decides to stay for the whole song, that's the conversation I came here for. Because it was created by a particular energy, and energy permeates and has a way of finding people I'll never meet, in rooms I'll never enter, at moments I'll never witness. That's a conversation no algorithm can manufacture.
As artists, do you find your best creative ideas come from the silence, or are they a reaction to the noise of the world?
The silence, always. The noise of the world is information. The silence is where the information settles into something I can actually use. When I stop trying to make something happen, the music tends to walk in on its own. I think most artists, if they're honest, will tell you the same. Our work isn't really to generate anything. It's to stay quiet enough to catch what's already arriving.
As creators, be it music, art, literature, or dance, we often tie ourselves up with the idea of "I must be doing something." Which makes sense, as we are creators after all. But if we can learn to instead say, "I must be listening for something." That is when we find what we're eventually going to put our hands to, our 'something.' But first we have to listen, and then we create.
What are you working on?
For now, my focus is this album. Awakening: The Stillness Within has been a beautiful, slow project for me, and I want to give it the room it deserves. I'll be sharing more of the music in the coming months, both online and through live spaces where the listening can be shared, as that's the most intimate connection between the music and the people in the room. Beyond that, the conversation with Vedam Records and the musicians I met during this record is far from finished. India left a mark on me that I'm still hearing, and I suspect the next thing I make will carry that breath in it too.