We recently connected with Patricia Ligia and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Patricia, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
As I started learning music and later playing it, I knew right away that the stage was the best place in the world. However it took me quite some time to actually pursue a professional path. When I finished high school, it wasn’t obvious that I would pursue a music career. My family expected that I would get a degree in a “serious” more “real” career and make music on the side…as a hobby. And I kind of did. I took 8 semesters of industrial design at the Uruguayan Design School. It was not until my 5th semester that I realized that I wanted to pursue music; the urge was really big but I completed the courses anyway.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a musician. I play bass; just finished Latin America Tour with colombian star Karol G. I also co-lead two projects of Global Music, Mestizas and Biribá Union.
I was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. I moved to the US in 2018 to pursuit my dreams; to build an international career in music and to grow to my maximum potential.
Back in 2017 I auditioned and got a very decent scholarship to attend school in Boston. Without really knowing how I was going to make it work financially, I made a leap of faith and moved to Boston. I graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2021 where I studied jazz composition and bass performance. After spending a few months between Boston and NYC y relocated in Miami by the end of that same year. While settling in Miami, I taught in some music academies (School of Rock and Let it Beat), I also performed and collaborated with great local artists, super diverse projects. I was playing top 40 at Faena at the same time I was playing afro-cuban music in Calle 8 with the amazing band Miami Girls Tumbao. I also put together my own project, which I called Group’O and we did some super cool performances in Norton Museum, Understory and the Jazz at the Jungle concert series.
Last year I joined Karol G band with whom I performed in Viña del Mar Festival in Chile, Tiny Desk Concerts, Saturday Night Live and did the Mañana Será Bonito US and Latin America Tours. This has been a super powerful experience and definitely an important leap in my career. Not only for the exposure but also for the level of professionalism I have achieved in such a short period of time. Being in this type of productions, taught me to get things done one way or another so even though sometimes there’s a huge amount of pressure. I was able to adjust to the needs of the gig and what was required from me.
Right now I am entering what I like to call “samurai focus” or “zone zero”. Which is a period of incubation to work on my craft and personal projects. I know that these days is hard to find time to pause and only focus on acquiring new skills, or diving in new technologies, at least for me it is. We live in such a high pace routine where everything needs to be done immediately…so I am blessed that I can allow my self a few weeks of exactly the opposite.
I am also looking forward to temporary locate in Cordoba, Spain, for the pre-production of my band’s second studio album in August. We designed a creative retreat to write and finish some of our compositions; mock up everything so that we can be ready to record by the end of this year.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The first think that comes to my mind is when as a creative we start ‘seeing’ or ‘knowing’ were the piece is headed to.
When I start a creative process, a new tune, a project, an idea, even learning a new skill; for quite some time I don’t really know what the outcome is going to be like. It may take more or less time, I may love it or not, etc. It’s a bit like walking into a dark room, just guided by my inner intuition and desire to express something. This period is the most challenging stage of creativity, and the one we most often drop-off in the process. Either because we don’t find enough motivation to keep working on it or because we may just sabotage the process and withdraw. We don’t see clearly.
So to me it’s so rewarding to discover what’s happing after overcoming this challenges. I feel like it’s almost revealing itself and I know that at some point the entire process will make sense and now I actually know what I want to create.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I was on my 5th semester of Design School in Uruguay and I was already playing bass and doing gigs on local clubs and bars. At some point I was booked with rehearsals and shows and was struggling to find time to work on design projects. Every time I got to finally work on the school projects I enjoyed it but my heart was eager to grab my bass to practice or to go to the next rehearsal/show. That’s when I realized that my true passion was music. However, it wasn’t that easy to just drop school, I actually finished the 8th semester pulled a huge amount of effort and will to submit the last project – it was a fun project I remember! -but in my mind the best part was that after that I was going to have the time to pursuit music as a career!
That was a big pivot for me, because it took me a while to really appreciate and trust in my talent in order to pursuit a career as a musician. It wasn’t easy at all, and music is not the most straight forward profession where you can work and get fulfillment granted right away. Sometimes we have to do that side gig in order to keep working on the art. To be an artist is a challenge anywhere in the world, we are lucky that nowadays we have more outputs available to expose ourselves and share our work.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: patricia_ligia_
Image Credits
1,2 Felipe Orvi 3,4 Henry Hwu