Bengaluru seamlessly blends conventional musical roots with fashionable genres, creating a captivating fusion of sounds. From the classical strains of Carnatic and Hindustani music to the infectious beats of rock, jazz, and digital genres, there’s something for each musical style. The metropolis boasts a thriving reside music tradition, with quite a few venues, cafes, and golf equipment internet hosting gifted musicians, bands and impartial artists. Bengaluru’s music scene serves as a melting pot, nurturing rising expertise and offering a platform for creative expression, making it a haven for each aspiring and seasoned musicians. We take a look at a number of musicians doing one thing particular this World Music Day:
From Mug to Mike
Sunil Koshy was once among the many scores of individuals with an IT job in Bengaluru however whose ardour lay elsewhere. He had to decide on between songs and software program — love and livelihood. Juggling each labored for a bit. But the extra he was into music, the extra it allured him. Around him, he noticed extra individuals, untrained in music however all the time wanting to sing. This unrecognised tribe of loo singers, he realised, didn’t have a correct platform. So, in 2013, Sunil give up his job. With his spouse, Archana, he began From Mug to Mike, whereby beginner singers can hone their passion.
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Over the final 10 years, Sunil and his spouse have skilled over 10,000 individuals to sing higher. “We have had medical doctors, managers, professors, homemakers, and college students becoming a member of us. People now recognise From Mug to Mike,” he says.
Sunil additionally collaborated with some huge names in Indian playback singing, together with KS Chitra, Hariharan, Kumar Sanu, and P Srinivas. “One of our individuals sang a duet with Kumar Sanu,” he says, “We have tried to be a bridge between the music business and most people.”
For World Music Day, Sunil has composed and sung an anthem, ‘Sur Mein Rangeen Hui’, with seven From Mug To Mike individuals, together with software program professionals, a financial institution supervisor and a dentist. The tune might be on From Mug to Mike’s YouTube channel.
Sunil and his spouse typically produce an anthem for a number of particular days within the calendar equivalent to Women’s Day, Disability Day and Music Day, whereby they contain individuals who’ve by no means sung in a studio earlier than. In this regard, Sunil and Archana’s decade-old enterprise has lived as much as its title. For, individuals actually go from holding mugs to microphones.
Thermal And A Quarter and MoonArra
Perhaps one of many metropolis’s finest recognized indie bands, Thermal and a Quarter, has definitely stood the check of time. Founded by guitarist and singer-songwriter Bruce Lee Mani together with drummer Rajeev Rajagopal in 1996, the band is all set to launch their ninth album.
“World Music Day could be very, very particular for Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ). Early on in our profession, we might stay up for performing in any respect free occasions organised on this present day to advertise budding musicians and reside music. The audiences at World Music Day occasions are additionally real reside music lovers and it was nice constructing a repute amongst these audiences. It’s a terrific event for all musicians,” says Rajeev Rajagopal, drummer and co-founder of TAAQ.
Also learn | TAAQ: We are a product of Bangalore’s inclusivity
The band’s USP can also be their muse — their music centres across the metropolis of Bengaluru. Their love for the town has seen them play at various venues, no matter its dimension, says Bruce Lee.
“Music is the only strongest, most unifying mode of communication on the planet at present. It brings individuals from all walks of life and geographical areas along with its message of peace, goodwill and communal concord which is significant within the arts at present,” says Jagdeesh MR, guitarist and co-founder of MoonArra.
MoonArra melds jazz, Indian classical music and world musical of their work, marking their very own place within the metropolis’s music scene from 2006. Jazz, classical music and world music being an accquired tastes, MoonArra’s choices will enchantment to sure palates solely.
Currently, the band is on their 10th worldwide live performance tour, performing in Sweden, Germany, Austria, Italy and Hungary.
Sruthi VJ
“I wished to convey out the gravity of loss felt by the survivors,” says Sruthi Vijayachandran (Sruthi VJ) whose single, Snatched Away, launched on June 21. The heart-wrenching tune which begins with a voice clip of Sandy Phillips, herself a survivor and the co-founder of Survivors Empowered, a assist group for individuals who have misplaced family members in mass shootings “is a heartrending pop ballad concerning the anguish of a mother or father who has misplaced their little one to a tragic college capturing.”
The thought for the tune started in June of final yr, quickly after the mass shootout at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on May 24. “There have been many such incidents, in fact, however this one actually shook me,” says Sruthi, who shuttles between Bengaluru and California. “The indisputable fact that it took near an hour and a half for legislation enforcement to confront the shooter was so irritating. The tune was born out of that frustration.”
She started studying up and listening to the tales of people that had survived the lack of their family members in mass shootings, even reaching out to some survivors. “I wished to convey out the survivors’ perspective, the gravity of the loss they expertise,” says Sruthi, whose music is often a mix of each Western and Indian influences, courtesy her personal skilled background and coaching.
This one, nevertheless, is completely different, she says. “It isn’t for me as an artist however a approach to create consciousness about one thing on all our minds,” she admits, including, “Art is a very highly effective medium to create consciousness about issues that demand consideration.”
SD Aravinda
Kannada movie director and composer-singer, SD Arvinda has composed a tune, ‘Haadu Beke Beku’, to rejoice World Music Day.
The tune, a poem written by Basavaraj Okkunda, consists by Arvinda who has additionally sung it and made it right into a music video, which might be launched at present on his YouTube channel, Goals & Dreamz, as a part of World Music Day celebrations.
“I consider we don’t want one particular day to rejoice music as it’s blended in nature and has a constructive influence on the listener. We hearken to songs once we exercise, stroll, drive. A devoted day for music solely makes it extra particular. I’ve all the time launched a tune or music video for festivals and pre-programmed our nationwide anthem with kids for Children’s Day. This tune is my small contribution to rejoice World Music Day.“
Okkunda is Arvinda’s professor from his school days, whom he met after a few years. “I used to be trying to compose one thing distinctive and my professor’s poem appealed to me which led to our collaboration and the discharge of the tune.”
