The Threshold of Coolidity

With a couple of days left for our show scheduled for November 1^st, the day of Diwali, our songlist took shape. We had everything in there. Two original compositions Dil Chahne Laga, and Seven Years (always proud to show them off), well tested covers such as Neele neele ambar and Dum maro dum, new covers with Taal se taal showing off our percussion skills powered by Beer and Bheeshma, and Bullah ki jana flaunting our ability to incorporate yet another language (English, hindi, and telegu yeah telegu our previous language conquests). Last but not the least, we had our instrumental To Thy Kingdom Come which was tributed to Ram’s return from exile when it was composed; couldn’t be a more appropriate scenario to play it for the first time on stage.

As the day drew near, band members took it upon themselves to pimp the show. Tuesday was a bit of a concern. Would be able to draw more than just our friends? (Aside: Bands with radio contracts pull a whooping 20 people on Phat Friday shows: Aside aside: 4 of the 20 are Beer, Ben, Anu and me) So, everyone told their friends, labmates … I decided to take it one step further. I started making chit-chat with people I don’t really know (shame on me!), Raj and me spent time sending out our show details to giant mailing lists using his SCI connection. We were set in my opinion to pull at least 60 people.

As showtime approached we hauled gear over to the Nyumburu center where the undergrads performing bhajans had already started camping. The bhajans started. So, all you guys n girls who have lived in India must have sometime or the other seen an abla (girl) been harassed, well this was the time we all saw a tabla get molested. Yup, undergrad boy borrowed our tabla and well to put it gently “violated it in public”. Means, if a tabla could speak, it would shriek “What the fuck are you doing? Is this your first time?” And when Om Jay started tabla virgin spanked the tabla as if he were playing to jhankar beats! All the while Bheeshma went from concern, to worry, to pain, to agony, to almost fainting before the show!

Anyways, when the murder stopped, we were set to hit the stage. The tabla was still playable, and as we started tuning I learnt some lessons. I always thought it would be awesome to grab undergrad attention. Well, Diwali was the day I packed that desire away, and happily too. Undergrads love Bhajans. The moment the bhajans ended most of them exited. I have nothing against Bhajans but given that I was an undergrad in the same country I don’t ever recall saying “Oh no! now we have to go home coz the bhajans are over!” But the most beautiful lesson happened throughout dinner and tuning. As I stood up there playing a coupla notes to entertain people before the show started, I noticed that every single person I knew and had invited walked through the door with several of their friends I had never met. On the other hand, mailing lists where I sent out invits to a thousand unknown people yielded maybe 2 audience members. Now those 2 count, but again, if you want to put in effort, just call one friend and you'll be rewarded for it.

Again a short paragraph to sum up an awesome show; there were some usual sound problems, but the show in my opinion was nothing short of all we could hope for. Sayonee gave us a smashing start, Mathangi’s Dum maro dum floored the men and yielded our first encore! Raj gained a few female fans (triple F’s?) during our rendition of Bullah, where I hummed notes of the tougher part near him to check scale, and ended up looking like I had some desire to whisper in my roommates ears ..oooops. Bullah earned us our second encore. But, the biggest reward for me was when the reports came in that besides these favorites our own compositions sounded the best! Another zone where we improved in was our presentation. Our first 3 shows I was rather disappointed with our showmanship, in particular talking to the crowd, so this time I decided to do it myself so that if it didn’t work out I could blame myself! But (hehe) no blame was needed! We introduced band members, songs; dedicated a song to our friends who were getting married soon, songs to band members far away, songs to the audience, and I claimed the Nyumburu Center to be Antardhwani’s Galee before we sang Kabhi Aana tu meri galee. I rock!

I believe that Antardhwani will be heard again live, but just in case that doesn’t work out closure just isn’t a problem anymore!

Newsflash III: Supratik sends out an email announcing that Kapil the president of the Student Council of India (SCI) had asked him if we could put up a show for their Diwali celebrations. The email sounded tentative yet hopeful sounding yet another band member’s lack of closure on the band’s possible full stop. Well, Pauli got the mail, so did I and the next day lunch was initiated to discuss the matter. At lunch, which hardly went down (well it hardly went in not much of a chance of going down), Pauli and me toggled words back and forth which begged the other to say that “Yes we have it in us for one more show.” To be honest, the moment Supratik sent out the mail I think we both knew that we were gonna make this happen one way or the other. The only question was were we going to put together the bare minimum including our instrumentals and a couple of songs with supratik and me singing (which I bet we could still pull off a nice show with) or were we going to do this the way Antardhwani was capable of doing it, a way that does justice to everything we have become over the last 10 months? Knowing that we desperately needed lead singers to carry the show I pushed forth Raj’s name. Raj aka JD is my roommate and while listening to music on headphones he screams out all the time, and though this may prevent peer sleep he never takes a wrong note. I was more than happy to nominate him. At the same time, Pauli raised the question of another of my friends, Mathangi aka Tangy. Being from the same college, BITS Pilani, Supratik claimed that he had heard her voice and thought that she would be an excellent addition to the troupe. I was assigned the task of roping the newbees into our little band. The plan sounded like music to my ears!

Well Rajat dint need much roping in, he actually jumped over the rope with huge smiles and nods. Mathangi threw her voice out for me when I took my guitar over to her place and I barely managed to hide my excitement that my band was going to be powered by a very confident female voice. Supratik gave Kapil the green; the show which we knew could well be Antardhwani’s last performance was on!

Newsflash IV: Mainak dropped a bomb on us. His parents had come down to visit the US, were camped at his brothers place on the west coast, and around our November 1^st show date, he had to be with them to make a trip to have a family union with his brother’s to-be inlaws. The news was crushing, but at the same time the reason was too compelling to try to convince Mainak to change his mind. The deal was that while our first two shows lacked percussion, Mainak’s new Roland electronic percussion instrument had defined our sound and tempo at the DSE show, and taken our act to a whole new level. Without him anchoring the sound, we were again suspended in limbo.

Newsflash V: Anyesha’s school friend from Jamshedpur was visiting NIH from England, and was at her place during our last jam session with Sowmya. When we started playing sayonee he couldn’t help himself and insisted that we arrange a tabla for him to join in. A tabla was brought into the scene and Bheeshma churned out beats nothing short of pure genius. The kid had led a parallel life with respect to mine. Born in England, raised in Jam, packaged overseas again, crazy about music: We hit it off immediately. Once Mainak’s news was accepted as reality, Bheeshma was presented with the offer of joining us for the show, and though it would be a hectic ordeal it was the deal!

A dynamic song list was cooked up, which the new singers adjusted to in a matter of one practice session. Beer started playing his hand at drums and dholaks on his floor tom to boost up some of our numbers. We were on our way! Mathangi showed off her musical gift by picking up the pandero for Neele neele ambar, and I pushed forth my intentions of playing a Rabbi number; 1) coz Punjabi is always a crowd favorite 2) Rabbi’s compositions are the best music I have heard out of the Indian pop scene in forever 3) I wanted Raj to do something that most other singers wouldn’t be able to pull off.

Things sounded awesome in practice, we needed work though, but we were planning to pull off the most amazing show, with a revamped band, three days of practice, and we all knew that this might be Antardhwani signing off on stage, so it might as well be a signature performance!

Well sometimes you just don’t get to document things that are really important to you, just becoz they are too important. Before it materializes all energy is expended in making it happen, and afterwards once the goal is achieved you just lay back and smoke a cigarette…..

To start off, I personally believe closure is the single most important thing in several situations. I believe it extends to relationships, personal strives, and personal goals. Without closure an open thought or desire festers in my mind, eating me up inside and every minute of every waking hour I voluntarily or involuntarily spend seeking closure or removing the need for closure. And if closure must happen, it has to be on my terms, and nothing else will do. (anyways more ramblings on closure for a later day …)

Newsflash I: Ayan, Antardhwani’s lead singer had to move away to Phoenix in pursuit of a career. The news hit me like a slap in the face. First of all Ayan had an amazing voice. Anyone who ever heard him live or in a recording would agree that there was a semi-professional touch to it. Now, my band Antardhwani is a predominantly hindi based band, which means that even if the instruments have a field day and play music unheard and unparalleled but the vocals aren’t up to the mark, all is lost. Indian music is judged at first glance by the vocals, then the lyrics and music, then back to the vocals. Though the news was crippling, we knew that Sowmya was around, and given that I sing the originals we din’t have to run around screaming coz we knew we could pull off a 1 hour show with some revamping.

Newsflash II: And then it happened! Sowmya announced that she is taking up an offer for a job in Atlanta. Ladies and Gentleman: we have just lost cabin pressure! When Pauli and moi met up to discuss the situation at hand (actually not in hand) it din’t feel like two rather powerful conspirators meeting up, sounded more like two kids had been beaten up by a bully! We din’t really come up with any bright ideas, more on the lines of how good a run it had been, how unfair it was and how we din’t have any closure on the issue coz the last time we performed it seemed like we had gotten much better and there was tons more to come. I can’t tell you how unfair it is for a band member to not know that the last show was his/her last! Pauli ended the conversation saying something which we din’t realize the importance of at that time: but mostly to the effect of him having put in a lot of effort into the band, and if a gig came our way we’d think about ways to revive the band, if not, it might be time to call it a day! It made a lot of sense to me, since I know how much effort he had put in to co-ordinate stuff in the nascent period and how tough things were even when everything was going fine, so it seemed fine to me that we would think of revamping the band if a gig came our way, if not we'd call it a day, month, year, a dream!

Credits: The losing cabin pressure line is from the cool-ass background commentary from Fight Club 

Lately, I have been rather fascinated with the whole 'Om' concept, but when I get to link it to music, thats where fascination ends and passion takes over!

I must accept that I am pretty illiterate about the origin, power, and uses of Om. I have been told that Om is some sort of resonance of the cosmos. The whole Om thingie came into my life when I hurt my back and since western medicine fails miserably at these problems my parents begged me to try my hand, actually mind at something called Pranayam. Well, pranayam is some sort of breathing exercise and involves at certain points saying Om! Without trying to sound cool, I will admit that saying it actually felt awesome. I felt that I could get my voice, body to kinda vibrate (hehe), feel all warm inside, and pretty much high by practising this, a rather addcitive feeling.

Anyways, some days later, I somehow stumbled upon something rather novel. I say Om at this constant pitch which turns out to be the note 'C' on a standard guitar tuning. I found out that without fail I no longer need to have any doubts on how to restore standard tuning when my guitar loses tuning, I simply have to close my eyes, say Om and tune accordingly. Truly amazing!

Now to the even cooler part, given my daily worship of Eddie Vedder's voice, and irrespective of me thinking his voice sounds kicks-ass in whatever he sings, certain songs always struck me to sound as if his voice is reverberating (ex Man of the hour) and almost sounded like God is speaking down to you. After stumbling on my discovery I found that these songs were also on "C". I don't know whether he says Om at C, i dont know if he says Om at all, but I have played with it more and its helped me a lot with my music writing.

So, different people seem to say Om at different pitches (tried this on roommates). Songs i have written on C make my voice reverberate at the low pitch (ex Dil Chahne Laga and How many roses and my cover of wishlist and man of the hour). The moment I move to a higher chord the reverberation ceases. When I move to a lower chord, there is vibration but the beauty and intelligibilty (if there is a word) go way down. I will use this new power! And in some weird way it makes sense to me. For meditation and healing people are adviced to say Om coz it is the frequency at which ur whole body vibrates as one and that has healing effects: So I assume that the same vibration extends to one's vocal chords and thats the pitch at which the voice stands a chance of sounding its best.

I hope some great music comes out of all this. In the meantime, I have decked my room up with all sorts of hippy Om accessories and they truly elevate the mood of the room (pronounce 'rum' as in ruminate)!

How powerful is music? Can a song’s lyrics haunt its composition. Seven Years is Antardhwani’s second original composition. I wrote the song based on some raags I used to play around with. The theme of the song is loosely based on a love and hate relationship I was going through. The chord progression is highly addictive and at our jam sessions I played it a lot while the whole band got used to it and put in music that was sheer genius. I don’t really recall when it actually became a complete song but it just happened. Alap put in hindi lyrics, I put in the English ones, and they gelled beautifully. Seven Years was born.

We all recorded our parts one afternoon at Pauli’s place. The song is rather unique. I personally think that it is Antardhwani’s best composition to date. Though Dil Chahne Laga continues to be most of our friends’ favorite. The song is characterized by a very unique chord progression, very ambitious vocals, a very mean bass line, a guitar lead that sounds like a sitar with distortion, keyboard riffs that give the song a psychedelic effect, and Pauli playing drums too. One of the interesting features of the song is its dual vocal track. Now, to make a voice sound powerful or “divine” popular tricks/effects are putting on a reverb, echo or a constant delay. These effects though awesome are very mundane. While Alap and moi were recording the first version at my place the first vocal track wasn’t up to the mark, so I recorded another. While playing it back I forgot to mute one of the vocal tracks. The result? An awesome surround sound effect. The deal is that both tracks need to be very similar but for every word either voice starts of just a bit sooner than the other giving this beautiful echo spectrum. So, as evident, I am addicted to this sound now.

Pauli took over the composition with his mixing expertise and also put in the drum track. This is where we were introduced to the intricacy of a band composing music. So, when you write a song, you get used to what it sounds like in your head, especially when you let the music linger for a long time before seriously giving it direction. In other words, it becomes almost impossible to picture it any other way. Back to the story, a week later, Pauli finished his mixing work and sent it back to me for my comments. Ladies and Gentleman, a volcano has just erupted! I don’t know what came over me but the moment I heard the final version I freaked out! There were parts I sang three times that were there just once, there were fill-ins that I had never pictured, I couldn’t recognize the song anymore. Ladies and Gentleman, run for your lives, the volcano is on full blast! All in all, I felt like I had sent my baby away wearing clothes that I picked out for him, and when he came back to me, he was wearing something I had never seen him in before. Pretty much, I couldn’t make much of a judgment that day. Around three days later after devouring the new version hundreds of time I felt I had attained nirvana. Lots of truths regarding the song writing process came clear to me and I could finally critique Seven Years. I found out that I loved the new editing which had actually made a song that seemed to be dragging on much more crisp. The new keyboard parts had added the psychedelic rock aspect to the song. In a couple of places I had suggestions which I discussed with Pauli coz when you have a thought you gotta get it off you chest. I am sure Pauli went through the same cycle of emotions because of my suggestions. A week of emails back and forth, listening to the song over and over again, the final version was born and it’s a beauty. This is what music is all about!

I learnt some valuable lessons that week. I have the talent to write really good music. But if I want the band members to record exactly what I hear myself, the result will obviously be nice but then there is no point being in a band. That’s what people like Dave Mathews do after calling their band Dave Mathew’s Band, and then produce rather monotonous music in my opinion. The truth is that, when you have the pleasure of playing with a band of talented musicians, you havta give them the license to play, let them add a touch that you could never imagine, and the result will be something that you would be proud of every single day. Seven Years would not have been the same if every band member would not have added their own interpretation to it. And now that I have listened to it a million times I wouldn’t have it any other way.