Video: Sawan Barse...

This is one of my favorite songs. The video is a great one too. As in most bollywood love songs, this one has rain too, to intensify the emotions. The shots taken in flooded Mumbai streets actually are very good and it seems that apart from the song and dance, its a real life situation. The song and the scenes add up to a deep cloud nine feeling.

The song is "Sawan barse" from the Akshay Khanna , Sonali Bendre starrer "Dahek".

Of how I became a DJ

I heard everyone can become a DJ these days, so I decided to try my hand in it.
I googled the net for a good dj software and came across this "virtual dj mix station". "Its quite a good software and is very good for starters", that is what a review at download.com said. I downloaded it.
After I ran the software on my laptop for the first time and played with it for a few minutes, I realized that I had potential to remix a song. This is what I did to make my first remix-

1. I took a song from the film " Dil to pagal hai" and made a loop of its beats. This required a certain sense of rhythm which I had acquired in my tabla learning days. I had to wait for a certain part of the song where there was no lyrics and then I captured the drum beats in a loop of 4 beats. There are two mixers on the software screen. I used the first on to do this.

2. I then took up the Titanic song (yes, my heart will go on..) on the other mixer and killed its treble and bass with help from the software.

3. After that I synced the song with the beats again with the help of the software.
I tried till the whole pitch and beats matched the song. To do so effectively, I had to increase the pace of the song.

4. I listened to this for some time and decided that though it was not perfect, I had created my first remix and it was time to record the song.

5.I recorded the song from the beginning with a record option available in the software. Thus was ready my first remixed song.

I have since done a lot of such innovative remixing and beat making. I guess I am more good in the fusion genre where I mix tabla beats with western drum beats. It also helps that I listen to a lot of songs and can recall well which songs contains the kinds of beats that I am searching for. After I have a good playing time with these songs, my version of the beats are very different from the original ones and seem fresh too, thanks to a few additions in the software and my enhanced skills which I have gained through practice.
I hope this article serves as an inspiration for people wanting to do something with music and also as a sort of tutorial to those who have just entered into software DJing.

My Fanatic Side : A. R. Rahman

It all started with "dil se..". Not that I hadn't heard him before. But this was the first Rahman album that caught my attention. I have heard it countless times. Papa bought this cassette when he bought the new music system. That was 97' and this is 08' now. 11 years and I have been an ardent Rahman fanatic the whole time. In all probability not a single week of my life has passed since the last 10 years when I haven't heard a single Rahman song. Be it "Taal" , the "Times top ten enlisted", "Roja" or the deep tunes of not so popular "Thakshak" nad a lesser known chinese film,"between heaven and earth" I have been engrossed in Rahman all the time.

It was the early nineties and Indian music industry was losing face in the international scene due to the word "inspiration". Mr. Anu Malik was inspired from Mr. George Michael , Mr. Bappi Lahiri was inspired from almost every disco artist and all music directors were deeply inspired someone or the other in Hollywood. Mind you these inspired songs were doing very well in the Indian market but at a very expensive cost of originality and cultural heritage. During this time Mr. Mani Ratnam was in search of a new talent for his upcoming "Roja". He approached Rahman. Little did he know that he was going to change the facet of the Indian music industry for ever.
Rahman scored the compositions for Roja and became a star overnight. People loved his style and got in him the long wanted fresh and original compositions. Rahman's music took this country by storm. But very few people actually understood the music. It was pleasant to hear but what was most important about the music was the fusion style. It wasn't copy paste orchestration like others were doing. It was a new genre of music.
Since then Rahman has influenced every person in Indian who listens to music. He touches hearts(swades), fights poverty(pray for me brother), is genuinely super patriotic (vande mataram & jana gana mana), has taken music to great heights(taal), has provided India with top dance tunes( chaiyan chaiyan), seldom fails to rise upto the expectations( jodhaa akbar) and in short is a national treasure.

I AM A RAHMAN FANATIC AND AM PROUD TO BE ONE... DIL SE