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.