When this blog was initially started, one of the many things I would write about was music. I would talk about my upcoming music, my musical journey, and things I would have experienced while making music.

I want to write something similar to that this week! I want to talk a little bit about how my musical journey has been evolving over the last couple of months, the projects I’m working on, and how I intend to move forward.

Tabla

First up, I want to talk about the instrument that I’m the most comfortable on: the tabla!

I’ve been learning tabla for around 10 years now (which is absolutely insane to think about, by the way; I’ve been learning tabla for the majority of my life), and I’ve gained enough knowledge that I can probably teach people this instrument. I have a Senior Diploma, which is apparently enough qualification to start teaching tabla!

Anyway, right now, I’m preparing for my Visharad tabla exam, which is basically a qualification that’s equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree in tabla. If I have a Visharad, I can actually directly do a Masters degree in music!

The thing is, the Visharad exam is unlike any exam I’ve ever written before.

First of all, the syllabus is ridiculously long. I have four whole papers to write (or perform): two practical papers and two theory papers. This is absolutely absurd, because for basically every exam I’ve written before this (and I’ve written quite a few) I’ve only had two papers: the theory paper and the practical paper. Basically, my syllabus has literally doubled between my senior diploma and Visharad exams. I’ve actually spent double the time, therefore, preparing for this exam. Usually, I’ve taken around a year to learn the items/theory concepts needed for the exam; but this time, I’ve taken two!

Secondly, the exam structure is also pretty different. Usually, the exam involved going to the exam centre on a certain day and time slot and waiting for your turn. When you’re called, you go to the room in which the examiner sits. You play a pre-decided item (what we refer to as a “choice” presentation) which ideally showcases your ability over the instrument as well as your grip over taal (time signature) and laya (tempo), that is, your rhythmic ability. This time, though, the exam involves creating a full-fledged presentation showcasing a ton of different items (instead of just a single “choice” presentation). This presentation is the main component of the exam; the extra questions aren’t given as much importance.

Thirdly, the syllabus is super different. Usually, every year, you’re expected to know certain kinds of items in certain taals. As you become more and more proficient in the instrument, the number of taals and the number of items you’re expected to know increases, but the scope of the exam remains constrained to classical, solo tabla performance. This year, though, candidates (me) are expected to showcase proficiency in the instrument over a vast variety of styles - fusion music, as an accompaniment for classical dance and classical vocals etc. You’re even expected to show that you’re able to play other rhythmic instruments for the tabla exam!

So yeah, preparation is going on and going well. Things are getting pretty complex (especially as I had to literally compose items in two different, new, instruments), but it’s pretty fun!

Covers

If you’ve been keeping up with the YouTube channel, you would know that I released a cover recently of Finneas’ song Shelter.

This was honestly a little bit of an experiment for a few reasons. Firstly, this was the first legitimate piece of music I had released on the channel for a long time, so I was worried about what viewers would think. Secondly, this was the first time I actually sang on a song (which was an incredibly nerve-wracking experience, honestly; I toyed with the idea of releasing the song with the original vocal stems). And thirdly, this song was famous. I wanted to do it justice!

Actually making the cover was super fun, though. This was the first time in a long time that I recorded acoustic instruments for my music projects, and that was a great learning (and creative) experience. This also helped teach me how to produce so that the lead is augmented, not taken over.

It was great fun, honestly, just focusing on arrangement and composition without being too caught up with the songwriting aspect of it (as much as I love songwriting!).

More covers are on the radar for sure. The next cover I intend to release is a cover of the song “You’re On Your Own, Kid”, by Taylor Swift, off her album Midnights.

Original Music

Don’t expect me to become a through-and-through cover artist, though!

I’ve actually been working quite a lot on some original music. I have a couple of songs written (that have to be worked on further, of course) from a course that I did (more on that later), and that was honestly a really fun experience.

This was probably the first time I tried writing lyrics for a song and it is so incredibly hard… you never truly know whether the word you’re using fully represents what you’re thinking, what emotions you want to put across, and what story you want to tell. It’s a slow, iterative process which takes a lot of time.

The main reason I actually even considered writing songs with lyrics in the first place is because I started doing a specialisation by Berklee College of Music on Coursera, called the DIY Musician. This basically has 4 courses, and I’m on the second one. I’ve completed a course on songwriting (basically, lyrics and melody), and I’m doing a course on production right now.

Honestly, it’s great having a project to work on while learning new things. Learning through doing is one of the most fun (and satisfying!) things ever, and having some sort of accountability from doing this course is really pushing me out of my comfort zone and helping me try new things.

These tracks won’t really release as soon as the covers. I’ll probably hold on to them until I have at least two more tracks, so that I can release all four of them together as an EP or something. But this finally means I have some ideas and a creative direction for the original “Summer” EP (that was left in the dust)!

That’s all for this week!

My musical journey looks to be evolving really well, and I’m really pleased with how things are turning out to be. I’m super excited to release new things and start making (and writing!) more and more songs!

I hope you listen to them and enjoy them!

Thank you so much for reading!