One of the many wonders of KM during my time was a ten year old wonder kid, Lydian Nadhaswaram. Several KM students having piano as major, and some of the junior faculty were no match for this prodigal pianist. He used to play several complex and fast piano pieces composed by musical greats like Beethoven and Bach. His fingers moved like lightning. It was a mystery to everyone how his short arms would reach the breadth of the piano (7 octaves), and his small fingers could muster the strength to play the keys. (Unlike a keyboard, it takes considerable arm strength and finger dexterity to play the keys of a piano).
I have realized that any kind of music has a vast repertoire built over several years from many great musicians’ collective skills, innovations, and experiments. Music is so immense that it is almost impossible for one person to cultivate all of these skills in one lifetime. Even accomplished musicians wish to learn more or improve on certain aspects. Humility is, therefore, an essential quality in a musician. We often see even trained musicians surprised by the raw talent demonstrated by an amateur in reality shows. In my observation, kids usually learn faster than adults, mainly due to a lack of inhibitions or fear. As such, I am not someone who believes in the conventional idea of God. But whenever I come across a phenomenal talent like Lydian, I wonder whether it is God peeping through a child’s medium much like the Waman avatar of Hindu mythology.
Unfinished Cadence part VIII – The Last Student Concert
‘Unfinished cadence’ is a memoir about the fascinating experience I had as an Art student. From July 2016 to May 2017, I did a Foundation course in Western Music at KM College of Music & Technology.
Link to the previous part (part VII) can be found here:
In KM, there was always a lot of appreciation for an original composition, be it in any language or genres like Hindustani or Western classical, Jazz, electronic, trance or world music. When the last student concert was announced, I was quite keen to get my original song (the ‘Raahi’ song) performed. It was a “now or never” situation for me. However, putting together a performance turned out to be quite a task. The main difficulty was getting together an ensemble of musicians. It was a fusion song with English and Hindi parts involving two singers, one keyboard, at least two guitars for rhythm and lead. I had also planned to use Western and Indian percussion, i.e. drums and tabla. KM day rehearsals had already started. Kavya, Shivam, Bhaskar and my other friends were involved in so many ensembles that it was tough to come for rehearsals.
Shivam committed without a moment’s hesitation but told me upfront that it would be difficult for him to come for practice regularly. After pitching it to several of my batchmates, I finally got Probash and Rohan to play the guitars, Venus to play tabla and Lavanya for drums. Kavya had recorded the English part for me and had done a terrific job. But she was swamped with so many rehearsals that she initially refused. I, however, convinced her by playing to her vanity. I told her that no other singer could do justice to this composition.
I was not associated with any of the ensembles performing on KM day. But I was selected for the opera, and it doesn’t get any bigger in a Western Music school. My rehearsals were coming along fine. In the first act, I was part of a trio with Kavya and Jaganjot. I got only 20 minutes of ‘one-on-one class’ per week with Viktoriya, the singing faculty. But she liked that I was a sincere student and followed her methods irrespective of my ability. So she tried to get extra sessions by calling me whenever there was a cancellation. I was particularly anxious about memorizing the German lyrics. I would learn the lyrics and then sing without seeing the score. That would throw off my technique and pitch. When I tried to correct the latter, I would forget the words.
“No need to learn eet. Just see and seeng hundred times. You weel get eet. Eet izz muscle memory.”
I thought it was strange advice, but I did as I was told. To understand the mood and meaning of the song, I went to Erwin, whose first language was German. I wrote down the translation of each line in English. For the pronunciation, though, I found the Devanagari script the easiest. I would write the pronunciation on the sheet on top of the English text. Soon I memorized the text and started singing without the sheet, even before Kavya and Jaganjot. My hard work and Viktoriya’s training was definitely paying off.
Meanwhile, assignments were coming thick and fast in the classes. There was a pastiche assignment in Music History. We were supposed to harmonize a short melody in the Classical period style. One of the individual assignments required us to make our own biography and profile as a musician in Academic Skills. Now I had made a resume or two for myself as a radiologist, but I hadn’t worked much on it as jobs were abundant. I had just picked up someone else’s resume and filled in my details instead. An aspiring musician, however, was a different cup of tea. The concerned faculty for this assignment was Lisa, a trombone player. When she put up her own resume as an example, it intimidated me rather than helped me. She had done Bachelor’s from some University in the US, Master’s from somewhere in the UK. She then had performed for a few years in a famous symphony orchestra. Compared to that, my resume looked worse than a fourth-grader. I went up to her and expressed my concern.
“I am sure you would have done something that we can work with. This is a bit like advertising, you see.”
“But I can’t lie about things, can I?”
“Umm…no one is asking you to lie. It is about what kind of spin you put on the truth. So tell me. You must have composed something in the Western Composition class.”
“Yes, I have written a rondo for horns, trombone, violins, bass and viola. But Arnab said that the Sunshine orchestra is really busy and doesn’t usually play a student’s assignment.”
“Did you ask them?”
“Um….no, but….”
“Okay, then. Give me your notebook.”
She wrote – His first Western music composition, ‘The Royal Prelude’ is an orchestral work for strings and brass sections, which is currently in the rehearsal stages.
“Well, if that doesn’t work out…too bad. Now, let’s see. What about any singing performances?”
“No performances yet….” I paused for a moment. “Well, not in western music, but I was part of the Qawwali ensemble. However, I was mainly in the chorus. I wasn’t the lead singer in any of the songs.”
“No need to give that bit of information.”
Lisa continued – He has recently performed in a high profile Qawwali concert at KM Music conservatory in January 2017 attended by music maestro A R Rahman among others.
At the end of the year, when we had to submit a biography, this is what I came up with:
Western art history, be it poetry, sculpture, music or painting, was marked by different movements like symbolism, impressionism, exoticism etc. A movement would start in one art form and soon be picked up by other artists and exemplified in their art forms. For example, impressionism started in painting but was quickly picked up by musicians. Developments in photography made it ridiculously easy to produce life-like images compared to painting or portraits. So the focus shifted from imitating an object. Impressionism, developed by French painters, is a method that involves depicting the natural appearance of things through dabs or strokes of primary unmixed colours to simulate actual reflected light.
As we had seen in the last part, the “Prelude a le apres midi d’un faun” was a piece characterized by examples of such movements. After spending several lectures on it, Smith informed us that this piece would be the subject of one of our group assignments. We had to find and demonstrate examples of any two ‘isms’ in the Prelude from among Impressionism, Symbolism, Minimalism and Exoticism. We had to present these in a Powerpoint presentation before the entire class. The marks for the same will be included in our final individual assessments.
My group consisted of Vijaya, Suryansh, Luv and Nirek. Vijaya and I were older than the other three and quite mature. Vijaya had a background in business management, but her passion was music. Suryansh was a focused student and a talented singer. He was pretty well trained in Hindustani music and brought that discipline to his studies. But we were worried about Luv and Nirek as we did not want our grades to suffer due to their irresponsible behaviour. Luv was an ardent weed smoker and would mostly be seen hanging out with the B5 gang. He would spend the rest of the time doing music production on his MacBook. Nirek was primarily a bass guitarist, and nobody saw him much at the school. The rare times that he was seen during the classes, all I can remember was the disinterested, sulky expression on his face.
Suryansh and I were assigned the research work for the project. Vijaya would prepare the PPT. We formed a Whatsapp group and distributed the tasks according to each member’s strengths. Luv was asked to take care of any audio-visuals in our presentation. Nirek was asked to merely show up for the discussion to have some idea. No one was expecting any contributions from him. This is how our meetings would go:
“So you see, this entire section from bar 45 to bar 87 is dominated by harp and oboe. I feel it creates a kind of dream-like state, so this is probably an example of symbolism.” Suryansh was saying.
“Excellent point, Suryansh”, I said. “In fact, Berlioz, in his “Treatise on Instrumentation”, has mentioned the exact same thing about these instruments. Guys, I found this small book in the library. This entire 50-page book presents an analysis of one musical piece – the Prelude. From bar 4 to 75, De Bussy has only used these suspended chords, and it is quite difficult to find the tonic. This is consistent with Impressionist music.”
“In fact, this whole narrative of a pastoral theme with lush green pastures in the countryside, a faun making merry with the nymphs is an example of exoticism compared to the mundanities of everyday life.” I continued.
“Great going, guys. I am stepping out for a smoke. Care to join?” Nirek had finally come to one of our meetings.
Before Luv could respond, Vijaya replied,
“No…..you take a break and come back, Nirek. Uhh…Luv, we need the audio track for this part here….bar 45 to 87…..”
Eventually, we had made a reasonably good PPT. The time allotted to us was ten minutes, and each one of us had to present for at least two minutes. We were worried that Nirek wouldn’t turn up or do a lousy job and reduce marks for all of us. However, we were in for a pleasant surprise. Nirek not only came on time, but he was also the most well-dressed. He was quite confident and articulate while presenting.
To present my song in the student concert, we had to submit a short video of our performance online to the student body. If they liked it, they would select it for the concert. But even a week before the student concert, we had not performed together. Moreover, to practise with the drumset, I had to book a time slot in the percussion room of KM. We would also need a sound system and microphones for all instruments and singers. Otherwise, the drums would drown out all other sounds. Finally, it was the last day of the deadline for sending auditions. After confirming with everyone involved, I booked a time slot for one hour in the percussion room. However, Shivam and Kavya came almost half an hour late. As we began, we were told that we had to vacate the room for an early Percussion class. I was utterly frustrated.
“Shivam, how will we be able to audition if we haven’t practised together even once?”
“Arey, Doctor! In the audition, you just have to send a song sample. You need not have every instrument and performer, sound system and all. Let’s meet at Venus’s room today evening and shoot the video for the audition. Your composition is good; it will definitely get selected.” assured Shivam.
The performance got selected in the audition just as Shivam had predicted. We had about a week to practice. I hoped that they would practise seriously, at least now. But still, I couldn’t get all the musicians together. If the tabla player was there, the drummer would not show up. If both guitarists came, Shivam wouldn’t show up. When all the musicians made it, Kavya couldn’t. We decided to chuck the drums and use the cajun, instead, for the western part. Finally, everyone assembled for a group practice, only the night before the performance.
“Doctor, this keyboard piece at the intro is not cutting it for me. Shall I improvise?” asked Shivam.
“The performance is tomorrow. Why didn’t you say something before? How can we change at the last moment ?”
“Doctor, don’t you trust me? I will play one for you right now.”
Shivam improvised on the spot, and it did not sound bad.
“Well, that is actually good, Shivam. But don’t change it every time. At least decide how many bars you are going to play. Probhash, you coordinate with him.”
“Rohan, did you learn the lead?”
“Doc, Probhash has got it.”
“But he is playing rhythm. You are the lead guitarist. It is a tough piece; that’s why I got you.”
“Doctor, I have been practising it for a month. Just listen to it once, na,” said Probhash.
He played the entire piece without any mistakes.
“So what will Rohan do?”
“I will play the chords and give fillers”, said Rohan.
“Doctor, you have worked a lot, but we have got it now. You relax.
Aap gaane pe dhyaan do na, hum kar lenge.”
(You concentrate on the vocals, we will manage).
“Dada, if your music is not set, shall I eat and come? I have been busy since the afternoon with rehearsals and had to skip my lunch. Bahut bhook lagi hai (I am starving)”, complained Kavya.
“Please, Kavya. Everyone is here. I will order something for you. Meanwhile, let’s just rehearse a couple of times”, I pleaded.
The following day, my wife came from Pondicherry for the performance. She was preparing for her UPSC mains at the time. All the musicians involved in my performance turned up on time which was a relief. The performance itself went rather well, in my opinion. We also got a good response from the audience.
“It was good, wasn’t it?” I asked Shivam later.
“Doc, my volume was too low at the start while playing the keyboard piece. I increased it later.”
“Oh! Was it so? I didn’t realize.”
“Sorry, doctor. I missed a few notes in the guitar lead”, said Probhash.
“Don’t worry, Probhash. It was a small blemish. No one realized it, I am sure. Kavya was pitch-perfect as always. Good work, guys. Pizza party from me next week. I got to go today as my wife is here.”
I have to admit that although these guys were young and lacked discipline, they had a great deal of stage experience compared to me. I was used to the performances in our college band (GMC Band), where we had to train people to sing in pitch, find chords for the guitarists, teach fillers and pieces to keyboardists at times. We had to resort to various tricks to increase the footfall for our performance. One of our most important strategies was to get a performer from every batch so that their batchmates would attend our concert. The guys at KM may have been erratic students, but they were seasoned musicians who did not need much practice.
The academic skills assignments made little sense at first, but eventually, we realized their importance. This time Smith divided us into groups of four and gave the theme for five different plays. Each group had to design a poster for the play assigned, and we had a zero budget. Vijaya and I again happened to be in the same group. The theme of our play was avarice. It was about a woman who swooned over riches and luxury rather than love. After much deliberation, we decided on the design of our poster. Vijaya hunched down on her knees. With the help of a rubber band, we stuck a 100 rupee note over her eyes to blindfold her. Venus and I stood in front of her, one of us holding out a rose while the other, a bundle of money, respectively. Although Vijaya found it a bit embarrassing, she was game enough. After taking a snap, we started discussing what to do with it.
“See, now we will have to use software to design it”, said Vijaya,
“Does anyone have adobe photoshop?”
“I have heard about it but never tried it”, I said.
“I will send this pic to Arvind. He will make the poster in no time.”
Vijaya’s boyfriend, Arvind, was into web designing.
“But aren’t we supposed to do it ourselves?”
“Doctor! It is not difficult, just time-consuming. You will be able to do it. The main thing is the idea, and we have come up with a great one. Nerdgiri chhod do na ek baar !
(Stop being a nerd for once).
So it was decided to send the photo to Arvind. The latter came up with a well-designed poster in about an hour which impressed everyone. Eventually, I did learn how to use adobe photoshop and design posters. But that is a story for another time.
To be continued….
Click here for concluding part (Part IX)
DR. VAIBHAV SABNIS 
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