This is the first album I ever recorded. It was put together with a barebones setup and almost no knowledge of production and mostly intuition. Of course, since then I have tried to learn and improve on lots of aspects of my production and arrangements. But this album remains dear to me. Although there have been numerous ways I have imbibed music read on to know how this all started for me.
A step
Sometimes the journey has to begin with a single step. Music has always been part of my daily life in some way or another ever since I can remember. Whether it's listening to music or just noodling with an instrument. I have occupied myself with music in myriad moods and ways. But mostly as a means to let go , let the mind flow and let things happen.
I picked up the guitar as a grade requirement, an appendage to my usual 'education', rather than something that was a planned foray into the field. It was more of a compulsion, another grade to check off on the report card. It so happened, that of all the things that were on that report card, music was the a solid thing that stuck around with me. Not only that, it evolved and morphed and took many forms, growing with and around me and inside me. Over the course of time, it's an abstract compass which I use to navigate my life.
My beginnings in music were with cassettes and cassette players. I started listening to music in the 90's and I think it was in '96 I heard my first album. It was a collection of pop chart hits and it was called 'Now 4'. I remember some songs from that collection. I remember this, because, when I look back now after so many years, there were some iconic musicians featured there. These compilations had songs by Cher, Eagle Eye Cherry, Celine Dion, Elton John, U2 to name a few. I cannot say that I have been influenced by that music, but in many ways it lives inside my expressive voice. Also, I dare not say that I have listened to entire works of any of those artists. But I have heard them from time to time and have always liked the way it sounds and how it transports me back.
'Now X' series were probably in many ways the start of the playlist era. But long before then, I became obsessed with picking out the artists / bands that hooked me and I remember collecting more cassettes whenever I could, for whichever bands I would find, and I started diving deeper into their individual body of work. Some of the artists that I remember the most were Michael Learns to Rock, Bryan Adams and Michael Jackson.
At about the same time I was getting guitar lessons in school. My master and teacher back then was an old man whose name I have sadly forgotten. He saw great promise in me. He was a slide guitar player and he was well trained in Indian classical music. So, he tried his best to get me to listening and learning playing Indian scales and compositions. The acoustic guitar, however, is a western instrument and is not the best instrument for exploring the microtonal richness of Indian ragas. But it is possible, to a certain extent, as many players since have demonstrated. For me, of course, this was not the case.
My teacher tried to inculcate an attitude of practice and devoted study. I never really learnt any chords or any of the usual western guitar fretboard mechanics or techniques from him. I was a teenager and as any teenager exposed to western music would be, I was more inclined towards the 'intense' variety of guitar playing rather than learning the nuts and bolts of scales and the mechanics of music theory or its application into more 'sophisticated' playing. I was restless; driven by my blind passion for being good at the instrument 'immediately' rather than investing hours into the 'study' of music or getting the foundations right. To this day, I wonder, what difference it would have made if I had been more patient during those formative years. But, so it goes.
But alas, some things have not changed. Music was about experience for me, a break from the mundane monotony masquerade of life. And I did love the instrument, the guitar was a fascinating thing in my life, with the possibility of magic. I spent countless hours tinkering with it, training myself painstakingly in midst of study breaks to play chords, getting my fingers and technique stronger, playing along with my cassette player to all my favourite bands. It made me feel like I was part of a different and exciting world. And, I had to 'balance' my other life, as I do to this day. The part which keeps moving on and on, endlessly without respite, though school, high school and the trauma and tribulations of staying on top of the game of life, staying in tune with the changing world.
A road
It was probably around high school, that my guitar and my relentless music listening became an indispensable fixture in my life. It was always there, all the time, in the corner to retreat into, expand and contract into, blow up or shrink down, get wild and calm down to, it was magic.
I used its magic sparingly, afraid that it might run out someday, vanish entirely and leave me with the mundane cacophony of routine. It was my escape from the trials of education and adolescence. I taught myself new songs when I could but I soon figured out that I do not need to learn songs. I was not playing for anyone else and I realised that I probably never want to and never will. I was playing to keep myself immersed in music. That was the only return I needed. That was my only aim.
By then, around the 2000's, I was listening to the epic rock and roll bands, Guns and Roses, Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden, Extreme, Metallica, Van Halen, AC/ DC, Nirvana and that list is always incomplete. The best music for teenage angst and beyond. I had a few rock and roll metal-head friends who introduced me to Godsmack, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Rammstein and Slipknot. 90's was a great time for music, CD's were amazing with all the booklet cover art and liner notes with lyrics and the hifi sound systems were finally affordable I loved that sound. The compressed heavy harmonic saturated distorted sound of guitars. I was obsessed with it. This had a massive impact on my listening. I think till date I cannot understand how, and why, I gravitated to that music.
But at the time, life was a living hell. things were depressing at times. There was no way out of a really institutionalised way of thinking. There were first loves and broken relationships. Loss of friends and illusions and what not. a steady realisation that life was harder than I thought it was, and my childish bubble was peeled off. This music helped me stay focused, break through that dark stuff by making it fade, it helped me work hard, so that I could make it through with the others. Not that I was competitive and but it helped me stay in the game.
Also, as a guitarist, it was the perfect music to listen to at that time. It had mad riffs, crazy solos, loud , saturated and intense sound. The electric guitar sound was at its zenith. It kept my fascination for the instrument alive. With its variety and its power to blend and bend genres, the electric guitar is an amusingly versatile instrument. I was absolutely blown away by the virtuosity of some of the master players and the instrument itself. I wondered, often, and obsessively, how if I practice really hard I will play like them someday. So I decided to try and learn as much as I could. I never really had the training to become a 'technical' guitar player. But I put in hours and days of work, with whatever I knew, trying to be even a tenth, as good.
I listened to music to learn, I was never taught. I listened and played so much, but I was not too obsessed with perfection. I liked being the added member in the band as a play-along guitarist. That's how I learnt guitar.
A journey
Many years have since passed since those days, but I think I still use all that music, which I heard on tapes and CD's back then in what I make today. Of course, a million other influences would have been part of my playing since then. Also, learning from the few amazing people and talented musicians i've had the fortune of knowing. And till today, I am always the play-along guy, I never sound like anyone nor want to. I don't like covers and cover requests. I will play you the riff and we can jam for an hour on the vibe of the original riff, until we feel like stars.
Listening is your experience and mine, and thats why it can be different and still the same. When I play my guitar and I trust what I hear. It is a difficult and often an unforgiving road. Playing guitar has been a magical experience and it connects me to things otherwise out of reach. If what I make does the same for you, it's just confirmation that, I still have not lost my way.
If you would like to support my music here's a purchase link to this digital album.
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