Music has always been a central part of my life, so this article is going to about that. Before coming to IIT my knowledge of contemporary English songs was limited to some pop artists and a couple of boy bands whom I occasionally saw on Channel V and MTV. My parents had a good cassette tape collection of old school soft rock & roll which they had got from a colleague and I can't remember how many times I have listened to those songs. My knowledge of modern rock was pathetic ... led zeppelin to me was a very weird name since zeppelin certainly wasn't made of lead. My initiation into the world of modern rock began with Venky's Metallica noise pollution as I used to call his initial attempts at playing Metallica songs on his tape recorder / guitar (we are still in the pre LAN era now ... LAN happened in the second year). But as all of you know, those songs grow on you and even if you don't like them initially, you will eventually.
My musical journey began with my wing in first year, D-short which was home to people who did hear "English" music and helped me get initiated. Thanks to Zubin I got to hear the albums Bryan Adams -18 till I die and On a day like today. For all practical purposes I also owned his Metallica - Black Album since it never left my room. Pushan contributed Micheal learns to rock and the main-Walkman. Balaji pitched in Pearl Jam - Ten, and Metallica - Load. Venky apart from the many live performances was responsible for Metallica - Reload and Garage Inc. Suhas provided the backup-Walkman in case Pushan wanted to use his own and he also provided the rechargeable batteries.
This account of music would not be complete if I didn't mention about the many night outs spent on hostel event practices. First year was pretty crazy in that respect, just he sheer number of event taking place and the amount of practice that we all put it was arguably more than the amount of time I spent on academics. Those were fun times ... me, dipu, suhas, venky, pushkar, deba and others marooing a frustu fight over songs till early morning. Deba used to make us have 5-6 back to back practices ... it was gruelling. Some 4th year guy would see us practicing and take pity on us and buy paranthas from AIIMS for our midnight snack. The sad thing was that in spite of putting in so much hard work, we didn't win a single major event in our first year. Sometimes other hostels used to put up performances which were better than ours but I always felt that we atleast deserved 2nd or 3rd in many of those events ... but we never won any events, something that I still can't understand why. On the day of the last music event under Deba's rep-ship Deba was extremely frustrated for not having won after giving the best fucking performances of our lives. He gave the music team such a huge treat in KL that I didn't have much of an appetite for about 2 days after that. I can never forget how happy we were ... we were happier than the team which actually won and people who saw us in KL on that day thought that we had gone crazy. Maybe we had, but what do you expect from people who had just given the best musical performance of their lives ?!
Just like ragging brought all of the first year guys closer to one another, I believe that the failures in the music events brought all of us closer. When we practiced we knew that we were not doing it for winning, we were doing it because it was fun and because we enjoyed each others company. And that made all the difference. It made it worth to bust your balls in practice and yet not winning anything, 'coz as far as we were concerned we had already got what we could have gotten from the journey ... the view along the way.
The event which did get results for Kara for a long time though was the MM (Music Manoranjan) which was jointly organized by the Music Club and The Dance and Dramatics Club. Anybody who has ever been a part of the music team for an MM knows that it pure hell. You have no freaking control of the music since it is completely decided by people who write the scripts. Songs change within seconds and each one is in a different major/minor scale. This is because the people who sing aren't experts and have only a limited range and usually can't sing the song's original scale. Something similar also applies to instrumentalists, since they are usually comfortable only playing certain scales or key combinations. All these things meant that the instrumentalists (read guitarist and synth player) had to constantly keep changing the pitch/instrument settings every song and it all got very very confusing. Also since there were soooooooo many clips/sounds effects to prepare (typically about 30) the music team had to start early since the acting guys wanted real music when they practiced. But in spite of all this MM was one of the most fun events that I participated in IIT. Although sometimes bad luck would follow us there as well when some hostel would put in way too much pondy which would piss off the profs and they would scrap the whole event. Typical knee jerk prof. reaction.
I have been fortunate enough to see many of my friends transform from raw beginners to seasoned musicians. Atish became a singer, guitarist, tabla player, drummer and also played a bit of synth ... I have no idea how you did it dude! Suhas's "Every rose has its thorn" is nothing short of a legend now, but you have to hear it at 2am when Suhas is fully awake and you are very drowsy. Venky's performances in the final year were simply outstanding! Even Balaji had started making some headway with his guitar. My musical experience in the hostel was consummated on my final day at the hostel before I left for Madurai. It all started with us deciding to use a cheap headphone mic and record what we sing. We listened to it after a try and were amazed at the sound quality. Everyone felt incredibly stupid for not having thought of this earlier, but now we all had only one day (more precisely night) to record our songs. Time was precious and we were running out of it very very fast. We set about to record all the songs that we had performed together and which we actually remembered! We ended up recording many solo performances and some group performances with lots of cheering by junta from the wing and others. But the one for which we actually had to re-practice was a song that we had played in the second year , "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas. We didn't give your best performance that night but we recorded it and even now when I listen to it, I am transported back to that aakhri niteout. All the songs can be found here.
If there is one night that I really want to go back to in my iit days ... it has got to be that one.
My musical journey began with my wing in first year, D-short which was home to people who did hear "English" music and helped me get initiated. Thanks to Zubin I got to hear the albums Bryan Adams -18 till I die and On a day like today. For all practical purposes I also owned his Metallica - Black Album since it never left my room. Pushan contributed Micheal learns to rock and the main-Walkman. Balaji pitched in Pearl Jam - Ten, and Metallica - Load. Venky apart from the many live performances was responsible for Metallica - Reload and Garage Inc. Suhas provided the backup-Walkman in case Pushan wanted to use his own and he also provided the rechargeable batteries.
This account of music would not be complete if I didn't mention about the many night outs spent on hostel event practices. First year was pretty crazy in that respect, just he sheer number of event taking place and the amount of practice that we all put it was arguably more than the amount of time I spent on academics. Those were fun times ... me, dipu, suhas, venky, pushkar, deba and others marooing a frustu fight over songs till early morning. Deba used to make us have 5-6 back to back practices ... it was gruelling. Some 4th year guy would see us practicing and take pity on us and buy paranthas from AIIMS for our midnight snack. The sad thing was that in spite of putting in so much hard work, we didn't win a single major event in our first year. Sometimes other hostels used to put up performances which were better than ours but I always felt that we atleast deserved 2nd or 3rd in many of those events ... but we never won any events, something that I still can't understand why. On the day of the last music event under Deba's rep-ship Deba was extremely frustrated for not having won after giving the best fucking performances of our lives. He gave the music team such a huge treat in KL that I didn't have much of an appetite for about 2 days after that. I can never forget how happy we were ... we were happier than the team which actually won and people who saw us in KL on that day thought that we had gone crazy. Maybe we had, but what do you expect from people who had just given the best musical performance of their lives ?!
Just like ragging brought all of the first year guys closer to one another, I believe that the failures in the music events brought all of us closer. When we practiced we knew that we were not doing it for winning, we were doing it because it was fun and because we enjoyed each others company. And that made all the difference. It made it worth to bust your balls in practice and yet not winning anything, 'coz as far as we were concerned we had already got what we could have gotten from the journey ... the view along the way.
The event which did get results for Kara for a long time though was the MM (Music Manoranjan) which was jointly organized by the Music Club and The Dance and Dramatics Club. Anybody who has ever been a part of the music team for an MM knows that it pure hell. You have no freaking control of the music since it is completely decided by people who write the scripts. Songs change within seconds and each one is in a different major/minor scale. This is because the people who sing aren't experts and have only a limited range and usually can't sing the song's original scale. Something similar also applies to instrumentalists, since they are usually comfortable only playing certain scales or key combinations. All these things meant that the instrumentalists (read guitarist and synth player) had to constantly keep changing the pitch/instrument settings every song and it all got very very confusing. Also since there were soooooooo many clips/sounds effects to prepare (typically about 30) the music team had to start early since the acting guys wanted real music when they practiced. But in spite of all this MM was one of the most fun events that I participated in IIT. Although sometimes bad luck would follow us there as well when some hostel would put in way too much pondy which would piss off the profs and they would scrap the whole event. Typical knee jerk prof. reaction.
I have been fortunate enough to see many of my friends transform from raw beginners to seasoned musicians. Atish became a singer, guitarist, tabla player, drummer and also played a bit of synth ... I have no idea how you did it dude! Suhas's "Every rose has its thorn" is nothing short of a legend now, but you have to hear it at 2am when Suhas is fully awake and you are very drowsy. Venky's performances in the final year were simply outstanding! Even Balaji had started making some headway with his guitar. My musical experience in the hostel was consummated on my final day at the hostel before I left for Madurai. It all started with us deciding to use a cheap headphone mic and record what we sing. We listened to it after a try and were amazed at the sound quality. Everyone felt incredibly stupid for not having thought of this earlier, but now we all had only one day (more precisely night) to record our songs. Time was precious and we were running out of it very very fast. We set about to record all the songs that we had performed together and which we actually remembered! We ended up recording many solo performances and some group performances with lots of cheering by junta from the wing and others. But the one for which we actually had to re-practice was a song that we had played in the second year , "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas. We didn't give your best performance that night but we recorded it and even now when I listen to it, I am transported back to that aakhri niteout. All the songs can be found here.
If there is one night that I really want to go back to in my iit days ... it has got to be that one.
