silkenSounds

Track: Cloud Number Nine
Original Artist: Bryan Adams
Album: On A Day Like Today [1998]

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I have always wanted to attend live shows of my favorite musicians but sadly that has mostly been a wish so far. The only one live show I did attend is that of Bryan Adams when he was in Pune in the year 2011. I cannot put the experience into words! Every song he sang was .. was .. I don’t know what to say .. divine! His songs have always been a source of peace in times of great stress. The melody and orchestration of some tracks like brothers under the sun are even a source of deep contemplation. Back when I was learning how to play a guitar, my teacher – Jatin – used to play summer of 69 and I used to feel exasperated at the rate at which I was learning and it always fueled me to learn faster! Of course when I did finally learn to play the signature D-major riff, it was worth all the practice and patience! I will never be able to thank Jatin enough for teaching me the greatest art of life – music!

But this post here is about cloud number nine – one of the most tranquil songs I have ever tried to remake. The rhythm, tempo and mood of this song is somewhat comparable to der lagi lekin from Zindagi Naa Milegi Dobara – another calm and soothing melody. Unfortunately back when I made der lagi lekin, I had not yet found the use of the sound of guitars in FL studio. For cloud number nine however I have used guitars extensively. You may have noticed a pattern in the past few songs I have uploaded. I begin with a point of view of making a very subtle version of the song so it all begins with just guitars and a piano and a few shakers. But halfway through the song I am not able to resist the temptation to add in beats. So there are 2 parts to a song – the subtle start and an upbeat end. I’ll have to stop doing that before it becomes too clichéd!

When I was making the track I realized that it is fortunate that my blog is about instrumental songs and I don’t have to actually sing – because reason number one – you seriously don’t want to hear me sing (yes its that bad!) – and reason number two – come on .. it’s a Bryan Adams song and it sounds nice only in his own husky voice. So thank your stars that you’re not listening to me singing and .. enjoy the track! 🙂

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“Shaam” from the movie Aisha is a kind of song that represents the feelings of relaxation and tranquility associated with the evening – a time when you want to de-stress after a day long overuse of all your senses. The song is composed by Amit Trivedi. I love this guys compositions. He has composed for movies like Queen, English Vinglish, Lootera to name a few. All these albums have beautiful songs.

The choice of instruments for such a song as ‘sham’ obviously would have to compliment the mood of the song. Being a guitarist myself, I guess it becomes impossible for me to resist the temptation to use a guitar, but the main attraction of this track is the saxophone. The soft reverberating sound of a sax soothes your senses and feels like velvet to the ear! Since we’re talking about Saxophones, I would like to mention the name of Manohari Singh or more affectionately known as Manohari-da. Manohari-da played many instruments like the English key flute, mandolin, clarinet, but he is best remembered for playing the saxophone. Through his career he was mostly associated with S. D. Burman and R. D. Burman, so every time you hear a saxophone piece in an SD or an RD song, remember Manohari-da. Among the many songs for which he has played saxophone, my favorite is the S. D. Burman song “Gaata rahe mera dil” from the movie Guide.

It is a well known fact that it takes considerable skill and technique to be able to play a sax effectively. You have to have strong blowing capacity to be able to produce a consistent note on a sax. I am very lucky to have been able to attend a live performance in Pune in which Manohari-da was one of the musicians. He was nearly 75 years of age at the time, and yet inspite of his age, he was able to play the sax with great vigour!

The sax I’ve used in this track sounds nowhere even close to how Manohari-da’s sax did, but I would like to dedicate this track to him.

So, a couple of guitars and a sax pretty much sums up the whole ensemble. A maracas here and there to add some rhythm.

So hit the play button, let the music do its thing and let the evening flow away into eternal bliss. To quote the poet in the song.. “shaam bhi koi .. jaise hai nadi .. leher leher jaise beh rahi hai .. !”

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Hit the play button to play the song..

The mind craves for variety. Those creative among us always keep an eye out for something unusual, something offbeat, something out of the ordinary. After all .. isn’t variety the spice of life? There are songs we’ve heard a thousand times on the radio.. in clubs.. on the TV.. and yet someday somewhere you come across the same song presented in a different style .. quite different from the one your ears are used to and yet you like it. Or maybe you like it because it is different. Whichever way .. now every time you hear the original song you are reminded of the one time you heard it in a different style. Probably that’s the theory the whole ‘remix’ industry works and thrives on.

But every time you want to ‘remix’ a song you don’t just push in banging beats and techy electronic sounds and heavily processed vocals. Sometimes the purpose can be just be a plain and simple presentation of songs without much chaos – an ‘unplugged’ version if you will.. that’s what I set out to do with this song.

A couple of guitars, the lovely shakers and the bongos. Just the right ingredients for a song like ‘bailamos’. The only processed sound in the whole song is the electric guitar used for the little music piece towards the end. Everything else is acoustics. There’s something about acoustic instruments that the ears love! Even a very average performance of a song on an acoustic instrument sounds very nice.

So with the onset of monsoons while you enjoy the sound of the rain falling on your windows, I hope this humble presentation of mine will also be a pleasure to your ears and be a happy companion on a rainy afternoon!

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Hit the play button to play the song ..

Right-click and select “Save link as” to download the file

First off, I would like to wish my listeners a very Happy Diwali ! May this festival of lights enlighten your lives with happiness and prosperity. With the wishes, I would also like appeal to the environmentalist in you to be very.. very careful with yourself and the environment this festive season. Noisy fire crackers are not always on the only way to celebrate Diwali – you can always choose to eat your way to happiness 🙂  .. A little awareness on our part can help prevent noise and air pollution.

Getting back to music (which can be another way you can enjoy a festival!) .. presenting next on silkenSounds, my favorite track from the movie Paathshaala – “Aye Khuda”, originally sung by Salim Merchant and composed by Hanif Shaikh. Guitar is an inseparable part of the original track. That remains so in my version of the song too. However, I have tried the traditional matka sound for the beats for the first half of the song and the other half goes with rock drums. So one half of the song has a slow sluggish tempo which becomes peppier with the drums. As I have said so many times before, I love variations in rhythms. Same rhythm through and through makes a song sound mundane. Variation makes it seem livelier. Just like life!

Let me wrap this up and leave you to your music and your festivities. Once again .. Have a Safe and Happy Diwali everyone! Enjoy the music!

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It’s been over 3 years since I started this blog and uploaded my first song. Today, 29 songs past, every song, every beat, every chord, every note continues to inspire me to keep pushing my understanding of music and try and better myself every time. Over these years I have experimented with many sounds, softwares, instruments and recording techniques and my listeners have been patient enough not just to give an ear to my experiments but even appreciate my efforts in person, by mails, on phone, via comments or on Facebook.

In continuation to my efforts to create melodies in my own style, I present the 30^th track on my blog..

“purani jeans” ..

I’d be gone a long distance before I meet anyone who doesn’t know or like this song. We all have a nostalgic shade to our personality.  Maybe more, maybe less, but it is there for sure. Sometimes when you slop down, tired of the everyday grind of life, you go back in time and remember the days when you had no care in this world. When day meant fun and night meant peaceful sleep. When money was only needed for a treat with friends and failing exams was the only greatest fear – something that seems so stupid now! How one day a friend of yours brought his guitar to college and you were surprised to know he could play it quite well.. and he sang this song with everyone else singing in chorus – probably in an empty class or the college canteen or parking…

This song is dedicated to all those moments, which may be well in the past now, but are still very much alive in our memories. Your present is something you have to work on, the future is something you can never be sure of, but these sweet memories are a thing of your past – something that always will continue to make you smile even in the darkest trials of your life and will help you rise with a smile on your face and happiness in your heart.

Everyone who knows this song subconsciously associates it with a guitar. The acoustic guitar. So naturally that’s the greatest punch of this song. There are 3 kinds of guitars I have used. An acoustic guitar for the riff, strum and lead, an electric guitar for the signature music piece that repeats through the song and a base guitar for base. The rock drums complete the ensemble. This is the first song on my blog for which I have not used any rhythm pad or synth – just the guitars. I have been experimenting with guitar sounds and recordings for a long time now, and I wanted to find a song in which I’d be able to use all that I have learnt on guitars. What better song than this!

So with the hope that this song refreshes your memories, reminds you of your happier and easier days .. your friends, your “purani” jeans and your guitar .. and while doing so brings a smile to your face .. here’s presenting .. “purani jeans” ..

happy listening my friends!

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They say that with every incarnation, the soul gets older and wiser. Older the soul gets, greater are the talents possessed by it. There are people who are extremely talented at multiple skills, not just one. It makes you think “when the hell did they get the time to hone all these skills while others strive to get better at one or maybe two”. Now, I know that souls and incarnations have always been subjects of debate and not all my readers are believers in the theory. Neither am I. Well, not a staunch one anyway. But why are we suddenly talking about incarnations and old souls on a music blog? Well, as I said, when I see multi-talented artists around me, I wonder how it must feel to be like them.

Last weekend we went to see Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. I was so engrossed in Farhan Akhtar’s acting that I forgot for a moment that he was Farhan and not Milkha! As we were walking out of the cinema hall, I couldn’t help but marvel at all the skills he possesses and makes me think maybe he is one of those ‘old souls’. So many talents come so effortlessly to him. A prolific actor, director, singer, musician, poet, writer, live performer, social activist and an intellectual human being. Ever since his first big bang acting performance in Rock On!! I’ve been a die-hard Farhan fan. I am enthralled by his simplistic nature, high thinking and commitment. I wish I get to meet him some day!

The song that’s up on silkenSounds this time is in celebration of his natural endowments. Karthik Calling Karthik did not turn out to be that much of a commercial success but then I believe commercial success has never been his work’s focal point. I was .. sorry am .. one of the many admirers of his double-faceted performance in this movie, and this track here is my favorite among all the other songs of KCK. Shankar -Ehsaan-Loy and Farhan Akhtar have become a hit pair like Raj Kapoor and Shankar-Jaikishan or Rajesh Khanna and R. D. Burman.

Deviating a little from the original and brilliantly composed track by S-E-L, I have used traditional rock drums in the song; I wanted to make the song a little more lively since it is an instrumental. Just about everything else is the same, but I do hope my listeners enjoy the little change. I love playing this one while driving – especially on a rainy Saturday afternoon 🙂

Hit play, sit back and let the music take control!

.. and yes .. hail Farhan!! 🙂

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There were two distinct kinds of songs that Jeetendra is remembered for. One is the peppy and upbeat songs from movies like Tohfa.. Mawaali.. Himmatwala .. most of which were remakes of hit South Indian flicks. These were the songs that won him the title of the “Jumping Jack”. While on one side the Jumping Jack was seen dancing and frolicking with his ladies, there is another genre of songs that he featured in.. The ones in which he portrays a subtle subdued side of his acting in songs like “Oh Maajhi Re” or “Naam Gum Jaayega” or the song I chose for my blog .. “Musaafir Hoon Yaaron”.

Written by Gulzaar, the music for this amazingly soothing song comes from the maestro – R. D. Burman – or just simply ‘Pancham’ and with the restful comforting voice of Kishorda – who sings it so effortlessly that one feels immediately connected to it. The magic of Kishorda’s voice makes every song seem so simple, but only when you try to sing it yourself do you realize how demanding it is!

This is one of those songs that are composed keeping in mind how they are to be shot. The rhythm of the songs is very close to the clippity-clop sound that the horse makes. Owing to this specialty of the song, I thought of opening the song with the sound of a traditional taanga. (I picked up the piece of taanga sound from some instrumental track whose original composer I am not aware of, so sadly I cannot mention that person here to give due credit.)

I like to think of my version of song to be a dedication to all the great talented artists associated with this song.. Pancham, Kishorda, Gulzar and yes .. the versatile Jeetendra.

When I began with the song, I built a fast trance-like beat. Although it sounded good, I felt the song demanded a slower moving rhythm. Finally I found a place for both the rhythms: used the fast rhythm just for the stanzas – to give the song an intermittent momentum – and the slow rhythm for the rest of the song.

So.. let’s hit the play button and immerse ourselves in the sweet melody .. and try and understand the perspective that the song presents .. we are all just travelers who are expected to keep walking the walk of life!

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I am a diehard fan of S. D. Burman’s music. His music was years ahead of anyone else in that era. And it would only be a fool who’d say Kishor Kumar was just a mediocre singer. Not even his own son Amit Kumar was ever able to recreate the magic that Kishorda did. And you can imagine the magic that’d be created when S. D. and Kishorda were bought together. It was like bringing two of the best in class phenomenons together – and the result was this track.

I remember when I heard this song for the first time, it’s versatility, I felt, was the strongest feature. There have been so many remixes of this song since then and in each one of them the song conveys the same naughty-jolly-funny feeling that Kishorda spun into the original version.

Last weekend, me and my wife went to see “Listen Amaya”. A movie featuring Farookh Shaikh, Deepti Naval  and some other newbie actress. Needless to say, it was a beautiful movie, thanks to the versatile romantic pair of Chashme Baddoor. This movie also featured a remix of the song “ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si”. And it was not just a vulgar remix with weird beats and funky techno sounds – it was a proper rock rendition of the song and was very close to the original version save the strong drum beats.

I guess I subconsciously knew which song was going up on my blog the moment I heard this one! So I need not say that this one here, is an instrumental rock version of the immortal song from “Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi”.

It has been a long time since I uploaded anything on my blog. During this time I did quite a bit of research with sounds and drum kits. I came across a plugin that gave neat, crisp and clean sounds of a drum kit – so I roped that one in to make this track. The fills and variations of the drums are very much real and sound as if they have been played on actual drums.

I am glad I am making a comeback after a long time with a song like this. I am completely satisfied with the way it has turned out. The only hope is, you like it as much as I do.

So with a humble bow to the composer of the song – the music maestro S. D. Burman and the immortal Kishorda who sung it like no one else could have (and acted it out too!) .. I give you .. “ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si”

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Maybe it was the soft melody, or maybe the soft sluggish rhythm or the serene lyrics. Whatever it was, this song made an impact the moment I heard it for the first time. You’ll agree that the song is quite similar in mood and rhythm to “Yeh tumhari meri baatein” from Rock On. Then why choose this particular song to make an instrumental? Well because the song from Rock On is about communication – verbal or nonverbal – between two people. It takes two to complete the equation of that song.  What if you are alone, by choice or chance? That’s where this song comes in. It is just about you. You alone. About your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences, memories and dreams. I do not wish to convey that “Yeh tumhari meri baatein” is in anyway less sincere a song. Never. It is one of the loveliest compositions ever. But “Khwabon ke parindey” – for me – is about my space in life and what I want to do in it. It could only be Javed saab who could weave the feeling into words so well. And ofcourse S-E-L – the music maestros!

I have often felt I wanted to get away from everybody around and just be with myself. Immerse myself into my own thoughts and my own private world of fantasies and dreams. It is out of these that I get the inspiration to wake up every day and work hard to turn them into reality! Hopes and dreams – the two things that drive this world! And then along comes a song like this to put music into our realities!

This is the first time I am making a second song from the same movie – “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara”. The first one I made was “Der lagi lekin” – to which many of my friends gave me positive responses, some on Facebook and some actually called me and appreciated the track. To tell the truth I feel very humbled and honored when people give time to these tracks and actually like them. Makes me feel I’ve been a small part of their busy lives, that I touched their hearts in my own little way. It is my drive to keep getting better at whatever little I am doing in this vast ocean of music.

When making the track, I was confused about the use of the bass. I had narrowed down to two bass sounds – but I liked both so much that I decided to use both. So from the beginning of the song to the part where the beats begin, there’s plain bass and a granular boxy bass after that. The beats are different from those in the original song but I wanted to change something in my track and the beats were one of the things I was able to replace without altering the effectuality of the song. The guitar riff you hear in the beginning has been played and recorded on my own guitar because I was not able find a suiting sound in the software – so I had to use something authentic. Turned out quite well!

As always, I hope you have as much fun listening to it as I did making it. I say making it, not creating it. The credit of having created this and every other song on my blog goes to those who are way more gifted than I am!

… and yes .. do take some time off for yourself occasionally. Even an engine needs an overhaul every now and then. We are still humans!