Well apparently some of the blabber here is readable every now and then.
www.newaesthetic.in is an Indian-based portal showcasing international independent literature and writers. They published something I wrote here some time back.
Read it here:
http://newaesthetic.in/e-books/e-book-heartstrings.html
A few highlights of the evening.
I remember feeling proud of having put the alarm for 9 in the morning. And pissed that I woke up at 1030. Even more pissed that practising piano wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be.
My day pretty much started feeling like it had begun eventually with the elbow of a physiotherapist pressing down my back. The fact that I wanted him to press harder is only proof of how badly I needed it.
And I ran to the gym afterwards. And finally worked out again. After a month.
I’m a smoker. As the ones I’ve been smoking all evening have gone to show. Even after a workout. Ok I know worse…like that guy who always has a Lucy ready at his lips, waiting to be lit downstairs even while he’s checking out at the Gym reception. But that doesn’t make what I’m doing healthier does it?
Been productive though. I start recording my second album in June and finally finished recording guide vocals on the Pre-production tracks which we’ll go through (me an Christian Huber) tomorrow over coffee after the arrangement master-class.
Goodnight.
Is here. That was fast. So happy new year and all that.
I’ve been spending the last few days spending some serious time trying to be a better singer-songwriter. It started with the realization over the past couple of years that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself being someone who didn’t give it his best shot. Looking back upon a decade of making lots of different kinds of music I can’t help but think back to that last concert I’m going to play in my life and how I would like to see myself on that stage. It’s a very hypothetical situation, don’t worry, one I use more to clear my head up than anything else. Nevertheless, if I were told to play my last concert tonight, how would I like to be remembered?
I don’t know yet (phew!). I won’t lie. I don’t know yet. I DO know that if it doesn’t include me singing at a piano, I’ve kinda’ lost.
As a lot of you can imagine, this revelation shocked the shit out of me. Because I thought to myself ‘..well if it’s that important for you, you bloody well need to get a lot better at it than you are”.
It’s not so much about how ‘good’ I am at it than how hard I’ve tried. An attempt to look for an answer left me feeling somewhat small cos’ for all the time I spend ‘producing’ my songs, being good, as good as I want to be as a performing singer-songwriter is something I definitely haven’t spend enough time with. I mean I practise piano with a relatively clean conscience (a result of a pretty strenuous Piano-regime my teacher at college put me through, one which I’m very thankful for in the meanwhile). But being a pianist is not the same as a performing singer-songwriter. One who can go up on any stage at any time and ‘perform’ a song.
Duh. I know. I’m thick. But hey I’m working on it aren’t I.
So yeah. I’ve spent some time the last couple of weeks with my Stage-Piano and microphone hooked up to my laptop and been working on my small but steady solo singer-songwriter repertoire. Recording myself and trying to get better at it.
Rehearsing with oneself is a revealing experience. Specially if it’s documented on hard-disk. There’s no-where to run when you listen back to it. Every single note you hear on the tape is you.The act of recording as a performing artist and not a producer is also one I’ve had lesser experience with, I’ve learnt over the past few days. It’s different recording something with collecting sonic material in mind, arranging it and eventually singing on top, as recording a performance–live and real-time. I feel a little stupid at how much I’ve underestimated the amount of effort and dedication it takes to really be there and…..BE THERE. (errr….mind you I’m not referring to normal keyboard duties here….which is what I kinda make a living out of…)
If you read this on time, you’re invited cordially to watch the results of my efforts tomorrow at the Work In Progress Club a the Pop Akademie. Details on my website on ‘Dates’.
Goodnight.
Not just any concert but one I’ve pretty much been waiting all my life for.
Sounds so dramatic when I put it that way. Didn’t even realize it’s implications for me personally until a few days ago. I’ve been working towards this day from the moment I decided I wanted to be a musician. To play the release-concert of my first album. My album.
The environment surrounding it is one blessed with people who are showing the kind of support one learns to be grateful for though. It won’t be
T.L. Mazumdar performing on stage this Thursday in Freiburg. It’ll be a band called [T].
This band’s been through some ups-and-downs. But the past few days have surprised me with the birth of a brand new entity. Not a just a bunch of competent musicians playing together, but a band. A very young band. Still a little unsure where it’s going and who exactly it is, but a band nonetheless.
A band I’m still in charge of steering though.
I’m scared shit. I remember reading something to the effect of how people often forget how scary it can be standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking a dream you’ve been working towards all your life. You spent so much time getting there that when you’re there, waiting to take that last leap, you realise that the fear involved in this final step is one you weren’t really prepared for.
There are no short-cuts to learning to deal with first-timers.
None.
Goodnight.
Life’s being REALLY good to me. One day I get hugged by Bill Summers and the next day I get to hang out with grammy-award-winner Darcy Proper at one of the most famous studio complexes in the world.
Yeah.
Yeah!
And there I was standing in front of Bill Summers telling him stories about me and my music-brothers growing up in India making our weekly trip to the Sardarji’s CD shop awaiting our forged copy of jazz albums recorded on cassette. This was before the open economy in India, there were no CDS from the west on sale officially and the smuggled goods were too expensive for us. And I was a minor–so please don’t bust me.
Well anyway, so there I was telling him this story. Telling Bill Summers, founder member of the Headhunters about how I’d get hold of this music. And how I grew up on the Headhunters, my first access to it illegally recorded on tape.
And Bill Summers said, ‘Well, we’re gonna play together now man-it’s gonna be you and the Headhunters.’
Fuck.
And 15 minutes later I was playing ‘Chameleon’. With the Headhunters.
Fuck.
Bill Summers is DEFINITELY one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever been in the presence of. And I’m not just saying that because he hugged me tight and said ‘you play good man!’ afterwards. I’m saying it because I felt it. From that unexplicable place inside my belly.
(P.S. In case anyones wondering how I got to jam with the Headhunters, they did a workshop today at the Pop-Akademie.)
Had a good day. Played a lot of piano, accepted peoples compliments on how they liked it, got fed with gourmet tit-bits and even made a bit of a living doing all of this. Also got written to by a fantastic Bansuri player saying that the way I play Keytar captures some of the spirit of the Bansuri and that I sound like I want to play the former. A MAJOR compliment for me since her guru, Shri Hariprasad Chaurasia has been one of the biggest inspirations behind the way I play Keytar.
Uncool thing that happenned: I mistakenly deleted VERY important data on my laptop. The reason why I haven’t killed myself is because apparently I was sensible enough made back-up for most of it.
The title of this entry is such as a reference to issues adressed in the last entry. For those of who have followed, the second victim fell ill before stepping into my parlour last time. Nevertheless, we have destiny to deal with this thursday.
Enjoy your sunday.
Good Times.
I spent the last days out on something of a hunt for more people to contribute to the stuff I’m working on in the studio of late.
Tuesday saw me carpooling to Freiburg with my laptop and interface to Schröder’s pad. Click on his name to find out more about a very dear friend of mine and an important musical figure in my life.
Invigorated with the freedom bestowed upon me with the advent of Semester holidays a few weeks back, most of the nights which followed this much awaited event witnessed me nerding away again on my laptop making funny noises and trying very hard to find a way to make it sound like something some people might associate with the term ‘music’. Nerding can get lonely sometimes so (as mentioned in my last blog entry), I’m trying to involve more of us to make some collective Nerdimia. And my second victim (I knew there was a point to this story) was Schröder last tuesday in his vibey Practice-pad/Studio.
Only Schröder could’ve made some sort of sense out of what I’d requested him to play drums to in my e-mail a couple of days before, with an mp3 of the
‘composition’. Helpful tips like ‘please note that this is a song without a time-signature’ can only mean what you’re capable of understanding. And while doing a rough mixdown of the results this afternoon, I couldn’t help but think to myself ”….mother§$%&”.
Here’s a little memento of Schröder checking his headphones.
The Music-Business seminars I visited at the International Music College would keep telling me about what Bernd Heitzler calls ‘Half-Pizza’ deals. Well Schröder charged me a whole one plus an extra piece heavily criticized for it’s content of sardines on it. These were transacted on a bench in the middle of a field in the Black Forest where I was royally chauffered to after the session.
Ah the agonizingly stressful trials and tribulations of doing business.
Sarcasm apart, some things really are priceless. Even Mastercard wouldn’t get it for you.
(Thats me trying to say thanks.)
The next few days were spent in Freiburg trapping my next victim. He’s coming in tomorrow afternoon but more on that after the kill.
Watch this space.
And to find out more about Schröder (which is worth it’s time), visit here.
Goodnight.
What more can I say to that. Great day.
I’ve been working as an intern at a studio here in Mannheim owned by Gagey Mrozeck, Guitar-player/co-writer/co-producer for Herbert Grönemeyer, (something of an iconic figure in Germany’s pop-music history for those who aren’t familiar with the name). And I guess I kinda’ realised today what a privilege it is to be part of. The chance to just go into a studio and record anytime you want to within the four walls of a room with so much vibe and so much history inside it.
The recording world has changed drastically this past decade. Most of my recent studio-work has been in my bedroom. So being inside Gagey’s pad today was a reminder of how much things like a room that sounds good, a microphone and preamp that lies beyond the budget of a part-time producer like me, an array of wonderful guitar amps, a 60yr old guitar AND a really good guitar player can make to a composition.
I’ve started working on my second album (if you may) already and while my last one was one where I consciously wanted to play as much of everything myself as possible, I hope to go about this with a different concept. One which involves spontaneous and artistic presence/contribution from a wide array of various musicians, hopefully from different parts of the world as well. If today is anything to go by, it could only be a good idea.
My old buddy Micha-Schellhaas whom I’d studied with in Freiburg–a great guitar-player and musician now based in Amsterdam and refreshed with inspiration after his three-month road-trip in the USA did the six-string honours on a couple of compositions of mine I’m working on. My guru once told me that relationships based on music are pure relationships. Because they didn’t arise out of social norms or customs but out of communication on a more deeper level. Amen Guru. As is always is the case (as far as I can remember!) you were right again. They are.
It’s also interesting to observe ‘dedicated’, working musicians who you’ve always ‘clicked’ with over longer intervals of time. Specially if there have been gaps in between. You still hear that unique voice that had grabbed your attention in the first place, but with new vocabulary. New articulations. Growth.
Isn’t that just so cool?
G’nite.
www.micha-schellhaas.com
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