"Realise who you are and what your niche is"

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1.Tell us more about your background and journey.

As far as I can remember, I have always been inclined towards one or the other form of art. I think around the age of 4-5, I was really fond of painting and sketching, and I would spend a lot of time doing that. Around the age of 6 or 7, I also developed love for music.

I used to watch my elder brother learn the keyboard and just listen to his class. After that I spent 2-4 hours with the keyboard everyday, trying to play the songs I loved, rhymes like Jingle Bells, Joy to the world, and some concert pieces like 'Fur Elise’.

I spent the next 5-6 years, enjoying every bit of leaning the keyboard, the chords and scales etc. It was a self-taught process through tech, books, and a lot of experimentation. Around 13 I really had an urge to learn guitar, so I saved every single rupee I found, and in a few months, I bought my first Guitar.

Again spent 5-7 hours a day in and after school, playing everything I loved. Formed a rock band in school, played my first show there, and I realized that this feeling is unexplainable. (Even though the performance was really bad haha)

2. When did you first decide you wanted to pursue music and how did you start?

After finishing school, I started my journey towards isolation, spirituality, and Indian classical music. After being a head-banging lead guitarist for the last few years in school, for business reasons, we moved houses and I was suddenly left with a void. That space really encouraged me to purse music as a career, explore my creative instincts and also the business aspects of the industry.

I remember listening to a few songs and pieces, and that got me into tears, and I realized, that Music is pure magic, it can do wonders in the world, and that there is nothing else that I want to do in this life.

I started learning Hindustani Classical Vocals from my Guru Maa, Smt. Karuna Bhaduri Ji, Western Classical Guitar from Late Mr. Jaspal Singh at the Delhi School of Music.

From waking up at 4am for riyaaz to finding myself producing music for a variety of clients, I went really deep into the whole music career thing.

For a few months, I also studied at A.R. Rahman’s KM Music Conservatory in Chennai,Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music and did my graduation in Hindustani Classical Vocals from Faculty of Music and Arts, University of Delhi.

It has been a beautiful journey, performing live with my band for the past 4 years, more than 300 shows in various countries.In 2019, with the grace of my spiritual guru Shri Chandra Swami Udasin ji, I was able to open my first professional recording studio called Dhvanyankan Studios in Gurugram.

Currently working with a lot of artists on their original music and covers, wedding filming clients and advertising agencies for their voice-over sessions and original music requirements.

3. Who is your favourite artist and why?

My favourites include A.R. Rahman, Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Gabriel Geszti, John Mayer. With A.R. Rahman sir, it is the spirituality and the emotion he’s able to deliver in his music that connects with me the most.

Hans Zimmer and John Williams are extremely successful oscar-winning film composers. Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter? (Need not say more haha)

Gabriel Geszti has been my teacher at Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music, again, it’s all the emotion in the compositions.

John Mayer is one of my favourite singer/ songwriters of all time. The freedom he has over his performance and expression in his playing is absolutely stunning!

4. Can you throw some light on opportunities one gets as a musician?

I think as a musician, the first and most important step is to realise who you are and what your niche is.

Once you know, if you are a singer or instrumentalist, you belong more on the stage or the studio, are you good with business, or teaching, or tech development, you open a whole world of opportunities for yourself.

You can be a live performer, or a playback singer.

- Countless venues have live music every evening.

- Every movie, short film, ad, tv series and any media we are watching requires voice-overs, playback songs.

A music professor or teacher or lecturer.

- If you are good at your skill and teaching, there’s always somebody who’s starting out, you can open your own institute, take home tuitions, start an academy and guide new musicians.

- There’s music therapy, music in psychology, music healing.

You could be a music composer and producer, audio engineer.

- Again, there are endless media companies looking for original composers, producers, audio engineers, with the internet, opportunities are only growing everyday.

- You could be a live audio engineer, or work for Audio related companies

You could be someone who knows how to sell music and own a record label. There are endless opportunities when you know exactly who you are and what your strengths are. That’s where your passion speaks and guides you.

5. Is format training required or can one train themselves purely on the basis of talent?

Learning under teachers, institutions, and mentors really saves you time, and teaches you musical communication but skill only develops with practice, so a teacher can only tell you what to do. Creativity can’t be taught.

I believe, with something like vocals, it’s a blessing, there are people who never had one lesson in their entire life and sound really professional. There are people who spend years and years working on their skill and finally master that. Though without a doubt, proper training can channel your time and efforts into the right direction and show you the way, it is certain that you'll have to travel it yourself.

6. What piece of advice would you like to give to future and aspiring artists?

I think every artist should spend time with themselves, figure out why they are doing this, what is it that they want from pursuing their art? Everybody is living a different life, so everybody has a different way of life.

I know people who are full-time musicians and are doing really well. I know people who are pursuing music as a side-hustle, because it can get really hard some times and there are so many people I’ve seen in the past 8-10 years who have just dropped the entire music as a career option (Which is not a bad thing always).

You need to be really humble with your lifestyle and decisions and have to plan out what exactly you want and how do you plan to get it. Like I said before, there are countless things you can do in the music industry.

So be Humble, Practice hard, Have a plan, and Enjoy your journey as it comes!

- Vardaan Chawla

Interview By - Haseeb Haroon