A small crew, led by Carnatic rock musician Vasu Dixit, travelled the nation recording people and tribal musicians. The music — and the tales — are actually on-line
A small crew, led by Carnatic rock musician Vasu Dixit, travelled the nation recording people and tribal musicians. The music — and the tales — are actually on-line
The nation teems with musical varieties which can be but undiscovered by the plenty. Just ask folk-rock musician Vasu Dixit. Famous for his half in bands like Swarathma and Vasu Dixit Collective, he requested fellow musicians to introduce him to tribal music of their land — and realised he had opened the floodgates.
Now, Vasu’s documentary collection introduces the Internet to tribal and people music from Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Each musician coated within the PaDa Project, brings forth a brand new type of singing, or a lesser-known instrument, or one thing that’s completely distinctive to his or her village and tradition.
“In Shillong we went to a village whose people name their children based on a particular tune. They literally hum the tune to call their children. There is a word for this kind of nickname; it translates to ‘tune-name’,” says Vasu.
Mickma Tshering Lepcha from Sikkim in a nonetheless from the docuseries
The crew’s listing of such discoveries is lengthy. Vasu provides: “Mickma Tshering Lepcha from Sikkim was playing an instrument called tunbuk, which is like a dotara. In Manipur, singer Mangka Mayanglambam has a style that is more like storytelling, with conversation inbetween. That format is a part of her culture, but more than that, it is a style that she has personally developed. She says that even while she was learning, her teachers never wanted her to sing in an exact way: it is the norm that you add your own flavour.”
When custom itself insists on innovation, you understand you’ve gotten stumbled upon one thing distinctive. Vasu admits as a lot, and explains how, initially, he had by no means meant such a spree of discoveries.
“My initial idea was to cover eight to 10 artistes in Karnataka alone, because of my familiarity with the language and the music here. But I understand why the sponsors [Believe India and Ishtar Music, in partnership with Snehadhara Foundation] wanted a pan-India approach,” he says, including, “Once we decided that, I decided to go for Manipur and Meghalaya. Because when you say folk music, the image in most people’s minds is that of Rajasthan or Punjab. Not that I won’t cover those states too, but I wanted to start with something that has not been explored as much.”
Vivek Raina of Believe India reiterates as a lot, and states that the crew sees this challenge as a strategy to “use our marketing and digital expertise to facilitate these artistes in to come out in public and show their talent.” He believes there are some gaps out there, that they will fill on this approach.
Mangka Mayanglambam from Imphal in a nonetheless from the docuseries
The brass tacks
Hence, the primary set of PaDa Project releases focusses on Mohan Kumar from Karnataka, Sithirai Senana from Madurai, Mickma Tshering Lepcha from Sikkim, Dalrariti Kamaior from Shillong and Mangka Mayanglambam from Imphal. Vasu hopes to get journey and manufacturing for an additional set of episodes within the close to future, however he’s effectively conscious that the method is an arduous one.
“The idea of the project has been in my mind for four years. I’ve been talking to people I can collaborate with, and people who can fund or sponsor. When COVID hit, we couldn’t take the project ahead.”
But he acknowledges that the pressured break helped him in different methods: “It gave me time to start writing to people, approaching them more gradually. This was at the start of 2021, because I could hope that things would be better in about another year or so. I know these processes take time, and back in those months, people with funds were naturally more interested in giving it to COVID relief than to things like this.” And so he waited, and tried, and waited some extra. “I approached over 100 people before I got in touch with Believe India. Only after I had them on board did I start thinking of the places we could cover, based on the funds we had.”
Dalrariti Kamaior from Shillong in a nonetheless from the docuseries
Spreading phrase and wings
Once he had determined that, Vasu’s years-long musical friendship community helped. He explains: “When I had zeroed in on the North-East, I approached musicians I knew in Nagaland and Arunachal, Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya, to tell me about folk artistes in their State.”
He provides, “The final list was decided based on availability and the kind of music they showed. Every folk music has its uniqueness, so it’s not as if one is better than the other. It was more about the logistics, and about what I could bring in that was different.”
Sithirai Senana from Madurai in a nonetheless from the docuseries
What the 4 people-strong PaDa crew introduced in, was know-how. Episodes are tailor-made for listening, although the visible features are undeniably a powerful draw. They put out one episode per week, and three episodes per artiste: “first week only the documentary episode on YouTube; second week only the artiste’s songs on YouTube; third week, only the audio of the artiste’s song, as a single on OTT platforms like Spotify,” specifies Vasu, “That way, each artiste gets their space and time to reach out to the world.”
Tales of toil
The types and voices are all distinctive, and but, one thread is widespread all through. Vasu determined to focus on that facet — the truth that, it doesn’t matter what your neighborhood, tribe or society, you’ll sing about your every day life and the work that you simply do.
He elaborates, “Folk music — of any area — has completely different subsets and themes. I zeroed in on the theme of occupation. Folk songs are sometimes based mostly on work that individuals of the land do. For instance, take farmers: as they’re farming, they sing songs about it; as they’re ploughing, they sing songs about it; as they’re sowing seeds and saplings, they sing songs about it. Each occupation has its personal music related to it.
Mohan Kumar from Karnataka in a nonetheless from the docuseries
In Karnataka, it was the Kadagullas, they are shepherds. In Madurai, we coated jaggery making. In Manipur it was weaving, in Sikkim it was shamans, and in Shillong, in that exact village, individuals go to the forest to chop grass for brooms.”
Vasu provides slightly charming particulars of his personal, when want arises. For occasion, “In Manipur, we didn’t have songs directly about the act of weaving, but there were songs about the cotton flower. I also recorded the sound of their looms, to use as the rhythm in their songs,” he says. When it involves music, innovation is boundless.
Source: www.thehindu.com
