Let there be Music All Around
-Ankur Anil Sharma
My first ever blog. And I must confess, In this very first line – I probably love writing more than I love music. You might feel, this is quite an ironic statement to come from a musician. But as a known lyricist once mentioned in a famous bollywood song – Jo bhi main, kehna chahoon, barbaad karein, alfaaz mere…. Hence…writing!
DISCIPLINE – I had read somewhere – Life is hard, make it harder, become a musician. A singer, songwriter and a live performer knows the exact emotions behind that statement. What the audience sees, is just the 2 hour glamour on stage, But the 6-8 hour gruelling behind the scenes leading upto that gig and after the gig has finished, is what comprises majority of the work. This fact is not unknown to many that discipline is the one of the most important facets of life. But often people shrug off this aspect believing this to be only applicable to our soldiers, protection forces or to people in similar professions. But as a performing artist, when you know that you need to give more than 100% in those 2 hours, the hours leading upto that double turn of the clock’s heavy hand need to be the epitome of discipline and strict regime. Unimpaired 7-8 hours of sleep the night before, drinking atleast 3-4 litres of water on the day, simple non-acidity infusing food, vocal warmups and Riyaaz, multiple jamming sessions with the band members, ascertaining your instrument is perfectly in order and in tune, dressing up to the occasion, ensuring leaving the house well before time to reach the venue hours in advance for the sound check, absolutely devoting major chunk of your energy in the soundcheck, coordinating with the venue manager and sound engineer to ensure the right gear is available (called the tech-rider) and after all this is solid – ensuring you give your everything on the stage! It is only possible with maintaining a regular DISCIPLINE about all the above mentioned aspects.
PATIENCE – Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. And yes – this happens more often than you think. Sometimes the gear is not in order, other days the sound engineer doesn’t turn up on time, your guitar strings break right before the first song of the gig, throat just gives up or simply – you forget to bring an important gear to the stage. But whatever happens, you need to keep patience and still deliver the show. Nothing stops me, And slowly with time, I have just imbibed this PATIENCE in other aspects of life.
SYNC WITH NATURE – Perhaps the biggest change that music brought about in my life, is the kind of harmony I developed with nature. The tendency to rush into everything has stopped, I pause often to observe the nature around me – the birds, the colour, the fragrances and the colour – and I often end up trying to sync my heartbeats with the aura of everything around me. And once this starts happening, you also observe many other subtle things in life – Like the care and attention you give to your house plants and they respond y outgrowing themselves, the clutter free and minimalist design you inculcate in your home, all this leads to your mind and body being perfectly in SYNC WITH NATURE around you.
APPRECIATIVE – The more you criticise, the more negativity you attract. You might not realise but this is a law of nature. As humans, we have a natural tendency of providing our share of criticism about everything, Over the years, my journey of music has helped me in becoming more appreciative about things, people, situations, food, art – I tend to always look for positive aspects in everything and have become more APPRECIATIVE as a person in general.
LOVE FOR TRAVEL – My love for music has also compelled me to travel to many beautiful places, some of which I probably would never even have dreamt of visiting if I were not a musician. I travel a lot and I have also written and composed a lot of songs on my love for travel – many of which are yet unreleased and I surely would complete those and release them in the near future describing my LOVE FOR TRAVEL. One of my favourite compositions is Door Kahin – which I had released bang in the middle of the pandemic in 2020 when we all were struggling to travel! Here is a lyrical video for the same.
While writing this, I realise there are so many other things that my music has helped me shape in my life, which I would plan to include as a part of some of my future blogs and posts. But for now, this is it from my first post. See you all soon again…!
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