Nothing Else Matters

My piano cover of Nothing Else Matters by Metallica. This version is heavily inspired from the performance of Saras Hostel in our inter hostel WM Group Competition in LitSoc 2009 (especially the interlude). Its on a KORG SP200 and the weird camera angle is because i wanted it closest to the amp. I have a made quite a few mistakes here and there, and need to improve my pedalling.

Year in Review - and Plans for the Future

As my first academic year in IITM nears the end, I have discovered that there are some things, which I would like to pursue for all my 4 years here (3 more). One important thing that you have to take care of if you want to make full use of your time here (apart from academics) is to prioritize. I and my friends have had a lot of discussions on this. You can’t keep on trying stuff till 4 years get over and there is nothing you have gained. I am of the view that all the trying should be restricted to a maximum of 1 year, and then you should prioritize, pick and practice (wow! I came up with a 3P prescription………make that 4P). I have made a list of 4 things that I am going to pursue over the next 4 years – music, football, quizzing, and LitSoc in general.
Till now, I have always played music alone, which is interesting, but not half as much as fun as when you play in a group. When you play solo, you don’t need to take care of coordination, volumes of each instrument, tuning, and other things, which are very crucial when you play in a band. It is also a lot of fun when you play in a band, the late night practices, grub sessions, and the general banter (in insti lingo- farting) in between practices. Here I discovered the joy of playing with other people, and I want to do that for the next 3 years also.
I think it was around class 11 when I gradually shifted from cricket to football. I do play cricket occasionally, but if you ask me to pick one of them, it will always be football. Even in my JEE days, I played casual football quite regularly. When I came here, I saw that I wasn’t very bad compared to others, so I started playing here too. I bought my first football boots after coming here (and have already worn out 2 pairs here). I got through the NSO selections (which by the way is a very big farce) and made it to the hostel team, which ensured that I played football almost every day. I plan to keep playing football till I can, and am going to try to get into the insti team next year, as I heard that both the left wingers are passing out this year.
Quizzing for me starts way back, in 3rd standard where I was gifted the whole set of Bournvita Quiz books by my parents. I was a big fan of the show when it used to be good (and when it used to be quiz, before it became a talent show) and it was like a religion – watching it on TV at 12 on a Sunday. Throughout my school days, I quizzed and enjoyed quizzing, and I carried that enthusiasm into college, and though the quizzing style here is very different from what we had in school, I still enjoy quizzing here. Recently I put up a quiz of 15 questions for the Quiz Club Meet, and my questions were appreciated (though almost all of them were very easily answered).
LitSoc – Here is one thing that I realized very late into my 2nd semester, quite recently. I had planned to pursue my other 3 interests even before coming here, but LitSoc is one thing that caught my attention and made me interested in it. For the uninitiated, LitSoc is the inter-hostel trophy for LITerary and SOCial events. Competition has always thrilled me, and I thrive on the competitive spirit, bordering on RGing (there simply is no non-insti lingo word for this, so please forgive me). So I thoroughly enjoyed the competition between different hostels, and was disappointed even more to lose it to a rival hostel (and later, even lost the 2nd position). I have decided that next year onwards, I will work towards getting the LitSoc trophy back to where it belongs (we have been winning it for 3 years, before this year).

Western Music videos

Here are the videos of our hostel band performance in the LitSoc (non insti people, read: Inter Hostel Literary and Cultural Competition held throughout the year) WM competition. We came 2nd, which is quite an achievement considering that we didn't have a drummer! For all those who laughed at us and said that we can't play WM without drums, in your face!




This is Lazarus by Porcupine Tree. TI on the bass, Sayash/Rubber Band on guitar, Sutta on tabla. Dandiya on vocals, and yours truly on the keys.








Pure Narcotic by Porcupine Tree. Same instrumentalists as the previous one.





This is Nightmare Cinema, and instrumental medley. TI shifted to his natural instrument, which is the keyboard, and, in insti lingo, "raped" it! This was the best of the lot.



The winning performance was by Saras, which was truly amazing and out of this world. Here is their own composition, called Hourglass.





This was also partly the reason for lack of posting in the last few days. All the LAN hours used to go in practice, and I used to return to my room at around 1-2, when LAN would have gone. Nevertheless, I learnt a lot from this experience. Till now, I had played only solo. I had never played as a part of a band before, and trust me; it is very different from playing alone. There is an enormous amount of co-ordination required, and dedication and practice. This year, TI played a big role in us winning the 2nd place, right from song selection, to the last song, which was practically assimilated from different sources by TI and Sayash. TI is passing out next year which will leave a staggeringly huge void in our music group. I hope we get some musically inclined freshies next year, and more importantly, I get the hang of band performances.

Superman

I'm more than a bird
I'm more than a plane
I'm more than some pretty face, beside a train
It's not easy, to be me.

Very meaningful lyrics, of a song called Superman, by Five For Fighting. I recently heard this song, because we were planning to play this for a competition, and the lyrics just touched me. The mind of Superman is very beautifully described here. We always think of him as a guy in red and blue who would just swoop down on (not always) damsels in distress and rescue them. That he might feel lonely when he is flying alone through the clouds(without Lois Lane, of course), may have never occurred to us. The song is also very soulful, with a nice blend of the piano and the guitar. Listen to this on good speakers, and it really soothes your mind. No wonder this song became very popular in the US, as a song for healing following 9/11. It's right up there on my list of soulful songs, along with Home by Michael Buble. Home was awesome because I was feeling a little homesick towards the end of first semester, and I chanced upon this song just about that time. I could totally relate to it. Not surprisingly, that song also has a lot of piano in the background.
I feel that the piano is the best instrument for songs that calm your mind down, followed by the saxophone. Somehow, I always relate violin to the peppy Balkan kind of tunes, which remind you of the Hungarian tap-dancing that we see in cartoons, or very melancholy Ilayaraja tunes, in which it almost sounds like the violin is crying. Acoustic guitars are also there, but they don't touch me as a piano or a sax piece does. You can call me biased, maybe because I play the piano, but then, its a matter of opinion, isn't it?



P.S. A Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. Hope that people like Ram Sena and MNS don't spoil your day. My day, was rather subdued, spent with David Griffiths trying to understand the intricacies of the Dirac Delta Function (rather unsuccessfully).