Fusion Rush

FORMED TWENTY YEARS ago, the Indian band Advaita helped pave the way for a new Indian sound. They brought together the spirituality of Indian classical music and the energy of rock, pop and electronica. They thus helped create a soundscape that was both traditional and modern. Their debut album Grounded in Space (2009) was an apt example of a song that fuses rock with Hindustani classical music. When pianist, composer and producer Anirudh Varma, a pre-teen at that time, heard them for the first time, he was blown away. “The emotional energy it evoked in me was very strong,” says Varma, who had been training as a Western classical pianist since he was six. That was a turning point: Varma started listening to (and then training in) Indian music, a genre he had heard his cousins train in at his ancestral home in Allahabad when he was a child. “My Western classical teacher told me that my Indian classical training helps me emote as a pianist,” says Varma, who formed the Anirudh Varma Collective that he tours the world with, composing sounds that justify bringing together Indian and Western elements.

One could say sitarist, producer and composer Rishab Rikhiram Sharma had it preordained. Sharma is a fourth-gener­ation descendant of the Rikhiram family of classical instrument makers. And the last disciple of Pandit Ravi Shankar, who was 90 when 12-year-old Sharma started learning the sitar. Friends introduced him to EDM (Electronic Dance Music) and Hip-Hop, which he took to. “Classi­cal music is active listening because that is when you get the real ras of the music, the real pleasure,” says Sharma, who was also fiddling with plug-ins, flipping samples and making different kinds of beats since Class IX. Eventually, he won­dered, “how can I incorporate sitar into whatever I am making?” “You adapt to however music is made in the cultures around you. Then you put your person­ality into that music,” says Sharma, for whom the intersection between the East and West happened by combining the tunes of the sitar with the beat of drums.

Today, he is even putting ‘lo-fi sitar songs’ out into the world. A genre he fell in love with in 2014 because of its easy, laidback vibe. “At that time, everything was in your face but lo-fi was one genre that you could play in the background. It has a lot of space and a soothing beat, giving the sustain of the sitar space to shine,” says Sharma, whose melodic sitar renditions have catchy titles like ‘Text Me When You Reach’ and ‘WYD Tonight?’

Singer and composer Tanishque similarly brings together classical and folk. The music he makes with his band Pakshee, is a result of his twin interests: Indian classical music that he is known since he started singing in his school’s Hindustani choir when he was five, as well as Hip-Hop, which was a result of his love for basketball in school.

Tanishque’s parents enrolled him for vocal lessons in Delhi when he was a child. But a group class with a teacher playing harmonium-style keyboards did not engage him and he turned to karate (which is where he gets his self-discipline for riyaaz and routine). He remembers walking into his house at dusk after play­ing in the park in 2008. His father was listening to a cassette that used to come free with a packet of Tata Tea. The song playing on the stereo was Ustad Amir Khan’s ‘Aaj Gawat Man Mero’. And it was the first time Tanishque came to properly appreciate khayal and taan. Till date that is what he hopes to emulate when he sings.

While studying at Delhi’s Kirori Mal College, he became a metal vocalist. But it was when the college band, with Western instruments, arranged a song he had written, that he understood how the different elements worked. “It was like a masterclass. I could see why a bass was hitting a certain note, why a drum groove was less or more and the dynamics of songs,” says Tanishque. By the time he was in his third year in college, he had found the lineup for the band he plays with, Pakshee, with whom he has just released a single, ‘Vanam’. What helps in bringing any two different genres to­gether is picking the right people to work with. “Because people will bring their culture and influences, which will reflect in their music, and yours, eventually,” says Tanishque.

BENGALURU-BASED Aditi Ramesh has trained as a lawyer, but the similarities between jazz and Carnatic music prompted her to delve deeper into music. She had trained in Carnatic music as a teenager, besides picking up the Western classic piano at a young age. “What struck me was that the scales which form raagas were similar to jazz, and how the building blocks of notes and rhythm are similar. In fact, they are the same in any form of music,” says Ramesh, who put together Carnatic and jazz in her first body of work. The ethically correct way to do it is to pay due respect to all musical forms you are drawing inspiration from when you are creating music. “Just forcing Indian mu­sic in and doing a cut-paste job ‘since it is fusion music, there has to be some Indi­an elements’ won’t work. Think less with your mind and more with the heart, soul and intuition,” says Ramesh, who has now moved on from the Carnatic-jazz tag to making genre-fluid music, putting together the beat of one type of genre and a chord in a slightly different style. And not forcing Carnatic music into her jazz-inspired compositions. “You cannot force fusion music,” she says.

It is also crucial to ensure the musician understands the grammar and vocabulary of the musical genre they are presenting. They must also study the emotional and sonic quality, and technicalities, Varma says. “If I am doing a bandish in raag Shudh Kalyan, I need to know exactly what the movements in it are to construct an arrangement around it. The arrange­ment of instruments (and picking which instruments are needed) should be sketched around the composition and what that makes one feel. Do not tweak the composition to adapt an arrangement of sounds or instruments you have in mind,” he says adding, “If you cannot hear a Western section or English verse in a largely Indian classi­cal song, do not force one into the song. And vice-versa,” suggests Varma, who has discarded multiple tracks in the past because they just were not work­ing. “Either it works seamlessly or it does not. It takes time to find a good, unique arrangement but not at the cost of the composition vanishing,” he says. When a musician understands what a raag is trying to say, they will know that even though it is a romantic raag lyrically, it can have a darker arrange­ment of sounds as long as it makes the listener feel the right way. There is a dark side to romance as well!

Fusion as a term has gotten flak in the past because of the occasional mindless mixing and matching of genres, even though India can boast of fine examples from the past, such as tabla player Alla Rakha, Zakir Hussain’s father, and American drummer Buddy Rich, who released an entire album, ‘Rich à la Rakha’, in 1968. Pandit Ravi Shankar brought in the concepts of harmony and counterpoint into Indian music as he innovated with Western music in Indian scales and Indian raagas. Which is what inspired AR Rahman’s music too. “Today, I run away from the term because, especially for purists, it has be­come something they do not want to be associated with,” says Varma who terms his music ‘contemporary classical’.

“Today the lines between genres have blurred. Because you have the same set of 12 notes and 22 shrutis to compose songs in, irrespective of genre,” says Tanishque. His favourite new-age fusion? Spanish singer-songwriter Rosalía, who writes songs in Spanish, in flamenco style, but the melody is more pop than folk or flamenco.

“There is so much sampling and flipping of Indian samples and adding to rap songs that it is normal to have a mix of genres. It is essential too because that is how any genre strives to stay relevant. If a genre loses relevance, the music is pointless. Someone told me that if jazz would not exist, there would be no Indian classical music. If it were not for innovation, traditional Indian music would not have survived without the Muslim influence or Persian influence, without which we would not have had Bhairavi raag,” says Sharma, whose first half of any performance is traditional sitar renditions. The second half is more contemporary, and a reflection of his personality. “No one can question my classical playing abilities. Maximum, purists will say the first half is shorter as they are accustomed to three hour-long concerts,” says Sharma.

The flak still comes the way of musicians who dare to explore. Like when students ask their gurus to teach a bandish or raag in Anirudh Varma’s style, the old-school gurus often get offended. “Isn’t it a good thing if we are the starting point for many new listeners for Indian classical music? They still want to learn it the traditional way from their gurus, which should not be a problem,” says Varma, who got immense validation when the teaser of his song ‘Colours of Jhinjhoti’ with the Anirudh Varma Collective released and listeners were quick to ask—“What is this?” “Which was my exact reaction, when I first heard Advaita,” says Varma with a smile.

It is a joy that comes with responsibil­ity, these young musicians are realising. “I ask myself, ‘Will a 13-year-old kid who listens to Kanye West and Cardi B enjoy this—to know if it is relevant? And, is my guruji going to enjoy this—because it is musically good?’ If it is a yes to both, I put my music out,” says Sharma.

Aditi RameshAnirudh Varmaart and culturefusion musicIndian classical musicRishab Rikhiram SharmaTanishqueWestern model