My experience with the recording of song!!!!!!

Dear Readers,

As the title of the blog indicates I am planning to share some of my memorable moments and experiences and I think I’ll begin with this particular experience which gave me an immense joy. Probably I’ll never be able to experience it again. Here it goes.

Every year Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) organizes Drama competition among all the employees of BMC. One of the entries for this year’s competition was KEM hospital. Since last three years I have come in contact with lots of people from KEM hospital (which is a topic for different article) and some of them have become very close friends. Among those, there are two very talented doctors Dr. Adwait Godse and Dr. Raghavendra Ramdasi (We call him Prasad). Adwait was playing an important character in this drama which was based on the concept of poetry therapy. Prasad, apart from being a neurosurgeon, is a very talented poet much like Kusumagraj and he composed a beautiful song for this drama specially. He had a tune in mind based on Rag Des and it was decided to record the song. Now the question arose about accompaniments and singer. One of KEM’s undergraduate students Siddhi was asked to sing and I was asked to accompany on Tabla. Prasad came to my house that evening. We fixed the tune, practiced it once and went to T9 studio, Mahim for recording the song around 7.30 pm.

My first reaction after entering the studio was, “Oh wow!!! We have entered a different world”. Before this I always wondered how the entire process worked out. This was a real chance to experience it first-hand. First the song was recorded in Prasad’s voice with Beats per Minute sounding like “Click” in the background. At that time I realized how difficult it was to sing in a fixed rhythm and trust me you can go wrong if you miss even half a bit. All the mistakes that we make while singing casually, without realizing, seemed to magnify in the studio. Anyways after 2 takes it was called “Ok”. Now it was my turn to play Tabla. So I entered the sound proof room where I was supposed to sit and arranged the Tabla. The studio engineer, Elton, instructed me as to how to proceed. I was supposed to play Tabla based on the earlier recorded track in Prasad’s voice along with Clicks. To my pleasant surprise it was “One take Ok”. Still to be on the safer side we recorded the Tabla again. Wow!!! What a great feeling it was. I simply cannot express that in words. One thing I never thought I’ll be able to do in my life was suddenly accomplished. Next day we recorded the actual song, this time in Siddhi’s voice. She finished the recording in like 15 minutes like a professional singer. Once this was done there were 3 layers of the sound track Siddhi’s vocal, my Tabla and background harmonium and tanpura. Elton mixed these 3 layers with the help of a software (which is apparently really expensive), adjusted the fine notes, added some reverb, basically optimized it and finally the song was ready to be used in the drama.

Me with the composer Dr. Raghavendra Ramdasi (Prasad). Photo credits: Dr. Adwait Godse

All in all, it was a really thrilling experience for me. It gave me a new insight into the world of recording and sound. And as the song was based on Indian Classical Music, for me, it was like icing on the cake!! I hope I get to attend and even play in some more recordings if time and luck permit!!! And let me say this, if you get such an opportunity don’t let it go!!!!

Mihir