5000

Well I couldn't win it, but had gr8 fun in the live event.The occasion is that our Product Engg dept (PE) reached 5000 employees..I composed a song and made up a video which is played in the background of the stage..Theme -- Hero is the 5000th employee of PE and is surprised that his arrival has sparked all these celebrations and he thinks he is so special...But soon reality catches up with him and he gets to know the other not-so-pleasant things!

Not uploading it to youtube because of some company stuff in the video...Don't want to get mails from HR :) But friends can send me gmail ID and I can share a picasa link!

Sennheiser Headphones

Got new headphones this weekend...Sennheiser HD 180..Quite an upgrade from my ear phones with only the right one working :P
This has awesome noise reduction and bass clarity and the best part is I can connect it my amp, so no more noise of the Guitar outside.

RIP Jimi Hendrix

Remembering Jimi Hendrix on his 40th death anniversary. RIP Jimi Hendrix!



Had this plectrum since long time, but rarely used it...Already some of the markings got erased.

Some of my most fav Hendrix songs - All along the watchtower, Voodoo Chile, Little Wing, Purple Haze...

Into the finals

Made it to the finals of the Idol competitions at office! Best part - my fellow 'Tuning Folk' band mate Sarang is also through :)
Finals is on 22-Sep...hav to start thinking about what to play.

Idol Competitions!

Yeah....lots of Idol competitions these days at office :) One for our buildings, one for department...may be in the days to come.. a Company Idol! Great fun atmosphere in all them :) We have audience polls, judges opinions etc :)...but the good part is that the judges go easy on the contestants and not like the reality shows on TRP hungry TV channels :) We have loads of support and encouragement.



Couldn't participate in the first event, but played our own composition 'Search' at the prize distribution event...Tuning Folk was incomplete without our lead singer Srinath of course :) But me and Sarang managed the vocals somehow. Himesh played the bass. Sarang on vocals/rhythm Guitar and me on vocals and lead.

Today there was a department wide Idol competition...almost 50 contestants totally and as one can expect, more than half were singers....So I thought no point in singing as there are way better singers than me there.....I played an instrumental version of Muqabla song by A R Rahman! Had a drum machine in the processor, then added some whistles and distortion effects to the Guitar to make the whole song less boring/monotonous...Will try to upload the song into the blog.

Btw I also called up some of my friends for the votes he he :) And one of the judges was Sai, my batch mate/room mate from training days!

Tangos & Tabla

Flamenco Guitar and Tabla. Sarang on Tabla and me on the Guitar. This is from our practice sessions for an event at office. The Guitar is not that audible, but the Tabla is very gud. I was playing a Tangos which I heard in Juan Martin's Flamenco Lessons album.



Tangos is a rhythmic form in Flamenco(Spanish music). Tangos is a simpler rhythm, but there are many more forms of Flamenco rhythms which are much complex, some based on 12 beats like Bulerias, Solea etc. I am sure they sound great with a Tabla. Will try out more with Sarang.

Fender Stratocaster!

This is a pretty late update...a month late! My birthday gift from my wife is a Fender Stratocaster!! :) Well it wasn't a surprise on the birthday, coz I knew it a bit ahead. But it surely was a sweet surprise when I first knew that she was planning for it.



Fender Stratocasters are the most popular and the most copied style of electric Guitars. There are lots of versions in the Stratocaster family. The one I got is a Highway One Stratocaster. This is the starting level in the American made strats. This model is priced in between the Made in Mexico and American Standard models. This has 70s style headstock, bigger frets, alnico pickups, nitro cellulose finish, mapel neck...

The best part is the pickups and the tones. Even though I knew and heard lots of times, the feel I got when I played it is amazing! I played around all the 5 switch positions on and on. From the bluesy feel to the typical crunchy strat sound, each switch position offers a lot that you can experiment. Will record some stuff soon and post it.

Marshall Amplifier

Bought a new Marshall Amp for the Guitar yesterday :) Hurray!!
In fact I will be using it only for acoustic and classical for now...but will mainly use it for the electric Guitar which I am planning to buy some time soon. You know, buying stuff in installments helps!

This is Marshall MG15CD amp. It is a 15-watt amplifier. There are options for overdrive, bass, contour and treble..Played it a lot yesterday evening after buying it...Sounds wonderful :) We can also plug in laptop's output to it...so something for my wife too...she can hear her old Hindi songs :P...Probably otherwise she wouldn't hav let me buy!

Here's the pic....Time to Rock On!!

Some updates

Woah...just realized it has been too long since I stopped posting....My wedding, setting up new home in Bangalore, work as usual.....Lot of things put me busy...Once u stop for sometime, it is really hard to come back on track!...anyway finally I came out of that and decided to post..There were some things that happened on the music front after I am back to India. I didn't practice much as I wanted to...Have to put more hours into practice from now on. Some of the things which happened over the last few months:-

IODC Idol - The offshore Development Centre Idol. ha ha..On the lines of Indian Idol huh? :) Audience polls, Judges opinions...It had music, dance, mimicry, acting everything...there were prelims and then the finals...Played 'Aap ki Dua' with karthick for the prelims. Then came up with a medley for the finals. A medley of Mahaganapathim (Carnatic), Mundinam parthene (Tamil movie song), When you say nothing at all, a small Flamenco solo leading to Chura Liya (Hindi movie song) and ended with the song from Rock On - Na na na na na...Managed runners up in that! Nice fun. Like in Engg, we came up with this at the nick of the time. 1 day before the finals.
Me & Karthick here in red..before the finals...haven't got a pic of us playing :(



DISCO - a decade of partnership with our client...Managed to get some 5 mins slot there. Played 'But it rained' along with Sarang. Then we tried a fusion between Flamenco and Tabla! I played a Tangos piece and Sarang gave amazing Tabla to that.
This too was composed on Sunday, when the event was on Monday! But this time, I goofed up a bit in the solo. I couldnt hear the tabla properly and missed some beat and Sarang somehow managed, but any trained ear can make out that I goofed up there :D! Anyway the Convention Center was awesome and our CEO and the director from client company were there too.

@Convention Center


Band - Regular meetings on weekends. Jamming the compositions with Srinath, adding a few...In fact very slow progress, but fun for sure. So finally 2010 is the year we r playing live with Srinath and Sarang. Hope to post more updates on this in the coming days..

Jamming at my apt...



Excited for 2010 :)