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 string songs - a chat with ehsaan noorani |
| saregamaremix - 07 june 2003 - saregamaremix.com |
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Ehsaan Noorani is the guitarist composer who is part of the Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy composing trio for Indian movies and part of the Instant Karma team which has produced the very successful Dance Masti series of modern cover versions of yesteryear hindi movie songs.
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can you provide a brief background of your family ? |
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My father, Late Dilawar Noorani, was an architect and designed what was probably one of the first sky scrapers in India. My mother, Minnat Noorani, is a housewife.I have 2 sisters.
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can you briefly describe about your childhood/growing up ? and looking back can you point to any incidents like participation in school level events, which link upto your current profession ? |
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I grew up in Bombay and my childhood exposure to music was what my dad listened to - Xavier Cugat , Paul Mauriat , Los Parguas etc. and what my mother listened to - hindi songs on the radio, hits of R.D. Burman , Shankar Jaikishen etc . There was no television at this time. As I got to my teens, my elder sister would bring home Beatles , Santana , Osibisa , Cat Stevens etc. . Essentially, I got exposed to the music of sixties and early seventies. In my ninth year at school, a guitar playing friend of mine Allan Sayani (s/o Hamid Sayani) played the changes of the Beatles song Here Comes the Sun . That was when I decided that guitar was the instrument for me. I took formal lessons while in school and joined my first band when I was in the 11th grade. In 1985 after completing my degree in commerce, I decided to study music and went to Los Angeles to study at the Musicians Institute.
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how supportive of your (interest in) music was your family ? |
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My paternal uncle was the one who suggested that I study music.
My maternal grandfather, who co-funded my Los Angeles trip, just said
"Make it work for you and do not treat this as just another thing" .
I remember those words always.
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how was your stay/study in Los Angeles ? |
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The year spent in LA was gorgeous ! I was in the middle of the music capital of the world among some of the hottest musicians. We had a visiting faculty that included some of the greats like Joe Pass, Robben Ford (my favorite), Larry Carlton and many other musicians. At the end of my stint, I was a more accomplished all-round musician, though I concentrated a lot on my blues guitar playing . The school encouraged you to zero in on to the style that was for you and I realized that blues was the way for me. Meanwhile, I did gain a lot of academic knowledge about other styles of music, which immensely enhanced my song writing abilities.
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with primary interest in guitar and blues, how would you rate your exposure/inclinations towards hindustani or carnatic music ? |
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Well, my only exposure to Indian music was the film music that I heard as a kid.
Though Carnatic and Hindustani music does interest me, it is a completely different
discipline and attempting that bag would be a different story. But, yes, I do have some
knowledge of scales and can adapt some of those for songwriting.
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other than the guitar, what are your other favorite musical instruments ? |
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I love synthesizers and samplers !! I love Arabic plucked instruments like the saz and oud.
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who/what are your musical influences ? |
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I love the blues !! I love blues , jazz and fusion guitarists. I like a lot of the earlier
metal like Judas Priest , UFO etc. I also like some of the newer bands like
Radiohead , REM , Pearl Jam , Offspring etc. I listen to a lot of techno and lounge.
BT is one of my favorites. I love film soundtracks too !! John Williams, Vangelis, Michael Kamen
are among my favorites. I have a large collection of world music too. I love Sting, Peter Gabriel, Seal, Go West,
AfroCelts. There are just too many names to mention. Of what is happening in India, I think AR Rahman is brilliant !!
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which composers did you play music for in your time as a sessions musician/freelance guitarist ? any interesting incident from those times ? |
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I played guitar for Ronnie Desai, Shiv Mathur, P.P. Vaidyanathan and Ashok Patki.
I played with Louis Banks for a year and that was a period of learning for me.
I have played a few songs for Laxmikant Pyarelal, Kalyanji Anandji and Viju Shah
I remember the first Hindi jingle I played for. It was for the very respected composer in the advertising scene, P.P. Vaidyanathan. The commercial was for Aspro and it was the typical before taking Aspro and after taking Aspro kind of commercial. The chart handed to me required me to play 4 bars of a guitar solo on the scene where the man plays with his family after his headache had gone. I, being a good rock musician, stepped on the distortion and started playing a rock solo !! The composer, arranger and film-maker almost had cardiac arrests !! They were looking for a romantic friendly melodic guitar piece !! They said that the guitar solo would increase a head ache. That was so funny !!
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how were your jingle making days ? do you prefer them to your current days in making music for movies? |
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Loy (Mendonsa) and I still do a lot of jingles.
Jingles and Film music are completely different disciplines, but both are fun .
Jingles taught me a lot about detailing and styles of music.
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There are quite a few conflicting reports as to who DUS was offered to and how the Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy trio came to be formed. can you clarify/elaborate ? |
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DUS was offered to me first and I thought that having Shankar on board would be great
due to his strong Indian music roots, having known him from his pre-Breathless days. In fact,
Shankar sang his first jingle for me. As Loy was in any case going to be programming
and co�producing the music with us, it was good to cut him in on his share of the credit.
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| there have been no reported clashes of ego and things have been smooth with Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy , despite admittedly a chaotic process of creation. is there any single person responsible for the quality of the output ? what is the typical division of work ? |
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Well, everyone does everything. All the three of compose,arrange and produce the song.
Everyone has his inputs and we all contribute to the song. All arguments are towards
better creativity and songs.
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| Why is it that Farhad, Ehsaan and Loy are Instant Karma, but when Shankar is in the picture only the first names are used? |
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The two projects are completely different. Shankar sings songs on a freelance basis for Instant Karma.
We couldn�t possibly call Instant Karma, Farhad-Ehsaan-Loy as the name is more marketable.
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| you have mentioned before that you have tremendous respect for A.R.Rahman because of his compositions. Would you like to elaborate ? |
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We have known Rahman from his jingle composition days. He did great stuff back then too. He
has single handedly changed the face of Indian Film Music. He is a great musician and a
great composer.
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| How different is a re-mix from a cover version from a musical and legal perspective ? |
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A cover version is an entire recreation of the song maintaining the same melody but not
necessarily the same singer and/or arrangements. A remix is what DJs do, typically taking
existing songs and making them more danceable. The original track or voice is taken and a
loop is flown below it and the track is sped up or slowed down to make it more club and
disco friendly. My legal knowledge is very bad, so that is best left to record companies
to decide, with respect to copyrights, obtaining permissions etc.
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| what has been your most satisfactory project, so far ? do you like the challenge of time-bound movie projects or relatively slower paced album projects ? |
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All our projects have been fun right from DUS. DUS is special for us because it was
our first job and it brought us on the scene.
DIL CHAHTA HAI set the ball rolling for our careers and it was a lovely experience creating the music for the film.
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| laypersons relax to music. what does a musician like you do ? what are your other hobbies ? |
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I watch films, read, research World War II and the holocaust. I also
like spending time in practising guitar.
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| what is ur view on audio piracy and MP3 of complete songs being hosted for free downloads ? how has it affected the (movie) music industry ? do you think movie/music industry is doing enough with attempts like copy protected CD (for Jogger's Park soundtrack and the like)? |
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Piracy is a big NO NO ! It is affecting the industry adversely. Fighting piracy
is going to be a very uphill task and I hope we are successful in combating it.
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| any message to your fans, fans of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Instant Karma? |
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Hopefully, we will keep pleasing you !!
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