MY HIDDEN PASSION FOR MUSIC

Born in India just before Independence, it was post WW II recession globally and was a period in the 20th Century when the norm was for the father to work and bring the bacon home and mothers played hose wife and stayed at home and nurtured children and plenty of them. We were seven children me with six sisters, Mum, my grandma and my last aunt. My Dad was earning just enough to make ends meet. God alone knows how he and mum managed finances, considering modern day struggles with just one or two children.

My Dad often told us he did not have any wealth to give to his children but ensured he gave us all good education so we could all stand on our own feet.

We did just that and came out with flying colours.
Three doctors, One Professor of Zoology, me the Engineer and the Youngest an Architect.

My Dad would have been extremely proud of our achievements, with each one of us excelling in our chosen fields except he died young at age 63 and four of us, the young ones were still studying.

In other words my family was not affluent enough to encourage music dance sport etc etc.

Having said that my Dad had a great voice and have heard him sing occasionally as he was self conscious.

My mother on the other hand was gifted and a true inspiration. Born and brought up in Rangoon Burma and educated in a Convent my Mother could sing hymns and English songs and nursery rhymes in English and was she good at singing Classical Carnatic Music too in Tamil and Telugu. Yet I dont remember her singing a Hindi song ever.

"Who Killed Cock Robin, I said the sparrow, with my Bow and Arrow" is embedded in my mind for ever.

CLICK HERE TO HEAR MY MOTHER SING AT AGE 76.

THE ONLY RECORDING OF MUM's THAT IS AVAILABLE TO ME NOW in 2019


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Valve Radios of Yonder Years

 The radio was on during the day as my mother listened to Carnatic Classical Music and when Dad came home from work the focus was on news ABC, BBC, VOA-Voice of America and Hindi movie songs.

Our Philips bakelite Valve Radio was the only form of entertainment when I was young.  I can never forget this magnanimous beast. Yes the beast made a lot of Crackling noise and all we had were four knobs to change volume and switch to short wave and long wave. Believe it or not -  my Dad's friends envied us for owning such an expensive Radio

Philips bakelite Valve Radio - 1947

When my father retired we down sized to a smaller but better sounding Murphy Radio. This was unique as it worked on A/C and D/C. Remember taking this radio to the ships and plugging it. ( My Dad was a Labour Officer in Charge of stevedore Workers )

Murphy Radio

When my sisters and I were at home at nights after dinner, the radio was always on playing movie songs and it was common for us lot to sing along with the radio. 

That is where my singing started plus on the school bus in Andaman as the school was far away from home. Songs of Yester Years from movies likeAwara, Chori Chori, Shree 420, Kala Pani, Nagin etc etc to name a few that come to mind

It is interesting to note now that of my six sisters only three loved to sing and the other three were tone deaf, virtually.

On Saturday Nights I had a constant tussle with my younger sister who wanted to listen to the Madras B station playing English songs like "Lemon Tree and Ever Green Tree" etc etc and I always wanted to listen to Hindi songs played in Binaca Geeth Mala. 

90% of the time I gave in on my own or was ordered by my Dad..

At School in St. Bedes in Madras every other boy played the mouth organ or harmonica and I too joined the gang. Learning too Vamp was the priority.

I learnt to play on my friends "Puck Mouth Organ" that his Dad brought from Germany he was not allowed to lend it to friends as it was EXPENSIVE, but I was his best buddy so he broke the rule.

School Holidays we boys played Cricket during the day with tennis balls to avoid injury and read Cowboy Comics or Played the Mouth Organ at nights. 

Not long before my friend allowed me to learn on his Puck and in years to come he had three so gave me one for keeps. I was playing the same tune again and again like a parrot no one objected and I was ignored at home by my sisters same as an annoying parrot.

Today at age 71, I own half a dozen mouth organs except don't have the lung capacity any longer.

School Singing Competition

When I was in 8th Standard the school had a singing competition for every class and the three finalist from each class, one for each language English, Hindi & Tamil went into the main school competition

There were prizes for English, Hindi and Tamil Vocalists but all classes from 6th to 10th standard were included. No age Bar. There were preliminary selections by each class teacher to select and nominate three boys one for each category. 

I was not game but my friends pushed me into it and I chose to sing a Hindi song selected by my Hindi master. My Hindi Master who loved singing picked the song "Jane woh Kaise, Log the jinkae Pyar ko Pyar mila" by Hemantda 

He thought my voice was best suited for this song.

I was not happy with the choice but today I feel flattered as Hemant Kumar's songs are my favourite and can sing and hum them all day everyday, sometimes even in my sleep.

I got stage fright and my mouth went dry and I  sang but not well enough to win any award Plus my seniors bagged all three awards. My mother consoled me and said your Voice isn't breaking now and in a few years time trust me you will be able to sing well like your Maternal Uncle. Boy could he sing. His fav song was from Paying Guest "Mana Janab ne Pukara nahin"

Guitar, Sitar, Violin & Veenas were out of my reach and so too lessons.  Then suddenly I found that there was one string instrument that was basic yet produced awesome sound. The BulBultara.

The BulBul Tara I remember from my younger days. 

Looked a bit like a Type Writer

I begged and pleaded with my mother for one but she never had the extra money ever to get me one. Today this very instrument is very sophisticated and called the BulBul Tarang or the Indian Banjo

Don't know why I never thought of buying one in recent years. If I can play the harmonica I can Play the Bul Bul Tarang too

Moved to Sydney in 1976 and until year 2000 my priorities lay else where Work, Money, Family, Mortgage, Weddings overseas, Bills, My sons cricket and the list was endless...

On Saturday Mornings my wife blasted all our Favourite numbers in English, like Billy Joel, Elton John, Leo Sayer, Carole King, Carpenters, Barbara Streisand,  Carol Bayer Sagar, Anne Murray and occasionally Kishore Kumar and Late & Asha Bhonsle songs and the music used to filter through to the bed room. It was real luxury to lie in bed and hear my favourite songs one by one....

Time just flew as we were busy nurturing our one and only baby and see him Grow. And in no time he grew up got married and was gone in 2012. Having retired early in year 2000 I have kept myself extremely busy trying to solve world problems using my Blogs. 

I am a serial blogger I must say. If I like something then next thing is I have created a Blog on this. 

Sadly I have also created several Blogs for Family and Friends who passed away over the years.

It was September 2017 that my nephew in Bangalore India told me about a Phone App called Smule for karaoke singing with hundreds of people all over the world. You could down load the Smule App for Free and if You liked it you could Buy a VIP Membership that costs me Aud $30 annually giving me unlimited scope for singing and recording songs

Smule has been a Lot of fun. First you may know the tune but not the lyrics and even if you knew the tune and the lyrics you had to sing to perfect timing. Was tough going in the beginning.

I had to play to my strengths. So when I picked a song to sing I blogged the You Tube Video from the Movie and also the Lyrics. This was the first step in playing the You Tube in the Blog and singing the lyrics below with the original song.

Here is my  "GATARAHE BLOG"

https://gatarahe.blogspot.com

Been Maintaining and updating this with every new song I sang on Smule since September 2017. 
In 18 Months I have recorded 534 Hindi songs and 166 Tamil songs plus the odd song in other languages. Total of 700 Songs.

Gosh I never knew I had so many numbers saved in my memory and brought back to life by SMULE.

Smule was designed as an App to work with iPhone and IOS. Sadly I paid the price as I owned an Android Phone called Samsung 7. Great Phone with the best Camera but not fully compatible with Smule App. 

Poor quality audio plus a huge Time lag were the issues. Tried hard as an engineer to solve my Samsung Problems but could not as Smule developers were themselves struggling to fix the same problems.

I gifted my self a new Gen I Pad 2018 Model and an Apple Mac Pro 2018 and an i Rig Pre interface that helped Smule recognise an external microphone and head phones audio and video. In full Business now.

In 18 months I have recorded 5100 Duets with a few hundred Smule Partners.

Now Suddenly I am interested in improving the recording sound quality looking for the right equipment required for a Home studio on a reasonable budget. Not a Peanut Budget nor a High end professional studio costing a fortune

Also I have this Garage Band that I have to learn to use to create my own original songs.

The Journey to Create my Own Home Studio began Thus.

Ram

Sydney

Australia