A Fiery Performance
Our recent school performance centred around the theme of the five elements, and we were representing "Fire" through live music.
Mrityunjay da who conducted the performance, had a clear vision of bringing the element of fire to life. The music was not rhythmic and melodic in the traditional sense; instead, it was a carefully choreographed sequence of major chords. Each musician had their part to play, but we were all guided by the hand gestures of our conductor Mrityunjay da. The most difficult challenge we faced throughout the performance was the fact that we could barely see our conductor. We were quite dependent on him since the chords had to be struck according to his timing and hand movement.
The whole point was to have Mrityunjay da hidden behind the massive central fire structure with sound-reactive lights to make the fire seem as real as possible, and us sitting around it (as if making a sacrifice to the fire) whilst playing our instruments, live. Another challenge that was faced by Shazneen and Shriya was mastering the Linnstrument, an electronic, touch-sensitive board, unlike any instrument they had played before. It was demanding but added an intriguing layer to our performance.
We also incorporated a Sitar play by Gauransh, blending in its classical tones with the electronic sounds, which surprisingly worked beautifully once we hit the stage. We also had an electric guitar emulsified in this piece. The electric guitar was not played in the way you imagine it; it was a very different and exciting experience for Sahana as she probably wouldn't have known about it if it weren't for this performance. You have to lay the guitar on your lap and slide a rounded and long piece of metal across it to hit the right notes. (Un)fortunately, we didn't have the professional tool for it, so we had to do some “jugaad”. At first, Sahana used Mrityunjay da's iPhone as the slider, but later we found a broken door handle that worked perfectly (after some practice) and that was what was finally used. It was difficult to hit all the strings at once and hit the right notes but it worked out!
The MIDI keyboard was played by Anaaya. It added a magical and grounded atmosphere throughout the entire piece. Arvind provided us with the small but most important details of the performance. He spent a lot of time mastering ringing the bell fast (in all our ears) and getting the timings right of when he should play what.
Last but not least, Diva blessed us with her angelic voice that recited the shlokas of the Vedas. We had multiple rehearsals, some perfect and some not so much. But what we all felt on the final day was a sense of unity and pride. It felt as though all the work we did finally came down to these crucial five minutes of a strange kind of perfection. We all were so completely indulged in it. We had multiple things to do before and after the music performance but while we were doing our bit together, it was like nothing else mattered.
We would like to generously thank our teacher, conductor, composer (and friend) Mrityunjay da without whom this would not have been possible. We would also like to thank the sound team who helped us set up and set down everything within the span of a few minutes. Thank you to everyone who was a part in any way of the Fire performance. The feelings will linger on for a long time.
