Chitchat with Aravind Shankar - Telugu cinema music directors

Chitchat with Aravind Shankar

Hyderabad
23 February, 2011

If you follow IPL, you must be in love with the 'whistle podu' commercial done for Chennai Super Kings. The music is composed by Aravind and Shankar. Aravind and Shankar had a great educational background, but they followed their passion - Music. They started working together for ad jingles. They have composed a couple of songs (edo edo and sutiga choodaku) for 24 Feburary release Ishq. Here are the excerpts of idlebrain.com interview -

Background:
Aravind: did my Msc Physics and MMS from BITS pilani, where i started to play music with various groups. Thats where my interest in music composition slowly began

Shankar: i used to play with groups in school(Don Bosco, Chennai) and in college(MCC Chennai)

The two of us met through some common friends and decided to work together as a duo.

What went into composing two songs for Ishq?
firstly it was a lot of fun and very challenging too. Our director, Vikram is very particular about his music and the kind of songs that he wanted in the film. Since its a romantic film we have tried to keep stuff as melodius as we could. The listener should get the overwhelming feeling of romance when he/she listens to the songs. If a little bit of that is happening we have done well.

What is the feedback on your compositions for Ishq?
So far very very positive. Yesterday one person who i hardly know came upto me and said that he listened to edho edho at least 50 times one night. Such kind of feedback is very encouraging for any composer.

You have been working mainly in the field of ad jingles. How do you feel about the transition from advertising jingles to film work?
Advertising work is usually involves tight budgets and quick turnaround times. And though your work is out there, nobody really knows you. With film, we've had the time to put our best into the work, and we've been provided with the monetary resources to involve our chosen musicians and technicians. Besides, the prospect of recognition is exciting, simply because it opens more doors to work with the best.

What do you think is unique about your approach to music?
We try to stick to the basics. Tunes, rhythms, lyrics. We try to avoid gimmicks, flavours of the month, autotune and the like. Not to say that we have policies or rules about these things, but this is how we would like to approach it. Take away our computers and synthesizers, give us an old guitar and a table to drum on, and we'll still be able to create music. Besides, we've grown up listening to all kinds of music... jazz, blues, old hindi songs, calypso... we hope to bring some of these flavours to the table.

Are there conflicts between the two creative minds?
Rarely... we've been working together for 15 years now, since the day we finished college, there is little we don't know about each others preferences. The occasional conflict is always a benefit to the music itself. Besides there are different aspects of the production process that we each like to focus on, so there is almost no reason for us to be at each others throats.

What are your future plans?
Well, we hope to do a lot more films , both in Telugu and Tamil. Hopefully we will create a niche for ourselves.