The Score Magazine - Archive August 2015 issue! | Página 13

Music runs in your family. Tell us about your music journey.
I was born in a middle class South Indian family, and like many other south
Indian families, it’s almost like a tradition to get the children to learn at least
some form of music, but for me it was a little different. I was brought up in a
house where I could literally breathe music. My father and his colleagues would
have all night jams and Mehefils and I think that influenced me a lot. My dad
realized that I had a musical inclination at a very young age. I would have a very
good sense of time and pitch and so my parents enc ouraged me to learn music,
but I was never forced to get into it just because my father is a musician and it
was purely my decision. I learnt a bit of both, Hindustani and Carnatic vocals.
My passion was to play any rhythm instrument and I remember my parents
gifted me Red and Black coloured congas oh my 5th birthday. My cousin Soumil
Shringarpure who is a western classically trained pianist and I would jam at
home for hours together. Dad got us a basic programming software and we
started putting tunes together and that’s where the composing journey started
and since then we’ve always composed as a duo ‘Soumil and Siddharth’. It was
more like a game for us, we would play our compositions for my family and when
they really liked what we did it actually gave us a lot of confidence.
Not a lot of people know but the first solo song that I ever sang was not Zinda or
Bhaag Milkha Bhaag but it was a song called ‘Tu Hi Hai’ from the album Ganaraj
Adhiraj which was composed by Gulraj Singh. The musical journey has been
great and I’m very grateful to God that I’ve got to sing all these amazing song.
Despite being relatively a newbie in the industry you’ve already
sung in a lot of languages including south Indian languages
like Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. Do you understand any of
the languages? Is language a barrier?
I’ve practically sung in most of the regional languages, but funny enough
other than Hindi, Marathi and English, there was not a single language
that I understood. In music, I believe that language is never a barrier. Music
transcends way beyond language and region. Yes, sometimes it is difficult to get
some pronunciations right and sound authentic but never impossible. It’s a lot of
fun singing for different composers from different parts of our diverse country.
Besides singing, you have also composed in films like Midnight’s
children and Welcome Zindigi. Any projects in the near future?
Lot of new interesting and exciting projects are coming up. I’m composing for a
couple of more Marathi films and also for Hindi films and am also working on a
couple of albums with Dad and some interesting collaborations.
Being Shankar Mahadevan’s son, do you constantly get
associated with your father’s music? How do you break out
of it?
Being his son, people are going to associate my music to his. Comparisons
are bound to happen but there’s one advice that my dad gave me and that is
to always be original and have your own sound and I’ve always tried to do
that. Trying to sing like someone or follow someone you will lose out on
your identity. If someone sings like Sonu Nigam why would anyone call
you to sing? They would always ask Sonu Nigam.
Do you think you have been graced with privileges
as your father is a great musician or is it tough to
stand out in the music industry despite it?
I consider myself very very lucky to be Shankar Mahadevan’s
son. It’s like I have a whole institution of music at home. I
have been exposed to some of the best musicians in this
country and around the world.
Not a lot of people would get to experience these things and
just being in the studio with SEL, I’ve learnt so much from
them. But with that said, you have to be good to stand out in
this immensely competitive industry. People either love you
or they don’t and it is really gratifying when people appreciate
your work. I don’t think coming from a musical family helps you
stand out, only excellence can. Comparisons keep happening but I
take it positively as it helps me set a very high benchmark for myself. It makes
me work harder and do better.
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