YAMAHA LIVE ARENA
At this year’ s Palm Expo, we managed to meet and interact with a couple of brilliant artists performing at the Yamaha auditorium. They spoke about their music, endorsements and the Yamaha products that they love. Here are some of their responses.
What kinds of music do you like playing and how did it begin?
Lydian Nadhaswaram
When I was 2 years old I started playing drums on the floor with xylophone sticks in a 6 / 8 pattern. The next day my Dad bought a rotom and I started practicing on that. I started playing on a full kit from the age of 3. I like western classical, jazz and Indian music. I love Buddy Rich, Tony Royster Jr., Aaron Spears and Gino Banks( laughs). I plan to write my music and compose my own patterns in drums.
Stephen Devasy
I’ m a classical pianist. I started with western classical and then came to Indian classical. Then we started combining music, a mix of Indian and western. Fusion, as it’ s called. More of instrumental, but hitting the kind of notes that communicate with people fast. If our rhythm is complicated, we keep the melodies simple and complicated melodies are met with simple rhythms so that the common audience can connect with it easily. Instrumental music isn’ t very popular and so I want to bring it to greater crowds. Today we played tracks from my album Project 70.
What kind of products do you like using?
Lydian Nadhaswaram
I love Yamaha drums. For a long time it’ s been my dream to play for Yamaha. Rydeen series has an amazing tone and I love it. Today I used the K-Series Zildjian cymbals for the performance and they were great. I like playing Vic Firth sticks, 5As.
Stephen
My favorite is Yamaha motif. It’ s a killer instrument with great boom and feel. I like playing hard and percussive and this really works for me. Now there’ s a new product from Yamaha known as Montage. It’ s not just great on stage but good for production too.
Gino Banks
I’ ve used Yamaha pads as attachments to my acoustic kit for gigs with A. R Rahman and situations when I need electronic sounds. Then Yamaha offered to make me a part of their artist roster and endorse me for their electronic drums and I thought it was a great opportunity cause I’ m an acoustic player, but this helps immensely with production and even trigger loop sounds live. I’ ve done clinics and workshops before, but this was my first time playing a completely electronic kit. In fact, we’ re planning a tour with this setup too.
What are your plans for the year?
Stephen
I’ m coming out with my album Project 70 this year, which has over 200 musicians playing on it, signed by an international label. The magic behind it is that it was composed, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and even shot on camera within 70 days. Hence the name. We had pre-launch events in London and we’ re heading to Australia soon.
The Score Magazine
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