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photosynth-solarpunkmusic-blog · 7 years ago

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Hello, solarpunk world. I’m Photosynth, a musician deciding to craft music from the ground up that expresses what Solarpunk is about. I want to make the soundtrack to Solarpunk. I want to start this off with a long mission statement that sets rules and boundaries and goals and visions of what Photosynth will be as a music project. Read it if you care, if you don’t, just know it’s there. :)

In my Solarpunk music-to-be, expect upbeat tempos, percolating percussion, shimmering melodies, dance-worthy rhythms, vivid compositions, contemplative passages, supplemental nature sound effects, high-tech sound design and layering, and an overall bright, organic-yet-technical, multi-ethnic sound.

That said, the difficulty with Solarpunk music is that it ideally would encapsulate something from every culture, every continent, and imagine it combined as one in a futuristic-yet organic and down to earth music sound. This is a huge and daunting task for most composers who haven’t been “cherry-picking” their favorite parts of many different cultures and their music for almost a decade. Luckily for me, I’m doing this to HAVE FUN, because it IS FUN, not to take it seriously and worry about who I don’t represent or if it sounds too corporate and not anarchist or socialist enough, etc! I know I have an all-loving heart and my reason for Solarpunk is for *optimism, inclusion, love, growth, sustain, and the combination of technology with nature.* Politics find their way into everything, and are a necessary evil in my opinion, but this music is the soundtrack to an *ideal*, not a *campaign*, so I will not be pumping this music full of any Solarpunk politics. .

There are also some things, musically speaking, that I protest against as a long-time composer/musician in the music that I make:

1. Using vocals/singing/lyrics just to use them, and letting them ruin a perfectly good instrumental that would leave more to the imagination. Especially for Solarpunk music, I seriously have a hard time imagining many vocals fitting into any of the songs, and especially not any words, but who knows? Solarpunk needs a lyrical voice at some point, after all!

2. Music which is extremely devoid of a beat and rhythm. I’m sorry, but the Solarpunk playlists I’ve found made thus far, while extremely inspiring and often-times pretty spot-on, don’t feel like they could be “real” to me because they often don’t have rhythm. If you’re looking for ambient / new-age / nature sounds / meditation music / sad piano music / singer songwriter with a guitar or other types of music that don’t have much rhythmic life to them, you’ll already find thousands of songs like that and you don’t need mine! I’ll be making music which, most of the time, has rhythms and beats of all kinds.

3. Sticking to one genre as a crutch and pigeon-holing the sound and style of what this project could be. I have always been a fan of artists that span a wide spectrum with their music, and try to do the same with my music. Solarpunk mixes *A LOT* of things together, so why would the music not do the same? An African Mbira sounds *great* with a Trini Steelpan, and a Japanese Koto, and an Indian Tabla, and maybe even a European Dulcimer and Chinese Gamelan! Who knows! But unless you explore all of these intruments and styles and sounds, enacting musical chemistry to see what works together and what doesn’t, there’d be no point in even making Solarpunk music. When the world is eco-sustainable and inclusive and loving of one another, this is what music will be: a hybridization of the best and brightest of all cultures and continents. I *WILL NOT* settle for “theming” a certain type of established sound to be “Solarpunk”. That’d be great, but this project’s intention is “Bespoke”... custom-made. Hand-crafted. That type of thing.

How it will be made:

With all that out of the way, I’ll say that the music will be made using FL Studio as its primary DAW. This is because much of what this music will be comes from complex arrangements of virtual instruments from all over the world, and so putting the music together like electronic music typically would is the best way to arrange it. Also, there will of course be some electronic music influence in the sound, seeing as it’s about a high-tech future that assimilates its technology with the natural world and all of its cultural potency—so what better DAW to compose organically AND synthetically in without getting too long-winded in any element of production? FL Studio allows me to load in instrument libraries like Kontakt (where I have libraries of hundreds of virtual ethnic instruments), as well as synthesizers, samplers, effects, sound clips, and of course organically record line-in any guitar, bass guitar, or microphone-recorded parts that might find themselves in the mix.

Using FL Studio also allows MIDI work to remain prominent. Any seasoned musician knows MIDI is extremely beneficial where any re-making, re-mixing, or “versioning” is involved in music. With Photosynth, I plan to make multiple versions of songs that fit different Solarpunk sub-themes (think of a theme park, or the Rainforest Cafe, or the video game Sonic CD and how its soundtrack has different versions of each song based on the past and future timelines of a place) so having MIDI to play with very easily is also a benefit of composing, arranging and mixing all right within FL Studio 12 (soon to be V 20)

Disclaimer though:

Any new music project, especially one with lofty goals like this, takes some time (meaning: a few songs or releases) to find its groove, in terms of the sound, the music, the art and graphic design visuals, the music video style and production methods, the marketing tactics, the social networking, the collaboration, etc. I’m painting a very vivid manifesto here, but in reality I’m one person with one computer (4 screens, though!) and one brain and only one set of world experience. The first few releases of this project are going to fall short of this manifesto, undoubtedly, but I hope you’ll enjoy the ride as I work to find the groove that I want it to have within some months of time. I know I’ll enjoy it greatly. Making music is FUN, but making Solarpunk music? That sounds like Utopia!

p.s. All of the Photosynth social media will be pretty slim for now, since I just finished a lot of work on a different music project and I’m authoring a Solarpunk book (see The Carbon Coast) so be patient with updates on Photosynth!

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reverseswing · 5 years ago

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MUMBAI HERITAGE WALKS : LIVE THE FORGOTTEN

Mumbai.

“It’s the city of dreams. The city that never sleeps.”

“It’s the city of heavy traffic, potholes, noise and pollution.”

“It’s the financial capital of India, the city with a population equaling the state of Iowa, USA.”

“It’s the Bollywood city. City of sky-scrappers, malls and multiplexes.”

Ask a Mumbaikar, or even an outsider, to describe Mumbai city, and these are some of the common replies you get. Ask them about the Church at Churchgate, about species of trees found in Mumbai, about places where some of the oldest recipes can be relished, about the contemporary art galleries… and most of them would draw a blank.

The reason ? No, not their ignorance. Not their apathy either. In fact, it’s about the glorious past and the rich history of this grand old city having got overshadowed by the modern-day glitz and the glamour, the hustle and bustle, the noise and the cacophony. The historic grandeur still stands, the age-old flavours still exist… there is much more to Mumbai than meets the eye…. What you need is interest, inclination and insight.

Well, those who have the curiosity to see the unseen, the penchant to experience the concealed, the desire to live the forgotten; there are certain Mumbai lovers who, in their own capacity, take you into the nook and corners, into the pockets and parcels of Mumbai where you find the golden heritage of Mumbai still alive.

They take heritage lovers, art lovers, history lovers, nature lovers, foodies and all those who simply want to see Mumbai in different light on, what is commonly called, Heritage Walks and Tours across the length and the breadth of the city.

Low profile in nature but equally rich in substance, these Heritage Walks and Tours are conducted by professionals from fields of diverse fields such as art, architecture, marketing, advertising etc. Preferring to keep away from the limelight, they call their endeavours, an extension of their profession and an expression of their love for the city of Mumbai.

Mumbai as a Heritage City

It’s one thing to go around Mumbai hopping from one location to another, enjoying places of tourist’s interest in a cliched manner, and quite another to have an insightful tour that leaves you enriched and enlightened in the end.

Abha Bahl, a young architect who is also the founder of Bombay Heritage Walks, says, “Mumbai is like an open-air exhibition of myriad heritage styles…. There is colonial heritage. Then there is religious heritage… the old Hindu temple architecture like the Walkeshwar Temple Complex, there are mosques, Portuguese Churches… it also has ancient caves like Karla caves, Mahakali Caves dating from Buddhist period…. There are forts. There are still so many forts existing albeit parts of them… Mahim Fort, Bandra Fort, Sion Fort…. So I think Mumbai is a treasure chest of archaic art, architecture, religion…. All this doesn’t show…. You have to look for it…with a magnifying glass.”

The curators of the walks and the tours are adept in unravelling Mumbai in a manner not to be found in any books, textbooks, tourism sites or blogs. Informative, educative, interesting, fascinating and thought provoking, all at the same time, these Walks and Tours cater to people of varied class, community, religion, age group, preferences and penchants, and come in diverse form and feature ranging from ones that create awareness about Mumbai’s colonial architecture to tasting age-old food recipes to the ones that take you to Asia’s largest slum to viewing traditional and modern art in different light to even meeting people from LGBTQ community!!

Making a Difference by Being Different

In today’s day and age of digitisation, when information is freely and abundantly available everywhere around us, making heritage walks and tours a different experience is a herculean task.

Says Bharat Gothoskar, founder of Khaki Tours, “It’s all about the narration and the connect that you establish with your audience. Add to it the historical facts, stories and trivia, and you have an experience that’s different and simply unforgettable. For example, did you know that the oldest naval dockyard in Asia is right behind the walls of the Lion Gate where a ship was manufactured in the year 1810 called HMS Minden. It was the first European naval ship to be manufactured outside Europe. That’s not all. A man named Francis Scott Key was on this ship which was heading for the battle of Baltimore. An incident on board this ship, HMS Minden, inspired him to write a poem, which later on became the national anthem of United States of America!!”

Innovation is yet another tool that make these walks and tours unique. No Footprints is a company which specialises in walks and tours which are out of the box. Besides catering to people interested in knowing the heritage and ancient traditions prevalent in Mumbai centuries ago, they also cater to people who live in tune with times. The Queer Day Out organised by No Footprints, gives you a chance to meet the LGBTQ community!!

Ask Harshvardhan Tanwar, Co-Founder of No Footprints about why and how of such innovations, and he says, “Me and my partner Isha are from advertising field. So, innovation comes naturally to us. When we started off, we realised that there was a dearth of creativity in heritage walks segment….. Everyone has information and content, but the difference lies in its dissemination. We therefore focus on dissemination of information in all walks and tours….. Moreover, we believe at the centre of everything that we do is community. There is Hindu community, Parsi community, Muslim community, Christian community. Similarly, there is LGBTQ community. That’s how Queer Day Out was born. Or for that matter our tour to the Pubs in Mumbai. It’s not a simple pub tour. It’s entails story of alcohol….. prohibition era etc. We operate in a very different zone you see.”

Painstaking Endeavour

Content gathering, research, referencing, visiting places, talking to people… are the pillars of dissemination. One needs to dig deep to discover intriguing facts, untold stories, and weave it all into the narration to make the experience utmost enriching.

Kruti Garg, Director Conservation at Abha Narain Lambah Associates (ANL), who conducts heritage walks, nature walks, food walks amongst others, says hard work goes behind curating every walk and tour. “There are lot of books written on the history of Mumbai, and then there is online content also. They serve you information in chronological order. What I do is join the dots. If I have read something on page 20, and something related to it is written on page 200, then I connect the two, and incorporate that in my talk...”

“It’s very important to understand that architecture is one of the many ways to see a city. It’s a physical form. But there are so many things which are non-physical, which are intangible. These intangible things are the underlying and invisible force behind the tangible. Without the intangible, tangible wouldn’t exist. So, I study these various aspects and put them together as a whole… not segregate them individually.”

Nishita Zachariah and Alisha Sadikot, the founders of Art Walks Mumbai, which gives insights into the works of art exhibited at art galleries around Mumbai, find their passion to be challenging in a different way. “We do not expect the walkers to have any kind of prior knowledge about art.…..We start with the basics….Talking about the space itself. Each contemporary art gallery differs in objective, differ in layout…. we talk about the space, the background of the artists, and then how those works have come to be…. the process, the concept behind it…. We break it down to make it as simple as it can be for the newbies, who have never been to an art gallery before, as well the experienced. We take people to the street gallery that’s around Jehangir Art Gallery just to show people how a public space differs from a private space, how their mandates are different, how their goals are different.”

An Informal Sector

It was during the first Kala Ghoda Art and Cultural Festival in Mumbai in the year 1999, that the idea of Mumbai Heritage Walk was mooted. Inspired by its success, many individuals started conducting heritage walks and tours around Mumbai, and today it has become quite a common sight. What started as a passion or an extension of profession for the curators, has now grown into an informal business sector.

However, even after two decades, very few players seem to have given a thought to formally launching themselves in the heritage walk market. Registering their business is not on anybody’s mind. No one gives importance to promoting their walks and tours through mainline media. Everyone seem to be happy in keeping their business informal, and low profile.

“I have never thought in that direction,” says Nishita who has been conducting art walks for the past three years now. “People contact us through our Facebook page or write ups in newspaper or word of mouth. So we have never felt the need to advertise. Again, the thought of turning our service into a brand or launching a company has never crossed our mind. As far as formalising the walks per se is concerned, the closest we would be tour guide. And personally, I don’t know the rules that apply to tour guide. I don’t know whether the government has legislated this area…… I don’t think it will make any difference if we registered our businesses.”

Bharat Gothoskar has a different reason for not publicising his Khaki Tours. “Currently the demand is more than the supply. I am not being able to train as many people as I need to. I am an MBA myself to start with. So it’s not that I don’t want to. I am planning to start with digital advertising. But word of mouth is working enough for me because of the quality of experience that I dish out….. Though Khaki Tours has been around for over a decade, it’s been just two years that I have formally launched Khaki Tours. I look at long term goals. I am creating an organisation which will be known for what it does. I will be doing marketing and advertising at some point in time.”

Walker’s Speak

Shardul Nautiyal, Sr. Correspondent at PharmaBiz, calls himself an ardent fan of Mumbai city. He, along with his family, quite regularly enrols for heritage walks and tours. Says Shardul, “Ever since I have started going on these walks, I have started looking at Mumbai in a different way. It’s not that I haven’t been to Gateway of India, Dhobi Ghat, Khau Galli, Haji Ali Dargah, Chor Bazaar, Dharavi slum, any time. But seeing them through the eyes of the curators, has been a revelation of sorts.”

Echoing his impression is Shaunak Bhatt, an advertising and marketing professional. “I love Mumbai for its vibrancy and effervescence. Though walking doesn’t come to me naturally, couple of years ago I joined my friend n a one hour walk around Ballard Pier. I was so impressed that since then I frequently go for such walks, and take my family members along whenever I can. My perception about the city I love has changed significantly now.”

Shruti Patel, a doctor by profession and settled in USA, was on a visit to Mumbai meet her cousins. “I believe Mumbai is a lot like New York city,” says Shruti. “I have been to Mumbai quite a few times now, but exploring its history and places on foot, I realised it’s quite an underrated city in terms of tourism. The next time I come over I would spend more days here and join more tours to understand this city better.”

Chauhan family is not only a regular on these walks but also encourage others to join them. Says Vipul Chauhan, a stock broker, “When one of my family friend informed me about these walks, I was quiet sceptical about it. But after we attended one such walk, we have started loving the idea. We make it a point to take someone from our family or friend circle along with us on the walks. After all, happiness must be shared, isn’t it?”

OCT - NOV. 2019 - FEELINGS - VADODARA

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