Music Mechanics

It's been a while but I'm back, sadly work and other obligations have kept me from attending too many other concerts in the city, I also sadly missed the Dire Straits tribute in Hard Rock and a bunch of little Christmas shows. But I did have the unique opportunity to attend a rather interesting event called the Music Mechanics a while back and I felt its about time I wrote about it. This was an idea thought up the people over at the Nathaniel School of Music to bring all things music together under one roof on one single day for one grand event.

Music Mechanics was a set of workshops that brought together all aspects of music from making it, to playing it live, to selling it all in one big event. To add to it the workshops were conducted by some of the best in the industry. The likes of Bruce Lee Mani, Jason Zachariah, Rajeev Rajgopalan from Thermal and a Quarter, Gaurav Vaz from Raghu Dixit Project, theater personality Anmol Velani, Naveen Thomas of Galeej Gurus and Ryan Colaco of Kryptos fame to name a few all shared their expertise at various workshops at the event.

It was a great to have these guys who you usually only see playing on stage sit in front of you talking about their music and their journeys sharing their little exercises and tips and tricks that helped them to get to where they are today. Most of which were actually really useful. The best of them all in my book was surprisingly enough Music Biz by Gaurav Vaz, the presentation was nice, funny and presented some unique perspectives on the industry and how to sell your music and your band. The other highlights were obviously Bruce Lee Mani's classes, Naveen Thomas also presented some really good guitar exercises and theater maestro Anmol Velani's session on stage and band persona was also really fascinating.

To those of you who are curious the various workshops at the event were

1. Groovy Kids – Fun music workshop for kids under 5 - 12 years
2. Speed King – A session on shred guitars with Naveen Thomas
3. Leave no Tone Untu(r)ned! – Bruce Lee Mani on getting the guitar to sound right
4. Exercise to Improvise – Improvisation concepts and exercises by Bruce Lee Mani
5. Blaze in Keys – Jason Zachariah on performance keyboard techniques
6. Music.biz – All about the business of music by Gaurav Vaz
7. The DnB Coalition – Prakash and Rajeev demonstrate how to lock and groove
8. Vox – Techniques to improve your vocal skills with Lillian Zachariah
9. In the movies – Explore the role of music in movies with Nazarius Manoharan
10. The Showman – Learn to present yourself with confidence and poise on stage
11. Digital Music School – Music technology and production in a nutshell with Jason Zachariah
12. Beat – Roots – Rudiments of drumming with Ryan Colaco
13. Song Writing – the acoustic way – Get a peek into the mind of the composers.

All in all fun day and one that shouldn't be missed were it ever to return. Kudos to the folks at Nathaniel School of Music for organizing it, hope to have more such events in the future.