On Saturday 22 October ’11, my family and I attended a talent show – “Attam Pattam Kondattam” – in Herning.
Both my brother and I had been asked to perform at this show – he with singing and I with my violin, so we thought it was a good chance for us to show what we can do, so we immediately agreed to participate. However, I wanted to make sure that this wasn’t a competition, so I asked one of the organisers, who told me that there was only a drama competition and those who performed music or dance were just entertainment. At the same time, I was told that you had to perform for a maximum of 8 minutes, which of course I agreed to, and then I started planning what to play and how to organise everything.
I had actually expected my dear brother to make the music for me so I could just concentrate on rehearsing – but I knew he would say no as he was busy with his own music and the studio, which of course he did. God! He even suggested that I should soon learn to sit in front of my computer and struggle with the music programmes that exist so that I could learn it. The truth is that I once gave up because I was simply impatient 😛 But then I thought that I should at least show that I can do it, so I started making music for the “Ballelakka” song from Mankatha, since I couldn’t really find any karaoke. It was also cool to make my own version, which became a bit of a remake 🙂
Since it had been several years since I had last worked with this music programme, it took me several days to create a 2-minute piece of music for this song, but the other song was done in just 2 days Ö
I was actually quite proud of that 😛 For this song, my brother had made some tabla, which I had to put together with the rest. The last song I simply didn’t bother making anything for, because I also had to practice in my spare time, so I chose to use a karaoke of the song, even though it was a bit distorted :S But I didn’t care, and started practising.
Exactly 2 days before the Kondattam party, my brother came home to Herning and listened to the music I had made, which lasted a total of 6 minutes. The first thing he said was that something was missing, and the karaoke of one of the 3 songs was so bad that I had to make something myself. The tabla my brother had made sounded like something from a comedy, so we agreed to make a completely new beat that would fit both songs 1 and 2. We also finished the music for the two songs together – he thought it needed a little more to make it fuller, and then on Friday we put it all together and I could start practising again.
Fortunately, as I had no problems playing my violin and knew it all by heart, I wasn’t stressed or nervous. By Friday evening, I was all set and we also practised my brother’s song. He had asked me to sing some ‘akaaram’ for one of his songs and sing the chorus for the other, but I wanted to sing ‘swaram’ instead of ‘akaaram’, so I did. We had no trouble rehearsing and everything fell into place quickly, so we were pretty confident that it would go well when we performed the following day 🙂
On Saturday morning, I decided to rehearse a few times to make sure everything was as it should be, and then I quietly got ready for the evening show. As we had been told that everyone who was performing had to be in the hall at 2.40pm, we decided to leave at 2.20pm so we could be there in plenty of time. I thought we should have allocated our times and got everything ready, but apparently not. At 14:40 there weren’t many people and when I saw that only a few of the organisers had turned up, I was quite disappointed and angry that we had turned up so early. We sat and watched as the Senthalir group from Germany tried out their music. I thought it sounded incredible and was looking forward to hearing/seeing their show.
By 3.20pm, there still weren’t many people there and I could see that it would probably start later than the stated time, and it was indeed half an hour late. At around 4pm, the show started with a lullaby and a minute’s silence to remember the victims who have died in the war in Ceylon. Then the Senthalir Music Group came on stage and they started playing. I was really impressed with their talent, many of them sang very well and they played really professionally. It was a pleasure to hear their songs. Their show lasted for about 2 hours and then the Danish-Tamil talents came on stage and showed what they could do. I thought it was great to see so much talent and was surprised by the Tamil language and talent of many of the young Tamils.
We saw drama from Digital Media Works, Mappilaiz and TrioOo Boys and these 3 groups really made the audience laugh. I thought these boys did a great job and I was laughing most of the time. In addition, there was dancing and singing from many young talents. However, the ones that impressed me the most and really got my attention were Tharjan Jeyananthan and his sister from Holbæk. They started with a quiet song and then Tharjan took over the stage and the attention of the entire audience with his solo performance on drums. It reminded me a bit of the “Manmadhan” film, but this was at least 10 times better!
At around 8.45pm, I was due to perform and I had a microphone attached to my violin, after which I was able to get on stage. I thought I waited quite a long time for the music to start, but suddenly the music was turned up to full volume, and I realised that they didn’t turn it up until 4-5 seconds into the song, by which time I should have already started playing! I got quite nervous and frustrated and asked the stage manager to start the music again, which was done. Now I could hear the music, but only as a kind of echo, as they had forgotten to switch on the monitors that were on stage 🙁 This made it difficult to follow, and I was a little unsure if I was even playing in time with the music. Despite the fact that I could hear the music echoing, everything went well and after 6 minutes, I was done and I could hear people clapping that it had been a good performance – thank God! 🙂
I had chosen 3 songs, taking pallavi and a saranam from each song:
1. Shankarabharharanamu – from the film “Shankarabharharanam”. This song is Telugu, is from 1979, and is based on a raagam called Shankarabharharanam (hence the name for both song and film). I chose this song because I wanted to start with a Carnatic music and also wanted it to be religious. The raaga Shankarabharanam is believed to be the raagam of god Shiva, hence the name Shankarabharanam (Shankara’s Ornament, the seven notes as ornaments of god Shiva).
2. Mannil Indha Kaadhal Indri – from the film “Keladi Kanmani”. This song is a classic! Even though it’s over 20 years old, it’s known by almost everyone – across generations. Even those who don’t know it will love it as soon as they hear it. Originally composed by Ilaiyaraaja and sung by SPB, this song is one of my favourites (and probably many others), so I chose it as #2.
3.Ballelakka – from the film “Mankatha”. The song is relatively new and is known by pretty much everyone, and I knew that especially young people would like it. As there’s also a bit of action in the song, I thought it would be a fitting ending. Besides, I love this song myself 😉
So I got to play my beloved violin and then I had to more or less prepare for the next performance with my brother.
Around 9pm we had to perform, and this time we could hear the music starting, but again there were problems with the monitors, so we had trouble singing. However, I think we managed to sing the first song successfully and I was quite impressed with my brother’s performance on stage. Despite it being his first time singing on stage, he did very well – a big pat on the back, brother! 😀 When it came to singing song number 2, it was more difficult because the music sounded very strange and we could hear our own voices as echoes, along with everything else. It was a very bad experience for me and I didn’t sing along most of the time so as not to make it worse for my brother. However, he finished the song and we walked off stage relieved. I thought that this must have been a failure; I was definitely having pitch problems and couldn’t sing because both my voice and the music echoed. But surprisingly, we got positive feedback from people and we were happy to hear that 🙂
The party ended at around 11.30pm and they finished with a prize ceremony for the winner of the competition. I don’t know who was actually in the competition because it wasn’t even announced, but the winners were Tharjan and his sister – it was a well-deserved win, so congratulations! 🙂
Despite the problems with sound and time, as well as a rather messy organisation of the whole show, I think it was a very good experience and that something was really done to allow new talent to perform etc.
