11 Jun 2021 | 03:27am IST
Changing tunes for changing times for Goa’s musicians
Musicians in Goa are adapting to changing times by setting up studios at home and producing music for production houses in Mumbai or working on improving their skills
Team Café
The restaurants and clubs are no
longer playing hosts to guests. The music has certainly stopped.
Musicians who depended on these gigs to sustain themselves have had to be
innovative and find new gigs to sustain themselves. Some of the bands have
turned online and perform for corporates. Others have uploaded their compositions
online and are earning money from these sites.
Colin D’cruz cottoned
on to the fact that the future was online. He was also not very keen on doing
shows online. Yes, if the gig was interesting he would consider it. But with
more than a hundred compositions uploaded online on various platforms, he is
able to sit at home and earn a pretty penny. He said his music was now being
played on the premier jazz radio station which was available in America and
Canada. Goa he felt would not be open to live music for a while though the
number of online shows would continue to increase. He said a local advertising
agency Slip Disc was organising a massive show featuring Goan bands online on
June 20th. Many musicians he said had set up home studios and were producing
fabulous music.
A musician doing very well for himself is Sancho Menezes, a
pianist. He plays in Colin’s band but has a lot of work from production houses
in Mumbai. He used to perform at gigs in Goa but since the pandemic hit, work
has certainly slowed down. He is alone of very few musicians who can play the
accordion and once when a script was written, his skills were needed for the
shoot. He said as a producer and composer he could survive comfortably.
Nashvin Cunhagomes is into music production and has his own
studio. The pandemic last year made him stop gigging. He intends to resume when
the situation improves. He said “I have a few clients for whom I keep doing
work. I prefer to do background work. I am composing an album and doing
interesting stuff. I have content on various platforms like Spotify under Rebel
Pundits”.
She has been singing for thirty years and this break is giving
her the time to do something for herself. Sharon Rodricks is not doing anything
online but has been keeping herself doing something for herself. She said “I
come from a family that is drenched in jazz but I had to sing pop during shows.
I had Covid in the month of April, so that took a while to recover for me. This
is a break I am quite enjoying”.
Her son Jarryd Rodricks has built a studio at home to produce
music at home. He said “ I teach music, compose music and am learning new stuff
that will keep me prepared when the situation improves. I was based out of
Mumbai but due to the pandemic I am based in Goa. I am doing work for people
based outside but the time I also spent learning new skills. I had gigs in
January but it stopped as the cases increased”. He said he was not really
worried about the situation.
For someone like Tony Dias who has been composing and directing
music videos for a while. Having started off as keyboardist in the 90’s he has
over a period of time composed tens of hundreds of scores which are now
available on cds. In addition he is also a tutor. He said he was comfortable
since he was also teaching students online. Tony said as a musician he could
say he was perhaps lucky to be in this position but there were musicians who
would be facing the heat due to the absence of gigs.
Another musician who did not want to come on record said it was
tough surviving but thanks to savings made, he was able to survive. He said he
was teaching a few students but fees charged were not enough to pay all the
bills. This made it tough paying the bills every month. Adapting to trends like
playing online may be easy for the younger generation of musicians but for
musicians in the fifties or sixties it is a step too far.
There are thousands of musicians in the state all of whom and
quite a few of them are either part of bands or duos or even single acts. They
will have to learn to adapt to changing times.