Elsa Angel Rose
“I think ‘Mollbailo Dou’ translates very nicely to the harp, and I’ve tried a couple of other Konkani songs, but they take a while to arrange. This one was rather easy for me to arrange,” said Daniel. ‘Mollbailo Dou’ song from (Amchem Noxib) has violin and especially piano sounds dominating the music, which is easier to replicate on the harp. Harpist Daniel Dias has been playing the violin since he was 5 years old and the harp since 2018. After a break for college of 4 years, he resumed playing the harp in 2024. “I think the harp sounds really magical, and that drew me to the instrument. There was this particular Christmas carol video that I viewed a few years back. The harp and choir in it sounded so nice. I was in 10th standard at that time.
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Then I immediately told my mom that I wanted to play the instrument, and she was immensely supportive,” said Daniel. The musician has had a social media profile for over three years now. But it was the ‘Mollbailo Dou’ reel which got him over 220K views. Previously, his account mostly had friends and people known to him following, but after this reel, the views and follower count ballooned. “I’m usually a quiet guy, and I’m not used to attention. So, initially, I thought, ‘Okay, the reel is getting quite a lot of attention.’ But then, after, it was a bit overwhelming for me. I still haven’t gone through all the comments because there were so many. But yeah, slowly I’m seeing and replying Daniel Dias in the now viral reel to the messages,” shared Daniel.
Currently, Daniel is looking forward to dedicating more of his time to making the harp familiar and accessible to everyone. “The harp is something that is not so common in India, especially in this part of the world. It’s rather difficult to even access one. And every time I play out, usually at events, people are like, ‘Oh yeah, this is the first time I’m seeing this. I didn’t know. I’ve only seen this, you know, in Tom and Jerry or something of that sort.’ So I want to help people learn about this. And I hope that I can make other people choose this instrument so that it becomes more accessible and more people can play it,” said the harpist.
Daniel is classically trained in violin and harp. He also plays the keyboard, saxophone and others. “The harp and violin are my main instruments. I’ve been trained classically in these instruments, but I do play the keyboard and the saxophone. I’m just self-taught on those. I didn’t really study them,” observed Daniel. For the viral harpist, the best part of playing the harp is “The sound, of course,” but also “making the harp accessible to everyone.”
