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Mahesh

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Blog Entries posted by Mahesh

  1. Sometimes, it is so overwhelming

    By Mahesh ,


    The Road to Change
    I know I chose to be a full time musician but man, sometimes the amount of work that you have to do during music release years - it's frustratingly excessive. The thing that I find most annoying is the social media content stuff - writing blogs, making videos, website design and on and on. Though I don't necessarily align with those who do no marketing at all, but I resonate with them! Sometimes, you just want to write the music and everything else to fall in place lol 
     
  2. Making a record is so much work! In the past 2 years, I felt like getting things set up for the actual work would be the hardest task - putting together a team, curating the songs, figuring out the budget etc.

    Now that these things are out of the way, I expected to feel a little relieved about it. I'm only intimidated about the things to come - getting the second round of demos recorded with the musicians, setting up the crowd funding campaign for the all the logistical costs, reviving my fan following to the level of excitement of my previous release - which was years ago. Sigh. Feels like and probably is a gazillion things that is NOT making music before actually getting to those fun bits. 🥲
     
    One day at a time - that's how I've been able to keep my cool, really. 
     

  3. Rewire the Voice : Beginnings

    By Mahesh ,


    Rewire the Voice
    Back in 2016, when I was working on "The Union" album with Blushing Satellite, I was given a diverse set of sounds to emulate with the lead voice. My friend Rama who's the band leader (& also played guitars on my own EP "Accept") envisioned my voice being used in ways I wasn't experienced with before.
     
    For example, there were times when he asked me to emulate a violin for a certain part, & a flute for some other. It took a while for me to even understand what he was really asking me to do. And when I did understand it, it didn't really help with the execution bit. This brought me to a haunting thought- "I'm good at singing what I already am used to singing. But that's not the same as being good at Singing, the art/skill. My existing knowledge doesn't necessarily help me in understanding what I CAN be capable of in the future".
     
    All I relied on until then to gauge my progress were a bunch of vocal exercises and my own personal judgement of good singing. I knew it helped in some way because I did sound better over time with practice; but I wasn't exactly sure how. I just had to keep at it & sorta wait and see until the exercise does its own thing.  This hit and miss approach without enough context became the prime issue in my vocal development.
     
    My ego bubble burst & my voice didn't feel as reliable anymore.
     
    I went back to the drawing board. I wanted to use my voice knowing exactly what I can and cannot produce. I wanted to know how I can think of a sound in my head and reproduce that very sound with accuracy, confidence and comfort. If I couldn't do it, I wanted to know exactly what it would take for me to get there. I wanted to know HOW any of these exercises that I do affect the voice in real time as I make them.
     
    I wanted to use my voice as if I'm sitting inside a car with a bunch of controls in front of me knowing exactly what they are used for. 
     
    Thus began my journey to Rewire.
     
     

     
     
     
     
    Rewire is a vocal method which sets itself apart from other techniques in a fundamental manner. We learn to use the voice just like any other musical instrument, within the present moment. Before we focus on muscle memory building and repetition of vocal exercises, Rewire teaches you a mix of vocal technique, ear-training & mindfulness to sculpt your sound based on volume, pitch, tonality & expression. This offers a singer of any experience level to start using their voice in an efficient & healthy manner, while safely allowing you to expand those abilities, from the get-go. 
     
    As they say, practicing perfectly makes you perfect. This is why Rewire puts focus on virtues such as intention/deliberation, control, consistency, comfort & presence of mind while you're singing.
     
    Over the next few days and weeks, I will expand on some of the core ideas that make up the Rewire Vocal Method but also, there's a lot more on the way. Thanks to Songstuff Vocal Coaching Academy, I will be involved in delivering vocal coaching sessions, video courses, products etc and I'm super excited to share some of the things I know and use myself.  
     
    As far as this blog is concerned, I'll try to keep things a mix of Rewire and my own personal singing journey.
  4. Among the million other things I was trying to keep hold of with life (ironically, while away from social media), my YouTube account got hacked a couple months ago by some Bitcoin weirdos. It took a bit of initial panic and a bit of work to get things back up. 
     
    If anybody's interested, you may find the details of the case here:
     
    Youtube Account was hacked & then permanently deleted(all in a day??)! HELP. - YouTube Community (google.com)
     
    Anyways, I'm glad things are finally back up but it should take a few more months for the activity to get back up like before it was hacked. 
     
    If you have some time, do give the channel a look and lemme know if you find something odd. If you are checking out the music for the first time, would love to hear your thoughts!  
     
    https://youtube.com/maheshmusicindia
     
     
     
     
     
  5. We’re proud to have served the indie music community through Songstuff for 20 years now.
     
     
    Our main domain songstuff.com has been a hub for independent musicians and aspiring music professionals to expand their knowledge and experience through articles, tutorials, educational content, and an extremely diverse and huge forum community. But we believe we can do a lot more!
     
     
    Introducing....

     
    Songstuff Independent Music Stage is a brand new initiative by Songstuff dedicated to help independent artists reach out to bigger audiences.
     
    It's not easy pursuing the life of an indie musician. It not only takes much dedication and time to hone the skills needed to present yourself to the world but also requires money and resources to sustain a healthy following.  In such challenging times of an extremely saturated digital age, we want to empower the music community by creating, expanding and nourishing listeners and fans of great music. 
     
    Our dedicated staff will regularly curate playlists for Spotify , SoundCloud, Youtube to promote great music from great artists; from our indie community and beyond! And you have the opportunity to have your music featured!

     
    Go ahead and visit the Songstuff Music Stage Facebook page to send in your submissions to us!
     
    SUBMIT YOUR MUSIC HERE
     

  6. I need to slow down..

    By Mahesh ,


    art & music
    With the new release activities in full motion, I realized how much I've worn myself out right at the beginning of the year. With classes through the day taking a significant amount of physical and mental energy, my OCD mind has been overwhelmed lately with so much to do - website, social media, recording, demos, mailing list, Songstuff, music production. 
     
    I'm not exactly complaining since I do this full time and pretty much signed up for all that being a musician entails. But I need to do that while learning how to slow down. Time to get back to a Tiny Tune routine soon. Hopefully.  
  7. The new journey and EP cycle has finally begun with this new release.
     
    Change EP has been in plans for a while now. The pandemic had its ways of slowing things down but there's also been a lot of developments over that period such as getting an artist grant by a few music foundations, some potentially consequential production crew/cast coming in to work on the record along with all the plans we've been looking at from our record label RC7 Records' point of view with @john & @Peggy. But this release is merely the first step or a pre-cursor to what is on the way with the EP.
     
     
     



    This performance was recorded at sunrise deep in the little forest reserve in the neighbourhood where I grew up. In many ways, it is about the place being a constant when everything was not. When I moved out by the end of last year, I had a feeling of being self ostracised in a way. It's wild how much you can find identity in the place you live in, especially when you live there for a long long time. That's why I wanted to record this song there. It was very personal. A lot of work went into it and I'm proud of the progress that we make with each release. 


    The planning for the release campaign done with the label (myself, @john & @Peggy) has been very hopeful & positive. Since Feb 2nd when the pre-release campaign began, we've managed to have a reach of 100,000 impressions with over 40k accounts reached on various social media platforms through the teasers and other posts done for it. That's insane given it's all in house and self executed by us. So happy to have the support of this community through its knowledge & its people helping me stay steady on the ride of my most favourite journey - music. 
     
    With that, I wanted to share with you my latest live video release "Realize - Live at Her Village". It's an exclusive release currently on Rolling Stone India. https://rollingstoneindia.com/exclusive-premiere-mahesh-realize-video/ The song goes live on all streaming platforms worldwide on 4th March. You can pre-save the song on Spotify by clicking on this link : https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/mahesh1/realize-live-at-her-village
     

    You can choose to read the interview or go straight down to the bottom to find the video! If you do check it out, do lemme know of your thoughts.
     
    Thank you and much love,
    Mahesh
     
    P.S if you like the music, do join my mailing list to get in on all the latest with my music with lotsa bts content and downloads. https://mahesh-music.com
     

  8. "Alright" (midnights at home)

    By Mahesh ,


    art & music
    After the first week of staying at my new home, it still kinda feels like I'm staying at a friend's. (Though I seem to be doing way too many chores for the seemingly friend's place 😄)
     
    It's customary now to sing to these walls at nights and I hadn't played this in ages! Here's a song of mine called "Alright" which is about learning to love without imposing yourself on another. Hope you'll are doing well.
     
     
     
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  9. Now that an artist grant has been graciously granted to me for working on my upcoming EP, the pressure is on - I've been trying to find ways to settle in on a daily routine that helps me keep pace with all the incoming work including its creative requirements. It's been an intimidating time for sure.
     
    Creativity cannot be forced. But I surely do believe it can be invited. I believe that a regular time-bound routine where I get to spend the time on the DAW a lil more would be useful in this regard. Lately, I've been feeling like I open my projects only when I'm inspired to work on it or only for its work alone.
     
    Considering the DAW as a musical instrument in its own regard, I need to jam with it more often if I'm to keep the creative juices flowing. And so I'm planning on restarting my Tiny Tunes series. Hoping to cover/analyze some songs along the way as well.
     
    More than anything I need to get that regular time slot for the DAW in my day! Let's see how it goes...
  10. Howdy.
     
    I try to do AMA (ask me anything) sessions on my Instagram handle once a week. I get to directly engage with my audiences but also get an idea of what's running through their head. Had an interesting question that came by today. I was asked to share my thoughts on dramatization in writing & in performance. I kinda understood where the questioner was coming from as I'm known to be particularly 'intense' when I'm on stage performing. 😅
     
    Anyways, I thought I'd share my response in case some of you were interested  
     
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    Would love to hear your thoughts!
     
     
  11. It is with much gratitude & excitement I share the news with you that my previous single ‘Fading Colours‘ has reached 200,000 streams on Spotify since its release in October 2020!
     

     
     
    When the first wave of the pandemic hit us strong and the lockdowns began to thrive, it was a strange time for me.
     
    I bet you would think the same!
     
    The first few weeks, especially, were tough. Being holed up within four walls, seeing the death & horror unfold on the screens, no work coming in, debt piling up – all of it decided to ‘crash the party’ at the same time. But after the initial shock, the lack of social contact & the abundance of time threw me into a wave of self-curiosity & learning. I spent months working to record, mix & master ‘Fading Colours’, the song I could most relate to then.
     
     
    As much as the rough early days shattered me, I realize how very grateful I am to have gone through them in the company of music.
    Days & hours working on this song from ‘record’ to ‘release’ taught me patience and restraint that I needed then. It reminded me to find the quiet & still myself on the inside when the world outside was in chaos. Sometimes, being thrown to the ground is a reminder to, always, get right back up. Rainy days make us more excited for that first sunny morning peeking out of the mist. And losing a loved one can remind us how important it is to love; to hold ’em tight when you can.
    Music & songwriting has taught me countless lessons in life. I’m thankful to it for saving me. And I greatly appreciate all of you for letting me keep music with me through my days, by keeping it with you.
     
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    Thank you once again for all your love so far on ‘Fading Colours’.
     
    I’m also fortunate to have the support of these wonderful people:
     
    @john, @Peggy & @Lisa Gatesat RC7 Records and Songstuff who work with my career from around the world. Can’t believe it’s been a decade this year since we began the journey!  
    Santosh, Luke & the whole team at Astha Guitars who endorse me with their incredibly good sounding guitars.  
    Harshita Bandodkar for lending me her time & skills in the form of the artwork and music video for ‘Fading Colours’.  
    There’s a new EP in the works for 2021.
    The project involves a bigger crew, incredible talent & a lot of things to convey through words and melodies. And I cannot wait to share all about it with you in due time. Hope to see you around for it. Want to stay in the loop on what I’m upto?
     
    Join the mailing list at mahesh-music.com!
     
    Signing up to a mailing list is one of the biggest ways to show support to your artists. It creates a direct connection with your favourite music and musicians without the distracting social media scrolls. Besides updates on releases, events & workshops, you are also privy to exclusive content & downloads such as bootleg recordings of gig performances, private skype gigs, chord charts, singing tips and more.
  12. TriggerWarning: Reality, death, illness
     
     
    While having the privilege of a roof and the fortune of being healthy, it's been very painful to watch the horror unfolding in my country due to the second wave of COVID-19. There are no beds in hospitals let alone the necessary oxygen or medical drugs needed to treat the patients. There's no place in crematoriums to burn/bury the loved ones with dignity. There's accute shortage of vaccines to swiftly put a damper on the situation. And I'm only talking about the very small percentage of the population that lives in metropolitan cities. Much of what is happening in rural areas where the country is densely populated with bare minimum medical infrastracture goes largely unnoticed. The people running my country have embrassingly failed us in so many ways which speaks to the state of democracy today.

    Though heart breaking, it is extremely important for the world to witness the harsh reality on the ground; to be moved by the pain and suffering our brothers & sisters are going through; to amplify the voices of the stifled and to channel that spirit positively to offer a helping hand in any way that we can! That's my intention with this little tiny tune that I recently made.

    If you have an organisation that you trust where you live that is sending help to India, please please do consider donating a dollar or two. http://indiacovidresources.in is another place where you can donate to socially verified organisations (international payments accepted) that are on the frontline right now along with information on available resources in various cities for those in need.
    This virus does not see borders with diplomacy.  Unless this situation is contained at the earliest, it is bound to spread across hemispheres.

    While at it, I'd like to thank and appreciate the medical professionals, volunteers, journalists, crematorium workers and everyone else at the forefront of this battle. Stay safe all of you, wherever you are.
  13. 2020 is a special year for us.
     
    We are proud and grateful to be carrying a legacy of serving independent musicians for twenty years now. And in that time, we have grown to be one of the biggest music communities on the internet with our member population having reached more than 20,000!
     
     
    It gives us pleasure to be celebrating this milestone throughout the year with loads of free content, products, contests and more. We plan to give away rewards such as ad-space on our site, paid products from our upcoming catalogue, artist promotion across our social media and more. So, do keep an eye out as we begin to share more news and anniversary dates with you. 
     
    And if you have a musician friend who’s not a member yet, go ahead and invite them to join in on the party.
     
     
     
     Just for laughs, here's a throwback to 2001, our very first homepage! Boy, haven't we come far!
     

  14. Following up on the previous blog post about song form overview, let us dive deeper into one of the most basic songforms used in popular music - strophic songform.
     
    The strophic song form may also be referred to as the "AAA" songform or the One-Part songform. This means to say that the various sections of the song would follow a common theme or structure throughout. Many classical songs from the 17th century follow this structure though the strophic form has been dated back to much earlier when poems were set to music. 
    The following article gives insight to this song form, its structure and examples to go with it. It also includes a few tips to keep the songs written in this manner a little more interesting. 

     http://www.songstuff.com/song-writing/article/song-form-guide-aaa/

    Be sure to share and like the article if you find it useful. If you have any questions, feel free to discuss it on the Songstuff Community Forums.
  15. Join the mailing list for updates & content at http://mahesh-music.com
     
     
    Stream "Fading Colours" on Spotify, Apple Music, etc: http://streamlink.to/FadingColours
     
    BandCamp: https://maheshmusic.bandcamp.com/track/fading-colours
     
    More Links : https://linktr.ee/maheshmusic
     
     
     
     
     
    Release in progress..
     
     
    Oct 1 Exclusive: https://rollingstoneindia.com/exclusive-premiere-mahesh-raghunandan-fading-colours-song/  
    Oct 3 Review: https://www.rsjonline.com/buzz/mahesh-flexes-his-singer-songwriter-chops-on-floaty-new-single.html  
    [Release Day] Oct 7 Review: https://www.indiegaga.com/post/mahesh-raghunandan-dedicates-new-single-fading-colours-to-the-lives-lost-during-the-pandemic  
    Oct 7 : Spotify India included "Fading Colours" in their official playlists "Dinner & Chill", "Radar India", & "Chai & Acoustic".  
    Oct 8 : Rolling Stone India included the song in their official monthly playlist "Rolling Stone India's Hit List".  
    Oct 13 : Fading Colours reaches 6k streams on Spotify. (thanks for the love and support!)  
     
     
     
     
    Track information
     
    Track Title : Fading Colours  
    Artist Name: Mahesh  
    Genre : Singer/Songwriter, Indie Folk, Folk  
    Release Date : 7th October 2020  
    Album title : NA / Single  
    Producer, Composer : Mahesh Raghunandan  
    Artwork Credits : Harshita Bandodkar  
    Record Label : RC7 Records, U.S.A  
     
     
     
    Single Artwork
     
     
     

     
     
  16. Hello Fellow Songstuffers!

    We hope that your quarantine during this pandemic has been productive and peaceful. We’ve been working away to bring you a better forum experience, more free content, and some exciting products!
     

    To start with, Team Songstuff is happy to introduce to our forum community the brand new and advanced chatbox system.
     

     
    The addition of this ‘social media’esque tool opens up to our members a vast range of uses and advantages from organizing realtime workshops and AMA(Ask Me Anything) sessions to good ole’ conversations with your musical buds.
     
     
     
    Here is an extensive rundown of the main features available to you starting today!
     

    Private One2One Chat

     
     
    Chat boxes display on bottom right allow member to chat with each other. Multi chat at same time. Private chat (for those with permission). Ability to select skin for each chat box. Load more messages on scroll up (or down). Easy to find member name to start the chat. Sound notification for new message. Report messages. User online status. Minimize and close chat boxes. Supports Clean Text Input with emoji, Youtube, URL, image URL Quick Refresh Interval Flood control. Message length limit. Permission to edit/delete messages. Fully responsive - will adapt to mobile, tablet, desktop.
    Group Chat
    This feature is an extension of Member Chat to allow users to create a
    group and invite people to chat (if they have permission) Users can leave group whenever they want. Displaying users list in a group. System notification when user joins/leaves group. Group owner can rename the group. Permission for who can invite people to join group.  
    Rooms & Clubs Chat

     
     
    Admin can create multiple rooms, display rooms in widgets, or a new page. Club owner can create a room. Announcement & Rules for each room. Online Users list. Show online users in the panel or popup. Global Chat: Show room in a a floating popup on the bottom of the pages so users can chat anywhere. Toggle show/hide the popup. Option to hide popup chat on mobile. User controls: On/Off sound notification. Open chat in a popup. Select skins. Archive messages: Permission for who can view archive messages. Search messages by member name, guest name, content, time. Sorting messages by time, content, chatter name. Edit/Delete/Report message.  
    Other features:
     
    Input message: Clean text: only supports URL, image URL, Youtube URL, upload image Editor: You can use full formatting from Editor: color, bold, size, emoticons... and all Editor's plugins. Many stylish designs available: 5 skins: Extra features: Supports playing a song from Musicbox (coming soon, when we launch Musicbox) Users can report bad massages. Auto loads old messages when scrolling down (or up). Highlight the message row if someone mentions you. Flood control Display number of online users in Chat menu. Display counter of characters when typing message. *NEW* Lazy load images. Fully responsive.  
     
     
  17. With the new-age of COVID-19, the world’s been forced to transform ways of living through social distancing, cleanliness habits, and beyond. Personally, with so much time being spent in my room and away from friends, it’s been a deep inward journey for transformation within myself.
    None can run away from their own thoughts (especially during quarantine!). But you can learn to slow down, stop, and simply turn around to look at what is really chasing you. And that’s been the motivation for many of my days.
     
    Fuck. Tell me about it. But I’ve been learning to patiently make progress by the inches.
    When we get so identified with our life story, our thoughts, our emotions, it distracts us from ourselves. The attention is having to jump across too many things to deal with in the span of a day before returning back home. It’s all good until you stop coming back home and continuous attention to thoughts becomes your default mental pattern. You begin to feel detached from yourself because you’re incessantly consuming information that is randomly generated from your thoughts. It becomes tiring.
     
    Training my own voice forces me to deal with a limited set of physical sensations in order to tailor my singing for musical needs.
    Working with my students as a vocal coach motivates me to pour all my attention to their demonstrations in order to decide the best move forward for their development in singing.
    Even cooking, songwriting, listening to a talk, working on this blog post, all are things that require me to limit my attention to a handful of things. It forces me to adapt & deal with them.
    I’m not over-blowing my system with a large number of thoughts. Instead, I’m allowing a limited number of these thoughts and learning to manage them!
    It has made me rediscover my ability to slow the fuck down and stay there.
    We find mindfulness in all kinds of activities that we do in everyday life. I’ve been learning to accept this fact more and more and welcome the quality of being.
     
    I urge everybody to innovatively discover their own ways of accessing their sense of awareness.
    I started a weekly routine of writing these little one-minute ‘songs’ (I see it more like a poem or haiku activity but with all things music) to affectionately engage myself regularly with my thoughts but also my musical skills and more importantly, with my own awareness. :)
    Wanna leave you with ‘nomad’s tune’ which kinda inspired me to write this post.
     
    There’s always a better day waiting!
    Love
  18. During this global pandemic, for better or for worse, social media and the internet in general have taken the front seats in many of our lives.
     
    This is especially the case for many musicians as they turn to services like Instagram and Youtube to entertain their fans and interact with them. We see artists like Norah Jones doing mini concerts or Jordan Rakei writing songs while streaming live every week. And I think it's bringing musicians and followers to a common ground with pretty interesting outcomes.
     
     
    Emily King is a musician and songwriter that I admire a lot. And she recently posted a clip of her singing a little tune that she wrote and asked her fans to 'collaborate' by adding some parts to it whether it be vocals, percussion or any other instrument.
     
     
     
    I was very interested in this idea. It's not everyday you get to 'collab' with your favorite musicians. So, I spent the day exploring this muse and added some vocal layers to it. Here's what I came up with:
     
     
     
    Many of my followers enjoyed what I had come up with and to my surprise and joy, Emily herself heard the clip and commented on my profile.
     

     
     
    I find that very cool especially when we are all self-isolating and are holed up at home.
     
    I'm loving the collaboration trend that's going around. I saw one of our members @EduNog post a Bon Jovi track that was made as a "covid19 collab" which was really cool too! (Link: https://forums.songstuff.com/topic/53478-bon-jovi-feat-delicious-grace-do-what-you-can/?tab=comments#comment-346659)
     
    Strange are the times we live in but hey, at least we've got some music going
     
     
  19. Two years is what it took for this day to arrive. I’d been doing this “music thing” for many years but the opportunity to go into the studio and do a solid record with a band had always been a far fetched idea.
     
    Two years later, here I am having worked with an incredible bunch of musicians to put these incredibly songs together and share it with you today.It is safe to say that “Accept” changed my life; as a musician and as a human being. I’m really glad to be sharing these songs with you today. I hope you’ll like them and will make it a part of your every day lives.
     
     
    .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }  
    You can download/buy/stream this on all major music platforms of your liking such as Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, Google Play Music and more.. http://fanlink.to/AcceptEP
     
     
     
  20. "Accept" is finally releasing on all platforms on 30th September!
     
    After two years of hard work and learning, I'm glad that it has finally reached its final lapses of the journey. Over the course of this project, I have collaborated with so many different kinds of people on so many different fronts; so much so that it became a central theme to what this EP has been all about. And based on that I'm doing a few collaborations in the city as we move toward the final launch gig! 
     

     
     
     
     
    October 19 is the Accept EP launch gig, Bangalore! This is gonna be a huge celebration with so many collaborations that I can't wait to spill the beans on. Excited.
     
    https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/mahesh1/exN9
     
    If you're on Spotify or Apple Music, you can save my EP so that it drops directly into your playlist when it's out 
  21. I’m super excited to be sharing with you, “Your Mind”, the second single and music video from my upcoming EP “Accept”. 
     
    After the melancholic first single “Come Find Me”, I wanted to release something that gave a contrast to the somber side of me and my music. Your Mind is a song about coming out of the bubble that we create for ourselves with our minds. We create a false sense of reality where only those things that are pleasant find their place while the truth stays hidden deep under, never really going away. That ain’t good! Life is tough but I know that it’s tough love too. You wouldn’t appreciate the beautiful sunny day as much if it never rained. 
     
    And so, we wanted the second music video to be joyous. I wanted to capture happiness and love in the purest way possible for this song. What better way than to do a road trip down south with some really talented friends for a gig in Kochi. This idea included my love for travelling, the wonderful human beings I’ve surrounded myself with, the most passionate fans from Kochi that I’ve had the privilege of having and also, music - something that defines much of my purpose in life.  
     
    Here’s the video and song and I hope you resonate with it. Thank you for your love and support. I’m grateful!
     
     
     
     
     
    Join my mailing list for all the updates on the upcoming EP! I’ll be sure to include some exclusive content in there as well Much love. http://mahesh-music.com/mailinglist
  22. I've been doing a lot of things at the same time lately.
     
    Just about to start touring to promote the EP besides working on the second music video, a documentary, launch gig and a lot more music all the while preparing for the EP to release in September with the team at Songstuff's very own Red Circle 7 Records. It's very easy during these times for me to completely forget picking up the guitar. And that concerns me. lol I need my regular dose of music to keep things sane(r).
     
    To make sure that I keep the pace going, I started a new Youtube video series called “Live in the Room” where I will be sharing with live performances of the music that I write and the music that I love on a regular basis. Fly Away is the first song recorded for this series. With my interest letting itself loose to all different kinds of music lately, neo-soul and R&B has been an area that I keep going back to.
     
    Fly Away is a result of that.  Who knew a constant chirping of this one particular bird outside my window could make me ponder about life and love and write a song about it!  Music is a wonderful thing. I should record this sometime over the year or at least that's the plan. lol Let's see how it goes. A lot of ideas on the arrangement floating about in my head.

     
    I hope your journey is going well.
    Mahesh

  23. Emotion and Words

    By Mahesh ,

    I wanted to share with you this song I wrote a couple months ago with the many changes that this year has given me in life.
     
    It's a reminder to everyone listening and to myself that 'feeling' an emotion is not the same as *associating* it to names, faces, places, situation and words. While recording this, I was interrupted by a kid in the parking lot who seemed to be amused by the singing. lol I felt like it was an appropriate surprise so I kept the take.
     
     
     
     
     
    I left my blues behind,
    I didn't lose it, I just don't use it
    It's right where I left my keys
    If you see it just leave it be, leave it be
     
    I don't need a place to call home
    Or a song playin' in repeat just to prove me love
    All of it can stay, there's nothing wrong
    I don't need emotion in words
     
    Words, words
    Places and names, they don't work
    Breathe in the moment and feel my love
    My love
     
    Love, love, love
    It's only a word we're dreamin' of
    Breathe in the moment and return
    To my love
     
    I've got no secret place, secret game
    Not today, this is all I am
    Don't get lost in fairy tales, movie scenes
    We can make this moment last much better
     
    I don't need a plan to make love,
    Let it flow. If it's meant to be surely we will know
    All of it can fade come tomorrow
    So I won't feed emotion with words
     
    Words, words
    Places and names, they don't work
    Breathe in the moment and feel my love
    My love
     
    Love, love, love
    It's only a word we're dreamin' of
    Breathe in the moment and return
    To my love
     
     
  24. Practicing your instrument is an art in itself. For guitarists, some find it a very fun routine while others look at practicing their finger exercises and scales regularly as a discipline and may see it as a boring chore. There is no reason why it can be both: a disciplined process and a fun activity. Finding the right balance between the two is very essential.
     
    The following article gives you insight on what it means to practice with discipline and to practice with fun. It also gives you tips on how to balance both of these aspects and make the most of your daily routines.
    http://www.songstuff.com/guitar/article/practicing_guitar_self_discipline/

    Be sure to share and like the article if you find it useful. If you have any questions, feel free to discuss it on the Songstuff Community Forums. 
  25. http://www.mahesh-music.com/listening-habits-for-a-musician/
     
    As a songwriter (and you will see if you do listen to the recent music I've put out on my SoundCloud or Youtube), my songs are quite melancholic and well, 'singer-songwriter'y.
     
    But the music I'm listening to is not along the same lines.
     
    I listen to a lot of RnB, Neo-Soul, Blues, a bit of Jazz music and more. That's usually my playlist that would keep me going on a daily basis. Sure, I do indulge myself in singer-songwriters every now and then especially when new music is released or I find a new artist that I enjoy; and I do consider John Mayer and Damien Rice my biggest influences. But they aren't on my playlist unless there's new music. In fact, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder have been huge influences for me as a musician and yet, their traces may not be easily found in the music that I do. It's always interested me to understand how this works. And I realised that our listening ears and musician ears may not necessarily be the same thing.
     
    When you are listening to a song, you get drawn to the melodies at times, sometimes the rhythm or sometimes the groove. And the words sometimes catch your ear and you get instantly addicted to it. I highly suggest that you recognise and be mindful of these decisions your mind makes. When you listen to a song that you really like. Ask yourself why you really like it. Go through the melody, dance to the groove, sing out the chorus if that is catchy. Enjoy it differently each time and notice it. Learn and try to recognise where your enjoyment for a particular piece of music is coming from. Grow that quality in you. Grow that awareness in you and it WILL help you greatly in your own creative journey through music!
    It has been helping me lately and I've still a way to go!
     
    Some of the artists I've been enjoying lately!
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
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