If you're here, you've likely lost your way on the internet or have nothing better to do.
Either way, it's nice to find you. I'm Indroneil Kanungo, and I'm a musician.
I don't know when my journey as a musician really began. Some of my earliest musical memories are of me sitting in the background while my mother had Indian Classical Vocal Lessons. There, 7-year-old me would pick up a guitar or a harmonium, and would figure out how to play the raaga they were learning, or other familiar songs on it. I could somehow always find the right notes, and I realized that one doesn't use all the available notes for a song, but rather a very specific subset of them. Once I identified that pattern, I could learn the rest of the piece quickly and intuitively. Similar events continued sporadically over the coming years.
When I was 12, I was gifted a small Yamaha digital keyboard (PSR-E313) since my parents probably realized that I had a thing for music. There were several built-in songs on it, one of which was Für Elise. I instantly fell in love with the piece and I spent the next 2 years of my life figuring out ways to play the notes, optimizing my fingering and learning the piece in its entirety.
Around the same time, I picked up some terminology from the internet and the keyboard, and used them to come up with a theoretical framework to identify, recognize and rationalize patterns in the melodies, chord progressions and rhythms that I heard around me. That's how I learnt music theory, or rather my version of it.
Through my whole life, writing music didn't feel like an interesting process, or even a creative one. Because I've been listening exclusively to popular music, and it didn't feel difficult to write such a song. By analysing enough of them, I learnt and internalized a set of patterns or "rules" regarding what's allowed.
I'm talking about rules like
- Chord Progressions must be diatonic, and whenever possible, vi-IV-I-V.
- The key of the song may not change.
- The tempo may not change.
- One must be able to count in some even multiple of four or three.
- Songs must not be longer than 3-4 minutes.
- The structure of the song must be Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus.
- Songs must be about love and relationships.
- Vocal melodies are the most important thing in the universe.
And I remember thinking, of course those patterns when followed, would result inevitably in something that sounds good. And at the same time, it must be impossible to make music that breaks those rules.
But at the ripe age of 17, I joined the Indian Institute of Technology — Roorkee to study Physics. It was the first time I had actually met other musicians. Through them, I stumbled upon a song that caught my attention. I remember liking it and having the idea to try and count it, like I do with every song I hear. And to my astonishment, I had to count in bars of 9 in some sections and then 5 in others to keep up with it. I still remember where I was and how it looked around me as I had this realization, and asked myself how the hell is it possible that something this absurd sounds so good? The song was called "Start of Something Beautiful" by Porcupine Tree, and I guess in a way, it really was.
I had discovered the world of progressive rock, and my life wouldn't be the same again. What followed was a phase where I obsessively consumed and transcribed the discography of the likes of Steven Wilson, Pink Floyd, Haken, Tool, Dream Theater, etc. And my life was filled with music that not only broke the unbreakable rules, but also plunged me into a pool of infinite euphoria that I had never experienced before.
Now keep in mind, I was utterly depressed and suicidal at the time for unrelated reasons, but music like this overwhelmed me with pleasure and gratitude towards humanity, for it could allow me to experience art like this. I felt privileged. And I completely stopped caring about physics, and instead devoted my time to teaching myself Guitar, Bass, Vocals, Music Production, Audio-Engineering, Photoshop, Animation, Video Editing, Software- & Web-Development, Marketing and whatever else I felt was necessary, in order to give back to humanity, the same sense of wonder and awe that I had experienced.
Music has quite literally saved my life, and it gives me meaning and a sense of purpose. So I create music, and share the love that I have for it, through performing and teaching.