Jyoti Mishra and Tanmay Chaturvedi- singers par excellence

Jyoti Mishra

Jyoti Mishra – A singing Angel

These two singer profiles are suggested by blog visitors and our patrons. Thanks for this help but sorry for the long wait to get them scheduled. Nevertheless, it gives immense pleasure to present these two absolutely great singers, Jyoti Mishra and Tanmay Chaturvedi.

Jyoti Mishra is originally from Bhubaneswar, Temple city of Odisha. and currently residing in Melbourne, Australia. Jyoti fondly remembers her parent’s recollection of her early singing as soon as she was able to talk. They told her that she used to mimic the jingles played on the TV ads. At the very young age of five, she competed and won prizes in singing competitions; this made her parents identify Jyoti’s talents in singing. Jyoti says ever since there was no looking back. She extensively studied Hindustani Classical music and Odissi Classical music and currently holds a Visharad degree in both forms of this music. To add to her feathers of achievements she had been an All India Radio Artist for several years before she left India to live abroad. The leaving of their homeland to live in Australia’s big city of Melbourne briefly paused her music. Later, when she decided to get back to her singing practices. Jyoti says even a pause of riyaaz for a short while (vocal exercises) took a big toll on her singing voice in a big way.

Jyothi continues with a lot of anguish “When I look back, I realize what a huge mistake it was to quit singing together because, without vocal exercise (riyaaz), voice quality, range and your capabilities as a singer go down quickly. It took me a while to overcome my shortcomings and right now I am in a comfortable place, thanks to my exposure to Smule. It has reignited that dormant side of mine. I love singing a variety of genres but enjoy most fusion semi-classical songs. In time I would love to be able to sing Pure classical with ease. I am only concentrating on challenging and improving myself right now.” We will soon see her unique voice qualities and excellent control of her voice and a pure full range of voice from low range to high range with absolutely no effort.

Asked about her music idols: Jyoti like one of our previous featured singers from West Bengal “Sourajit”, Jyoti has a fixation with the magical voice of Sonu Nigam, She says ” I have been following Sonu Nigam since his days before Sa Re Ga Ma Pa (reality show on India’s cable channel) and he is my only idol. His dedication towards music is just so amazing.”

Asked about what sort of music she would like to make “If I ever get a chance to do a record, I would like to do a light classical fusion album.” She quickly added, “I also admire a lot Vishal Bharadwaj and A.R. Rahman as composers.”

We knew Jyoti even before anybody suggested her profile for a feature. We had included one of her joins ( a very beautiful one) in our very own friend and a wonderful singer from Lucknow, U.P. Bhavishya.

Her strong asset is the classical training she obtained at a very early age itself.  She also has an absolutely unique voice that stands out in a crowd of female singers. We already have covered three singers hailing from Odisha, before in a feature on the music from this historic State of India. Please check this out here. Pratiksha Dash – A rare orchid from Kalinga (Odisha) the land of Jagannath.

We are extremely proud to present Jyoti on our blog and hope you all get to visit her Smule profile here and follow her and encourage this beautiful singer. Jyoti above all is a great human being with a very kind manner with so much time dedicated to listening to all her joins and sure acknowledging every join with grace. More to add she know to take a joke and is a very pleasant presence on the Smule Sing we are very happy to write about.

Without delay let us listen to Jyoti’s singing. We wanted to start with a very beautiful classic Bhare Naina from Sharrookh’s movie Ra-One, which is a Sufi-style song. Her videos are very beautiful and noticed her range of voice. There is a touch of folk in her voice that is perfect for this song. Absolutely an awesome rendition.

Zara, Zara The Bombay Jayashri a singing goddess of India herself touched this song so beautifully. A very tough song to sing effectively. Jyoti easily sail through this and sang it very close to the original. Kudos.

Here Jyoti joined Tanmay in a classic movie song made in the recent Hindi movie industry. Mere Dolna sun. Both these guys put in 110 % effort and care are so amazing. Top-notch performances.

A Alka Yagnik classic, Agar tum saath ho. ENJOY the song, Very effortless singing. The feel in the song is amazing.

Sneha Hole joins Jyoti on a duet song Jaadoo Hai Nasha. Sneha is one super singer herself made this join a pleasure to watch.

Tum Kya Mile – Bhavishya is our all-time favorite singer, a singer at par with great singers like Rafi Saab. This singing is beyond words. Anything Bhavishya sings one can listen to all day. Bhavishya’s most of the joins with many singers are one of the best on Smule Sing. Absolutely beautiful singers here. The original version was sung by Udit and Lataji.

Jyoti joins an absolutely great singer on Smule Hindi singers Ajit a very strong singing presence on Hindi music field. Aisa lagta hai. Jyoti get to sing a song that Sonu Nigam sang for the male part and female part by Alka Yganik

Jyoti’s own version of a Mohe rang do lal, Shreya stamp song. Listen here, Jyoti’s absolute control of breath and being in tune at the same time.

We heard from her interview here that Jyoti is still working back up her skills every day. It is a pleasure seeing that in her singing efforts and hard work throughout her profile. She absolutely deserves this place in our feature please visit this beautiful singer from Odisha here and encourage her and we are sure interacting with her will be an absolute pleasure to know this pure at heart singer. All the best wishes to Jyoti in her singing career.

TANMAY CHATURVEDI -a little champ to mature singer

Tanmay’s story is a Nationally televised story in India. He is a very fortunate kid from Agra, the city of Taj Mahal. At very young age itself, Tanmay sang in front of an entire nation week after week on India’s most popular Hindi cable channel, Zee TV reality show called Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Little Champs. He was the second runner-up on a highly acclaimed show which was judged by famous musicians like Sonu Nigam and Suresh Wadkar. He was encouraged big time by music directors Vishal Bharadwaj to sing Playback in an Amithab movie “Bhoothnath”. Remember him, he was a little kid with that big voice and all that achievements in his bag at an early age itself? We will soon see he had been working on his vocals and was training in Hindustani big time to come out as a mature vocalist.

We just want to stress here a point that Tanmay is on this feature not because he almost won a reality show at a very young age. But purely because his Smule profile displays a very impressive mature singing that we are absolutely convinced need a highlight here so that people know about this champion singer.

Another big aspect to highlight here about Tanmay is his tireless efforts to nurture Hindustani classical music using the Smule app. In this respect, he single-handed started a virtual institute called MSIPA (Music Speaks; Institute of Performing Arts; see the sign above). The is an organization of singers on Smule who uses the Smule app to share their music and teach willing members of this organization free music lessons etc. Tanmay was very vocal when he was talking about his virtual music school. He said the members of this organization get together on Smule and practice together and produce music challenges. He claims it is the only such group of its kind that stresses education for anyone who wants to learn any form of Indian classical music. He had a vision and was very hopeful his organization grows bigger with more participation.

Here is what this virtual institute is in Tanmay’s own words “MSIPA is an institute working on Smule and its one and only of its kind on Smule; MSIPA means MusicSpeaks; Institute of Performing Arts. We believe in proper training. We train people and we make sure that people can improve their positive zones and also they will make their negative zone comes to positive zone.”

He continued “I want to promote classical music of India and for that I myself is learning Hindustani for the past 10 years or So; really want to change the taste of music among people who sing as well as listen to India music” Profound words indeed. Tanmay is very critical of present-day Hindi music, but quickly he added “Some exceptions are always there” He was indicating the few good songs still made in movies that are musically sound.

Here we write this feature to display Tanmay as a great musician. Let us get to know this singer up close by some songs selected from his profile. We selected very few songs for this singer. Yet each of these performances is some of the toughest ones, song choice-wise, profoundly complex deliberate choices. For an average singer, some of these songs are not the most favorite to sing. Some of them as pure classic music-based performances. Bloggers have attempted to understand this as much using references on Hindustani (see important references below). If there are mistakes in the interpretation of Raagas please forgive us and write to us. We will sure make corrections.

Raag Yaman, this is a basic Raaga of Hindustani. Yaman is considered to be sung at any time of the day, preferably sung during the evenings. Here Tanmay sang Eri Ali Piya Bina a common bandish of Yaman taught to beginners and used in performances of beginners. But check out the most elite Bhimsen Joshi singing the same raag. One famous film song in this raaga is Aap ki Aankon mein Kuch from movie “Ghar”. Here Tanmay did an excellent mature performance of this song

Raag Yaman madhyalaya (medium tempo)

OH BELOVED, COME CLOSE TO ME SOMEDAY… (KADI AA MIL SANWAL YAAR VE); An out-of-this-world Punjabi song. The translation of this song is in our Lyrics time below.  Huge respect for Tanmay and his song picks; they are absolutely right on, and beautiful singing. Fantastic is the word.

Taj Dhare Haram – Atif song and nothing more one can ask for. Atif Aslam is a Pakistani singer with a voice made in Heaven. Here Tanmay did an awesome job with this.  We are out of words for praise for this singer. A mighty effort but poor video production, a bad atmosphere choice for a song like that.

Saanware – OMG! that is one daring attempt at Ustaad Nusrat Fateh Ali khan’s song. How many on Smule can say can sing or will attempt songs like these? Maybe almost none. And more to this, the maturity in singing he shows here, daring to experiment here is an indication of a great music career ahead. We are very fortunate that we were able to find a date for Tanmay and feature his singing here. Out of league for any other similar profiles. If the Bollywood industry missed him, it may be lucky, that he went on to learn Hindustani seriously. Now we are sure he will make a wonderful independent singer no matter what. People will recognize his singing and will listen to him. Beautiful and fitting singer to represent the heritage of great Hindustani from the city of Agra.

Lastly back to yet another Hindustani classical performance by Tanmay. Raag Bhairavi is said to be similar to Phrygian mode, a western church note. The things Tanmay learned and his maturity of understanding of Hindustani displayed are awesome.

ENDNOTES:

We are very fortunate we get to feature such great singing talents here. We are humbled to have both Jyoti and Tanmay to be agreeing to be featured. Jyoti, we strongly think is a wonderful singer that over a period of observation has been found experimenting with her singing and entertaining us through her Smule profile.

Tanmay is the sweetest guy we ever have worked with. He is pure to his heart and most of our interactions with him are very long hours of chat (phew) and Tanmay comes out to be a hard worker. We are sorry to keep him waiting to be featured here for so long. Tanmay, it was such a pleasure to know you through Smule and keep in touch. Write to us anytime you want to have us display your singing performances here.

Please follow these two talents here Tanmay and Jyoti

Lyrics Time

KADI AA MIL SANWAL YAAR VE

Oh beloved, after smiting me
into a helpless fall for you…
Don’t you wander somewhere,
where I have no sight of you…
Make your way home to me now,
allow me a glimpse for moments a few.

Oh dear beloved of mine,
come close
and meet me someday…
Each corner of my soul,
craves for you loudly…

My life seems lost,
abandoned and fray…
When my beloved’s scent
isn’t in grasp,
but fading away…
Been an eons that I crave,
for my beloved’s presence…
Oh dear beloved of mine,
come close
and meet me someday…

For days spent
in detached embrace
of yours…
Waiting on very ways
I traced last footsteps
of yours…
I sit here losing myself
like a castaway…
Oh dear beloved of mine,
come close
and meet me someday…

Original Lyrics

Sajan preet laga ke
Duur des mat jaa
Baso humari nagri
Mohay Sunder Mukh Dikhla ja

O kabhi aa mil sanwal yaar way
Meray loo loo cheekh pukar way

Meri jindri hoyee udaass way
mera sanwal aas na paass way
usse mille nay chaar kahar way
O kabhi aa mil sanwal yaar way

Tujh Harjayee ki banhoon main
aur pyar preet ki rahoon main
main to baithi sab kuj haar way
kabhi aa mil sanwal yaar way…

Important References:

The Raga Guide: A Survey of 74 Hindustani Ragas. Zenith Media, London: 1999.