Harika

P.V.Harika

• 

This feature of selected singers from A.P. is a long time promise when we featured our most valued peer from Andra Pradesh Srivani Sailaja.

The region is very much rich with talents we asked her help to pick two young singers from the region for a feature. These two were originally picked by her but Harika’s name was kindly suggested by Manoj as well. Thanks Manoj for the suggestions. The funny thing about it is Manoj without knowing suggested Srivani Sailaja’s name also.

Nevertheless when approached for the purpose of knowing these two singers Manoj was so hesitant we had to convince him more that he is an amazing singer and suggested by our peers from the region. Harika we knew her long time ago since we have seen her singing with many other south India songs and was pretty noticeable with an awesome singing. We are so happy to present here both these young singers from Andra Pradesh. Asked for their singing aspirations and song selections both were so impressive in their comprehension of what they want to do with their music. We were absolutely impressed by the quality of their singing and thoughts about their music interests.

Harika Peddibhotla

Without delay let us get to know Harika and her music. Asked about her earlier days of music learning she said “My musical journey started at the tender age of one, soon after I began speaking”  Her parents taught her “slokas” (couplet of Sanskrit verses) and had her sing them at temple. Seeing her interest in sounds, they encouraged her to try a variety of music.

Harika lives  the United States, in the state of Virginia. She had the opportunity to hear music from all over the world. She says she learned and absorb many of those influences during her growing up. Although lived in western world learning and performing music from India was her top priority.

She had been training in Carnatic music for several years now, with various teachers in the United States and India.  She continued to describe her gurus and was very thoughtfully thanked all of them she said “for the knowledge they have given her”. She says they all have encouraged her throughout her singing career. She says also friends and other mentors also have influenced her tremendously and help guide her how to make progress on this musical journey. She says “they showed me the opportunities, and wished me well always, I am very thankful to all those blessings I have.  I wouldn’t be where I am without them.” Very profound way of looking back on her growing up and very important aspect of ways to success indeed.

Harika is very young singer and within this short period she had sung professionally for a devotional album, in which she lead a popular chant called Jai Srimannarayana. It was the Srimatha Company based in Visakhapatnam which blessed her  with this opportunity. Here is her YouTube channel link https://www.youtube.com/user/pvharika?app=desktop.  She also have performed on stages with the famous music director Anup Rubens.

She had sung tracks for the famous and respected Telugu film music director Koti Saluri. He gave her a chance to sing a track for a film, Kshetram. She sang the track for a song that Chitra chechi sang in the movie. Harika says singing in a playback setting, was a great learning experience for her. Here is the link for Harikas’ track.

In addition, Harika have sung on many stages in the United States for India festivals, by India associations in the United States. She have had the opportunity to perform on stage with talented artists, including the popular India film music composers Mani Sharma, and Keeravani sir. We had the pleasure to feature earlier a Keeravani sir’s favorite Malayalam singer Ganga chechi here in a celebrity feature, if you haven’t read it please read our feature. Harika also directed music for an Asian theater production, in which she worked with learned artists and incorporated elements from music of India as well as music from other Asian languages.

Her aunt, a genuine music-enthusiast herself, wanted her to try singing in Smule. That is how we all came to know about Harika. She says ” I thoroughly enjoyed singing on Smule and find it to be an aspiring singer’s dream come true. It’s unbelievable how we can collaborate and make quality music so simply. It allows for quality interaction with other singers and makes you part of a music community. I’m thankful to Smule for the positive encouragements that  I have received through it and for providing such a wonderful way to enhance my musical abilities.” Indeed she said it all right. Thanks to Harika for singing on Smule Sing.

Asked about her career aspirations she said she hope to continue learning and performing music in the playback setting, on stage or any platforms that support her growth in music career. She has a main career and work in healthcare business strategy.

Harika did not forget to add quickly the most important people in her life and music, “I’m thankful for the constant support my parents, teachers, mentors, family, friends, and well-wishers give me. Thank you for believing in me and encouraging my development as a musician”.

While working on this feature we were very impressed by the thorough professionalism Harika displayed. She knew the importance of being on platforms like this right away and she was not shy about her thoughts. Very very impressed and we wish her all the best in her singing. Without delay let us get to know this singer right away.

Here Harika singing Muthuswami Dikshitar Krithi in Raagam Nattai, in Adi thalam. Beautiful singing and we are very proud to introduce her this way. ENJOY. Harika’s voice is a million dollar right here. Mahaganapthim.

An amazing invite and an amazing singer from Malayalam Smule Hari (Scorfiene) joined by Harika. Laal Isque. Beautiful singing, Hear this for sure.

Harika Telusa Telusa, A Telugu song with Radhakrishna. A beautiful join. Unfortunately every T-series song on Smule is copyrighted and one will have to play this song on YouTube.

Harika says they have a group of singers from Telugu with a common account where Telugu singers join in collaborations It is called Dvibes. If you are interested visit their Smule profile at the embed link. This is  one such mash-ups Harika join on  AR medley. Beautiful singing. The male singer here Ravikanth, sang awesome here.

Here Harika join Manoj on a beautiful Hindi song Chaun Mein ya na from Movie Ashiquie 2.  Very strong disciplined singing. Both these singer’s control of their voice and details of the songs are very impressive. Right feel and very enjoyable.

We really see a star from A.P. rising here. She is indeed have proven that living abroad still can work in playback in India. Hope Harika get all that opportunities she well deserve from the Telugu and Hindi movie Industry. All the best.

END NOTES:

This week’s feature was possible only because of the co-operation of Srivani Sailaja whose never-ending patience and patron-ship is very much acknowledged here. We would never had been able to scan through a vast number of singers from Telugu Smule. We had our beautiful friend who herself is an awesome classically trained singer of great achievements on our side. We truly value her friendship. In the future if you wish to be featured here please contact Srivani Madam at her smule page

Here is a song of her collaboration with Sree Lakshmipriya Yayum winner on Smule singing Chinna Chinna Vanna Kuyil, A beautiful rendition by both.

Anecdote

S.P. Balasubramanyam

Known to all in music world as SPB and the singer with a phenomenal voice and success of six National Awards and more than 40,000 songs already recorded and a Guinness record of recording the most number of songs in a single day, he is our most close to heart singer. While we cover two young singers from Andhra Pradesh we think there is nothing more than honor him in this feature. He gave voice to almost every movie of Kamal Hassan the super star portrayed in Telugu. There is sure something common between them that one can believe if SPB spoke for Kamal it will sound like Kamal. His songs from the movie “Shankarabharam’ was the most memorable for many where he was selected to sing all the songs of this classic music-based songs made by KV Mahadevan. Unlike his peers like KJ and Balamuralikrishna who all were the singers trained in South India Carnatic music SPB is selected for singing with no training in Classic music. Undoubtedly SPB songs from this movie turned out to be chartbusters.

Let us hear songs from Shakrabharam.

His later association with music director Illayaraja produced some of the most beautiful melodies. Listen to one beautiful melody from Tamil movies of SPB, Janaki and Illayaraja combination. The expressions brought by both SPB and SJ are beyond words, this scene in the movie beenfit big time with uch singing by these singers.Many times the success of those movies was just these song sequences.Give a listen, how the drama is created in this movie scene by these singers.

The next milestone in SPB career may be when Lakshmikant-Pyarelal team gave music for Ek duje ke liya” again a remake of south India hit (First made in Telugu called Maro Charitra and then made in several south India languages and then remade in Hindi) The movie director Balachander wanted SPB to sing the songs for the Hindi version as well. Rightly insisted and on screen when Kamal acted and sang with all those beautiful expressions filled voice of SPB whole of India laughed and cried with the lead couple’s tragic love story. It is such feats that establish a singer as a legend who goes into history and songs that become classics. Later he went on to sing for Salman Khan (Hum Aaap Hai Kaun), Sharukh Khan (Chennai Express), we all agreed yes SPBs voice is universal. He also acted in “Keladi Kanmani”. Here enjoy the Tere meere beech mein , the voice of female part is sung by Lata mangeshkar. The story is a love between a south India boy and North India girl. Who do not speak eithers language yet can not stop loving each other. Kamal and Rati hugely benefited from this two singers expressions in the song. Give a listen.

SPB is yet humble he often says he wonder how he lasted this long in the industry, but he must be joking right. Such a versatile and phenomenal singer, one cannot stop wondering how often we will find a legend like him in music. Here is Hum bane tum bane

We leave you guys with the sad version and how SPB made the song right for the expressions here. A lot to learn for everyone, enjoy. TERE MERE BEACH MEIN

END

Manoj Sarma- A super Talent on Telugu Smule

Introduction

We decided to re-blog these features here because Manoj has been a great support of our efforts here and also his talent is unmistakable on Telugu Smule scene. His never ending enthusiasm in pursuing a career in music and continued excellent singing on Telugu Smule made his place back here with a dedicated feature for him.

The following is the same write up when we published Manoj as our very first pick for a male singer from the great state of Andra Pradesh. We are not changing anything since his place as the first male singer pick is a place he deserve more than anybody due to his talent.

Manoj Sarma

Manoj is our first pick of male singers from our peers suggestions, simply because he is a singer who does not realize how great a singer he is. When approached he doubted that he is not yet ready for anything like this. We had to ask him to re-think for few days and write back to us. He indeed thought well and came back realizing how important this opportunity is and accepted our invitation. Thanks Manoj, We are so happy for you. You deserve this more than any one else. Keep the good singing.

He wrote to us “As a famous quote reads, “A person who feels appreciated, will always do more than what is expected.”, choosing me as the very first featured artist from a lot of good talents from Telugu Smule, has truly given a boost to my journey as a musician. I am grateful for this recognition and this has, indeed, lifted my spirits.”

Manoj comes from a small town of Amalapuram in East Godavari district, of Andhra Pradesh; Manoj have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and work in IT industry. He says his family is a musically oriented one, Manoj have always had an ear for music. He says he is an ardent admirer of ghazals and melodies.

Manoj on his free time work in music recording studios where he sing tracks for many famous music directors and he is also an expert on recording and its engineering aspects. While working close to music recording studios, his dream is to be the singer one day.

Asked about his music idols, we heard an excellent line of singers which show Manojs’ music taste. He is inspired by many Telugu as well as other nationally famous singers; like the magnificent voices of Shree Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao garu, Shree S.P. Bala Subramanyam garu; the legendary Mohammed Rafi Sir; his inspirations are Hariharan Sir, and the exceptionally melodious voice of Sonu Nigam Sir. He adds quickly” Sonu Nigam singing sweep me off my feet every time with his exceptionally melodious voice.”

Manoj says, he was not always very much into singing public, until he was cornered by his friends to sing at a college event in Hyderabad. It was such events where he realized that he had the potential to sing. Ever since, Manoj have pursued to learn and sing more, alongside of an IT job. He is considering these as his baby steps towards a dream of becoming a playback singer.

Manoj have taken part in various stage shows, special episodes in T.V channels, and have also experienced playback singing. Although not traditionally trained, his determination to learn and passion for music have kept him going strong.

He added “Music, melodies in particular, set my soul at peace”

Asked if he was given a chance to make his own music “I would love to indulge myself in making soul-stirring melodies.”
He says ” I am so thankful to the entire team of Smule for setting up a platform to showcase my art, helping me improve over the time, and for recognizing the same.” Manoj is also a part of the Telugu music groups as well Divbez is a group he and few other friends started quite early in Telugu Smule.e

Without delay let us listen to his beautiful singing here.

Armaan invited everyone to sing with him his new hit song. Tehar ja. Manoj, all the best, you should get this opportunity to meet him when he announces the winners. All the best. He gives a try at everything and there is no end to that positive attitude.

An excellent collaboration. This is perfectly beautiful and highest professionalism. The female singer Shravani from Telugu Smule is a phenomenal talent. Sure listen to this.

Absolute classic and more class singing from Manoj and Udayasri. Enjoy this beautiful Rafi song. Co singer Udayasri is an awesome singer.

A rare devotional song done by Illayaraja in Telugu. This performance is GOLDEN, in big bold capitals. Manoj and his co singer Tejaswipvl did an awesome job and this is record ready. Hope Raja sir see this performance. Original is sung by Shreya and Telugu playback singer Ramu. If you haven’t heard the original click on the link at the singers. Enjoy this.

Here Harika join Manoj on a beautiful Hindi song Chaun Mein ya na from Movie Ashiquie 2.  Very strong disciplined singing by both. Both these singer’s control of their voice and details given to the song are very impressive. Right feel and very enjoyable. Both these singers from Telugu are professional level singers with Harika already sung for Playback.

Smule hit Dhadak track sung beautifully by Manoj and Anakha. Excellent classically trained singer from Malayalam Smule is a phenomenal talent. She is the winner of many Smule contests and will be looking for her to approach for a feature here about her music.

END NOTES

When we finish re-blogging Manoj’s feature, there is no other singer we are more happy to support than Manoj. Since the last time we blogged him Manoj made his own singing much more refined and it added his followers list swell. His singing on any day is unbelievably perfect. He constantly make his struggles in getting that opportunity to sing Playback by working in recording studios. And sung many tracks. Also sung for many new directors whose movies are in store to be released. We wish Manoj all the best in his music career. He is a super star on Smule sing any day. An exceptional talented singer. 

Vinod Sharma- A young musician poised to make it big

Introduction

Vinod represents the very cream of our youngest singers that are presented here. More to add to the excitement, we are visiting singers from the state of Andra Pradesh after a long time. It is such a celebration this whole week for singers and musicians from Andra and we are all set to do it right. Sorry for the delay in publication due to heavy editing work for three features on the same day. This week as promised we are releasing Manoj Sarma and Harika features separately as re-blog from the previous single feature

Vinod Sharma

Vinod Sharma is in his early twenties is a design engineer by profession (worked for Hyundai R&D before and now for Tech Mahendra in Hyderabad) and is a musician by passion. We happen to hear about Vinod from our peers from Andra Pradesh and an endorsement from Manoj Sarma, an enormously talented young singer that we presented as the pick of our Srivani madam.

Send an invite to be considered for a feature here, Vinod was super excited and accepted our invitation without any hesitation. He was super busy recording some album songs with his brother in Hyderabad. So could not find some time to call each other. When arranged to meet, we saw a very young guy with a huge welcoming smile on his face.

The camera looked glowing with sunlight gleaming into the room from everywhere; it all looked bright and pleasant. That set the scene for an exciting day of knowing another musician from Telangana.

He started off like this “Thanks so much for this recognition. It means a lot to me.” Having known him through Manoj we set out to ask him about his association with him “Manoj is a super talented singer and he works with sound recording and is an engineer working close to recording studios and also sing tracks for playback recordings. So met with him once to make the first contact. Thanks to him for bringing up my name to you guys.”  In fact, Manoj and Vinod are very strong influential male singers on the Smule Telugu scene.

Growing up in a small village called Kadappa in a very conservative Brahmin family, at a very young age itself was given to his grandfather with whom he grew up. Vinod studied Vedas and Slokas with his grandfather. Young Vinod’s world was surrounded by rituals since his family traditionally belonged to a societal status of Paurohiths (Priests). Under his Grand father’s bringing up, there was not much music or training. Popular music and Carnatic music that Vinod knows are all self-taught or taught by his close friends. But as we go by we will see there are so many different musical instruments that Vinod is self-trained in.  The only instrument he properly learned is percussion for about three years. Locally Vinod sings Bhajans at local gatherings.

So asked about what he wanted to do with his music “I love to compose music by trying different genres. I got very much fascinated by Carnatic music by its unique way of expressing the inner strength of any song. Digging deep into it, I have learned to calibrate the Ragas on different instruments; being self-taught I find it quite interesting to understand the notations on a raag basis, rather than standard western notations. Currently, I also started learning the Hindustani style, especially how to do some Sufi renditions.” For him, all music is there to learn and imbibe into his nature. Very commendable attitude.

Learning Guitar, which he uses a lot lately, came to him quite late. He learned that with the help from a friend during his college days, For Vinod learning musical instruments is also a passion, as learning different genres of music. But he says learning instruments taught him more of the basics of singing than anything else. Vinod added “I could feel that every Raaga has an emotion associated with it. By playing them I really feel it.”

Currently, he is working with his brother Virendrantah who lives in Bangalore and writes poetry and Vinod gives music to his lines and tries to make an album. The title of their album is “Do not lose HOPE”. Vinod says the lyrics and the music come from a dark time when he was losing his hope to make it big. He finally came out of it through his own music. He said “I want to share that feeling of hope to all that feel helpless in any situation.” We were waiting for Vinod to provide a clip of this album. Unfortunately, it is not ready. Yet, here is a YouTube video of Vinod’s collaboration with his like-minded friends

What is music to you? Vinod was in deep thought for a while. ” For me, music makes me feel complete. I wish I could just be a full-time musician. Life at the moment, will not let me do that. But the plan is to dedicate full time to music and singing”

Thygaraja music and Western music

What genre of music do you like? “I love Carnatic music, but I am also very open to the fusion style singing of it.  I am even ready to endorse the western style mixing into our music. When Thyagaraja lived and composed music, he was seen as a revolutionary.  His some compositions in fact are influenced by western style songs.”There are studies done to show how Thygaraja’s music may have been influenced by the new age music of his times. In the summer months, when the great composer spent his time at Tiruvaiyaru court, it is quite likely that he must have listened to the western-style instruments like Violin played at the court. Some of his more popular compositions  “Vara Leela Gana Lola” (Click the link here to listen to this composition sung by the great Unnikrishnan) set in Sankarabharanam and not to Dikshitar’s nottuswarams. This is one of the most popular compositions for students like Vinod who uses a Keyboard. All these made so much sense when this young guy told us about his willingness to use western-style music in India’s classical music and also calibrate various raagas on western musical instruments.

His favorite music director- ARR; Male singer – Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, Vijay Khan, Female singer Chitra.

When we were ready to part, we were very sure he is a very serious musician with an innate talent to sing and experiment with everything one can imagine. His never-ending enthusiasm and not easily give up nature and the fight in him makes him our choice from the youngest lot of singers on Smule to be in the highlight here. Thanks to him that he speaks with us about his music and being patient for months to be here. Let us hear him singing without delay.

Melodihorn an instrument increasingly popular among singers due to its portability and simple air pressure makes the keyboard bring various styles into the play. This is one facet of Vinod apart from many instruments he already learned to play by himself. As we see more and more of him his voracious appetite for various things in music and the ability to learn things all by himself indicate the genius of this young man. Listen to this beautiful video where he plays Meodihorn.

Pachandanamey is his favorite music director ARR song. Listen to the evergreen heartwarming romantic hit “Pachchadanamey ” sung originally by Clinton Cerejo and Hariharan in AR Rahman’s music from Mani Ratnam’s super hit romantic film Sakhi. The right approach to a very tough song. Super singing

Sasivadane (Narumughaye) from Iddaru movie, made immortal in all languages it is made by Unnikrishnan and Bombay Jayashree. An excellent join by user Shravani, one of the best joins on Smule of this song. Another ARR composition and test of ones’ singing. Listen to the end

Moh Moh ke dhage is an excellent join from Manoj. These two youngsters are a class apart on Telugu Smule. Give a listen

Extremely difficult song of among ARR composition Dilse re. Excellent rendition by both friends here. Enjoy

Here is a D. Imman sir’s music in Telugu movie Prema Khaidi Maina Maina Song Originally sang by none other than Shaan. Imman sir will be happy seeing this. The song is one of the best songs made by the music director for a beautiful movie made in Telugu. Give a listen.

END NOTES

When we finish this short feature we are more than happy to have Vinod featured here. Encourage this youngster and visit him at his profile here.

He is the representation of the Young singers from Smule Telugu who is happy to experiment with the Smule app and make use of it for their music career and we are more than happy to support him here. Keep singing, keep writing to us and keep visiting the blog every week. Come back for more releases this week for Manoj Sarma and Harika from Telugu Smule.