By Roy
Legendary music composer Viju Shah collaborates with Mithoon in ‘Times Of Music’, a reality show that has been launched on World Music Day on MX player. Viju Shah has given hits in movies such as ‘Tridev’, ‘Vishwatma’, ‘Mohra’, ‘Tere Mere Sapne’, ‘Gupt,’ and many more. Talking about his recent collaboration he says, “It is streaming on MX Player in which I am presenting Mithoon’s songs ‘Maula Mere Maula, and ‘Aankhein Teri’ and he is presenting my song ‘Tip Tip Barsa Pani’. Its a both conversational and performance presentation.”
A music fiend since childhood, Viju Shah has started in music at the age of 4-5 by practicing on harmonium. “Since my father Kalyanji Virji Shah was a renowned musician of that era he wanted one of his children to be pursue music. My learning in music was very mechanical until electronics came in 1970s. Eventually, I felt thatI should start with this,” says Viju.
He remembers his first song recording was ‘Ye Mera Dil Pyaar Ka Deewana’ from ‘Don’. He tells us, “I was in 7th or 8th class when I bunked my school for this song. Later in the time I started playing for other music directors as well. I was into music arrangement for my father at one time also.” Having decided to pursue his career independently, Viju realised that by then a lot of improvement was happening in electronic. Polyphonic synthesizers were the future. He started accumulating with a lot of synthesizers because it were all live recording back then.
Viju has witnessed an era having worked from records, cassettes, live music, and YouTube. He says, “I feel very fortunate having worked along with this transition. We were having orchestras in live recordings where due to one mistake we had to start all over again. In 1988, I made an album called ‘Why Not Synthesizers’. Today’s things are very different.”
Though being the son of a renowned musician, Viju says that he had never paid heed to comparison. “I have never been in that circle because I believe in individual graphs. Everything doesn’t happen in the same way so I have never participated in the race to match the level,” Viju states.
Most of his chart busters are present day remakes. He says that it’s great when both his original songs and recreations by new-age composers are receiving appreciation. But he feels that present day musicians should remake his songs which have gone unnoticed back in the time. He also remarks, “Credits are formal acknowledgement and should be justified in remakes. Sadly, no new come to take approval.”
Inspite of being a well-known musician, Viju Shah doesn’t entertain stardom and limelight. “I don’t believe in unnecessary public appearances to stay in buzz, nor do I entertain PR or managing agencies. I focus on the work I do. This generation is about working with multiple composers, meeting at offices etc. I am not a person like that and that’s the reason behind the leaps in my works. I like to do things independently. If someone wants to collaborate or simply work with me, my doors are open,” he says.
Let’s talk about the artists associated in the collaboration with Times Of Music.
Sandipa Dutta started her musical journey from Indian Idol season II. She carried her passion along with her corporate job. Her work can be seen in many Hindi and regional films, and web contents. Sandipa collaborated with Shaan and Rekha Bharadwaj on ‘Fireband’ a Netflix original produced by Priyanka Chopra and Madhu Chopra.
She has worked in many web series, and was a part of T-series Mixtape along with Shreya Ghoshal, Amaal Malik, Jubin Nautiyal and many biggies as a team of Abhijeet Vaghani. She has been featured in ‘Soona’, a Zee Music Project.
Another artist is singer Nikita Balwant Waghela. She is an aspiring lyricist and composer. She is a live performer and has shared stage with Badshah and team at Houston and New Jersey, USA. She has recorded a duet with Udit Narayan music arrangements done by Viju Shah.
Bandish Vaz has been pursuing music professionally since 7-8 years as a composer. He has done one song as a playback singer. He is working with big music directors on various projects in the industry. According to Bandish, ‘Times Of Music’ is the best thing happened so far in his musical life. He adores music directors Amar Haldipur and Viju Shah as his mentors.
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