Ashima Aiyer: Playing by Sounds and Shapes
Ashima Aiyer, a twenty three-year-old from Pune, currently living in Mumbai, is a singer-songwriter who is creating quite a buzz in the music industry with her unique way of playing her acoustic guitar with strange chords. Her songs have a blend of unique harmonies with intelligent but emotional lyrics and are sung with a powerful voice that commands attention. Her music has been influenced by Dave Matthews Band, Patty Griffin, Coldplay, and Lou Barlow, explaining the different genres that come out in her music like soul, jazz, soft rock, and the blues.
Ashima mostly sings solo but also does the vocals for “Three Degrees off Something,” a band she formed with two of her friends a year ago. “It is important to be serious about music. In order to make it professionally, one needs to practice, win a lot of competitions, go out and get gigs,” says Ashima. The formula seems to be working for her since she has sung in events like Bandra Gigs Festival, Tuborg Acoustic Adventures with Sanjay Divecha, A Brimful of Rock, Growing Down and Daddy’s Windsongs Wednesday.
Among her original compositions, Little Green Men has a catchy tune and interesting lyrics about the different “sins” possible for a lover- “Would you like to dine with sin? Would you like to dance with the devil?” Love Song has a beautiful, yet simple melody with a repetitive beat which works since it is a romantic song. Her style is a lot like Norah Jones’ with an open and powerful voice. The lyrics have vivid descriptions like:
Skin that surrounds me swallows me whole just like the angry sea.
Your breath on my shoulders feels just like the wind on the 1st day of May.
Any Given Sunday is a break up song with deep lyrics. The chords so chosen on the guitar are unique, with a jazz-like effect. Cry Baby, is a beautiful, meaningful song about an ex-lover and the way she feels after he leaves her. It is a sad song but is sung with a lot of depth and stands out from her other works.
Lev Tolstoy once said, “Music is what feelings sound like.” Ashima Aiyer’s music did justice to this saying because the feelings with which she wrote and sang these songs seemed to stay with me. Her MySpace profile says “Don't ask me scales and keys. I play by shapes and sounds.” Weirdly interesting, isn’t she? So is her music. But this was Ashima Aiyar in a nutshell.
For more on her music, log on to her MySpace profile and let her guitar and voice do the talking!
Rohini Kejriwal
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[image courtesy: http://bit.ly/5FydRn]
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