Musical offering

She’s been making us sing and dance for the better part of a decade with her ability to produce gentle melodies and energetic foot tappers with equal ease. Now, playback singer Jyotsna is expanding her repertoire by adding music composing to her list of skills with her upcoming devotional album, Krishna The Eternal. The album, which features eight songs composed by Jyotsna and Gireesh Kumar. The album is set to be released on August 11. Jyotsna talks about her new venture and her first step as a composer. Excerpts from an interview…

Tell us a bit about Krishna The Eternal

The album does not completely follow the traditional norm as far as devotional music is concerned. There is a lot of emphasis on Sanskrit slokas and the orchestration has been given a slight Western touch, with guitars and the piano figuring in the mix. However, in an album devoted to Lord Krishna, there always has to be a sense of the traditional so you will also hear the melodies of the flute.

Overall, we’ve tried to create a calming experience that people can just listen to and enjoy.

We see many albums in praise of the Almighty these days. Is there any specific reason for a dedication to Lord Krishna?

Well, all of us look up to a higher power at some point in our lives, and I’m no different. For me, my representation of this power has been Lord Krishna, and I believe he has looked out for me over the years. So this is my way of saying thank you.

What made you try your hand at composing music?

To be honest I had never really thought about it. But this album is a very personal project for me. Initially I had roped in Gireesh Kumar and he had agreed to do all eight songs in the album. It was our programmer, William, who then suggested that I give it a shot too as the project was so close to my heart. So I worked on it for a while and came up with some basic tunes which I tested on my husband, Gireesh and William. They were all quite enthusiastic and this gave me the confidence to go further and come up with four songs for the album, one of which I've penned in English.

Any plans to take up music composing more seriously?

That’s hard to say at the moment. This was a personal project so I went ahead with it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had the audacity to go this far! (Laughs) When you sing in movies it is more public and you are less involved with the process as a whole. Maybe someday, given a chance, I can manage one song or two but I do not have the capacity to go beyond that at the moment.

And what is your take on yourself as an artiste today?

All I can say is that I'm really happy! After my marriage I’ve moved to Bangalore and that has given me more time to broaden my musical tastes. I've started learning Hindustani and have attended a lot of performances by various artistes. So yes, I'm in a good place at the moment and hope it stays that way.

Sooraj Rajmohan