Sound choice

Composing tunes for the Tamil film Thoppi has only strengthened U.S.- based musician Ramprasad Sundar’s bond with Chennai, the city of his birth

Ramprasad Sundar

He was born and brought up in Chennai, but headed to the U.S. – for good – in 2007.

But Chennai, and Tamil cinema, had to catch up with musician Ramprasad Sundar someday.

And it did recently – when the makers of

Thoppi approached him to score the tunes for the film. He had his hands full with many roles back in the U.S. – he’s a sound supervisor, a sound designer and a music technologist there – but this was an opportunity that he didn’t want to miss.

“I didn’t know if it would happen,” he recalls, “I was in Chennai and the makers wanted to meet up with me. They heard my songs and liked it. They gave me an outline of the story and even as it was being narrated, I was imagining how it would pan out.”

Then, when he was on his flight back to the U.S., he recorded some tunes that came to his head on his phone. And went back home and recorded it again and sent the makers the first scratch.

Thoppi might be just a start for Ramprasad Sundar, who grew up playing in the city’s musical circuit. How different was it from his experiences abroad? “It’s like day and night,” he laughs, “But both are great in their own way. Back in the U.S., they expect you to do what you do best musically. But in India, we have to do a variety of genres. That eggs you on to learn a lot.”

Apart from writing music for TV shows, Ramprasad is currently working as a post-sound supervisor with Mali Elfman for a series called Fun Size Horror, Volume II. He was also part of the team that worked on coming up with a new virtual instrument.

The 28-year-old musician is looking to explore many other aspects in music, both in India and elsewhere. Ask him what his favourite music genre is, and he says, “I’m a digital baby. I love action, thrillers and dark stuff. For the theme of Thoppi , we’ve actually created a new genre – called electronic cinematic dub-step.”