NO INSTRUMENTS CHALLENGE

A group of 13 DAIS participants accepted the “No Instruments Challenge” hosted by the Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya, Gwalior on the 22nd May 2020. The theme of the challenge was to create a “Covid-19 Warriors Anthem”. The aim was to create music without the instruments, and use the objects around them to create a melody, to celebrate the work of all the Warriors during the pandemic.

The competition required composing a song, and creating its music video. While partaking in the competition, the judging criteria of harmony of sounds and vocals, technique and creativity, video making skills, interpretation of theme, tone, quality and rhythm, and overall performance were kept in mind. The DAIS students decided to split into two groups, and while one group performed the popular patriotic Hindi song “Kandhon Se Milte Hain” from the movie “Lakshya”, the other group decided to take upon the carefree and inspiring song “Bare Necessities” from the movie “The Jungle Book”.

Both the groups followed a similar process to ease the song-making experience. To begin with, song lyrics were divided between group members, and a music composer was selected from each group so as to provide the backing track to the song. The composer worked on the backing track with household objects, and sent in a recording, so that the singers could gauge the tempo and scale. Using this backing track for reference each singer sang their part and sent it to the composer to eventually compile the entire song. The groups used several variations and harmonies to add to the song quality as well. The final step was producing the video, and so each singer recorded their part in the video. Once all the videos were ready, a student helped piece together the final performance.

This competition proved to be an amazing experience for the students as they were able to explore how to sing on an online platform together without being in physical proximity with each other. It allowed them to be creative and gave them the freedom to experiment with different sounds and materials to choose the best possible one. The competition also helped the students become more refined singers. The students were guided by the music teachers at DAIS, Mr. Prabhakar Sharma and Ms. Manali Sharma.