Sunday, April 1, 2012

Edutainment with accordion

Some of the members of the Harmonica Club of Gujarat had the opportunity to interact with accordion player Amit Vaidya who had come down to Ahmedabad from Pune at the invitation of HCG member Prof. Piyush Pandya. Amit, 40, is a tech guy who works with Tech Mahindra.

Amit gave a solo performance in Gandhinagar on March 31. He not only enthralled the audience with his extraordinary rendition of some of the old and popular numbers from Hindi film but also explained the intricacy of this wonderful musical instrument which was made popular by music directors, Salil Choudhury, Shankar Jaikishan and OP Nayyar.

"Accordion is a folk instrument of farmers of Italy. It was developed from harmonica or mouth organ so that one could sing along while playing the instrument," he revealed.

Amit was fascinated by the instrument when he saw the accordion of his uncle when he was a child. "I decided to learn the instrument at the very first opportunity. I bought a second hand accordion in 1994 when I got my first salary," he says.

He took lessons from two accordion players of Pune who had also played in the film industry. "However, I realized that I need to learn western music and staff notations if I wanted to master the instrument. So, I joined a music class in Mumbai conducted by veteran music teacher Cyrus Panthaky," he says.

Later, when he went to UK he learnt advanced techniques from a couple of accordion players. He also attended the annual accordion festivals.

Here are some of the numbers he played in Gandhinagar.