Mahima Nagaraju
Baritone, sopranos, altos and tenors’ voices dance together, interweaving in perfect harmony to Abba’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! or Coldplay’s Something Just Like This, but just two hours prior, most were amateur singers too shy to sing in public. “Most of the attendees are casual singers who have never sung in front of people because they’ve been too shy. But here, you can feel them open up. Many have told me it had the feeling of enjoying a concert where everybody is singing, it brings a feeling of nostalgia and community,” says Danish Abdi, the founder of Flash Jam, whose weekend events bring singers of all levels together to learn how harmonies are made and sing together as a choir, combining the joy of jamming events with the satisfaction of having learned a new skill.
For Abdi, a freelance game designer by profession, this started when he was an engineering student acting as the conductor for a group of friends with Carnatic and Hindustani music backgrounds, until ‘adulthood took over’. Starting Flash Jam has been a return to the satisfaction he gets from making a range of voices come together, but this required a different approach than before, says Abdi, “With singers, you help them visualise and understand music better, opening up a world beyond the melody – making them realise they can come up with their own harmonies and become semi composers.” With amateur singers, the process starts from scratch, he explains, adding, “We start with icebreakers, teach concepts of harmony while making it fun and interactive, and then connect the exercises to the song we are singing. Once people are warmed up, singing in their groups, we sort them into different registers – baritone, tenor, alto, soprano and learn each line. We practice each group’s parts until finally, everything comes together.”
Starting with a handful of attendees in cafés, the event has now grown to include anywhere between 30 and 300 people from ages five to 85, who sign up based on the song on the agenda. This weekend, different sessions will feature Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver, Chiquitita by ABBA and Lazarus by Porcupine Tree across different venues in the city. Several factors go into the choice of song, says Abdi, “The big crowd pullers have always been ABBA, The Beatles and Coldplay. I pick based on how popular a song is with the general public and then filter based on which ones have easier harmonies and arrangements and which ones will be more fun. Ever since the Whatsapp Community was formed though, people went crazy with song suggestions, so I put up a page on our website for requests and voting as well!”
A few skilled singers in the group have even formed a regular acapella group, with an ABBA musical in the works. Starting this month, Abdi has also organised Flash Jam events across Pune and Mumbai as well.
(Details on flashjam.in)
