The Instrupad Concept
What we’re tinkering around with
‘Instrupad’, for what it is,
was born near a small village called ‘Shela’
at the outskirts of the megapolis of Ahmedabad,
born out of a community of students
putting their thoughts and brains together,
pursuing their Masters in Communication
from a school they call ‘MICA’,
considered by many as the school of ideas,
a thriving ecosystem
made up of a few chosen students and some unique teachers,
living out in relative isolation,
from a world whose rigmarole they had been pulled out of
and made to observe from a vantage point
by which they can re-evaluate their position in it,
before they re-enter it again.
Instrupad, as a concept,
has been ‘in the works’ our entire lives,
as musicians, and observers of their art,
from how it has progressed with our own age
to a place quite different from where it had started out from.
And has carried us with it.
Music has touched us,
and has been an integral part of our identity growing up.
Our association with the music scene goes way back
to all those things we were doing since we were kids.
The times we’ve rummaged through dad’s old records,
the songs we grew up listening to, and the efforts we’ve taken
going through huge album discographies to choose our favorite few
which have stayed on.
The pains we took to share our favorite tracks,
exchanging our old cassettes with someone else’s old new ones
willing to pledge out our kidneys out for some.
For ‘out of the world’ guitar progressions ,
extraordinary bass lines,
mind boggling drum solos.
The songs we’ve never deleted from our playlists,
the artists we’ve stuck to and talked about amongst our circles.
The music through which found those circle.
For all those guitar riffs we’ve mastered,
The times we’ve found ourselves in a moshpit.
For all the music we might have missed,
The music we found by chance.
Growing up, we’ve been a part of this community of individuals,
independent, free musicians,
who like us, have seen many of us go through the cycle
of pursuing this form, leaving it for a stabler jobs
a more secure future.
We’ve had to give up music and its pursuits in our own personal ways
and we itch to go back to a space
where there is nothing else we would want to surround ourselves with.
A grand homecoming, if you would call it,
sometime in our optimistic future.
We take heart in the fact
things have never been better than they have now.
There a lot of musicians hell bent on exploring their creative instincts,
and to see where it takes them.
We have refined the techniques of mixing and mastering
home musicians tinkering away with their instruments and sounds
audiophiles who’ve built up a soundscape in their homes,
producers of music, willing in to dabble with art,
experiments into an audio visual experience.
We’re more connected as a community than it was possible before
and in this DIY age,
we’re coming to define the songs of our generation
from our home studios
and our own setups.
As students of marketing, branding and communication,
through the exposure and the guidance,
we’re trying to crack the ever prevalent and open case study
of the indie musician.
“There is money which is flowing into the scene, right now, as we speak, but it trickles down to the musician /the composer/ the artist - from those who have the means to sponsor it - instead of the other way around.
How can we reverse this flow? How can we make the musician sustain themselves through their art?”
We’ve utilized our education and experience into cracking this hard nut,
We’ve done our dissertations
on the study of the independent musician in the country today
We’ve studied the nuances of the digital network available
to envision an ecosystem
which puts all the contributors in this scene together.
We’ve conversed with the players in the scene,
got to know what they think about the concept
From luthiers, manufacturers, restorers and tinkerers of instruments
to soundscape designers, audio producers, mixers
to studios, venues and habitats which encourage music.
We’ve done our research and fieldwork at Ahmedabad,
to find the most viable solution
and ventured out of college to other scenes and sentiments.
We’re constantly evolving and perfecting the model
to take in what those who are involved with the music have to say.
At its essence,
we’ve rooted the idea of Instrupad
with the musician and their instrument
and the relationship they share,
the intimacy, the connect,
and the stories which come out of it.
All else, the ecosystem, falls into place and fits around it.
We’ve also identified video plays as the way to bring out the home musician to the world,
from the confines of their own spaces,
from which they create a world of their own.
We’ve gone around town with this idea in place,
interacted with a lot of these people,
built connections and associations.
Instrupad is a work in progress
and will always remain so,
we invite collaborators, ideators and creators
to pitch in wherever they see some potential
We have something in the works.
We’re building a play space for musicians.
and the risk of sounding cliched,
a space by, of and for them.
We’ve been curating content from over the web,
for starters,
of brilliant musicians who are already putting up their video plays
to showcase their music and present it through them.
We’re also creating musician stories,
and chasing them down across the country
to bring to you a format which would take right to the musician’s space
and understand their music, and their instrument
from their perspective.
If you’re a musician,
we would like you to get on board,
follow us,
and get involved with what we’re doing.
We would like you to assess the utility of what we’re trying to create,
indulge in some tough love, tell us what we can be doing better.
We would like it if you share your video plays with us too,
so we can out it out in front of an audience
which might enjoy what you play more than what the regular audience you interact with does.
Reach out to us at Instrupad at gmail
and help us on our way to create this ecosystem.
Contribute, share, talk!
Join in and open up :)
http://instrupad.com/
Saunter in.
Explore.
Instrupad.
Exploring the relationship
between musicians and their instrument.
And the stories they create.
