Rocking the Golden Oldies

The mostly teenaged members of Tale of Melodies tick all the right boxes – aptitude for learning something new, being open to ideas and suggestions and importantly a fine taste in music. No wonder then that the band members presented hauntingly beautiful numbers of legendary musicians like Salil Chaudhuri, Hemant Kumar and R D Burman, to Elvis Presley, Queen and The Beatles in their concerts held in Pune so far.

How it all began

Shubhankar Kulkarni, who is the lead vocalist of Tale of Melodies, has made a name for himself by singing popular Marathi songs like Aagobai Dhaggobai and Ekti Ekti Ghabarlis Na. In his last two years of school, he took up Western classical music class that piqued his interest in English songs.
“I was tuned into Indian classical music from childhood, because my parents, Salil Kulkarni and Anjali Marathe, are accomplished artists. In school, our Sir taught us some three songs in Western classical. I was fascinated by guitars, drums and then I started listening to Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Coldplay and then Elvis Presley,” explains Shubhankar, who will be appearing for his HSC Board examination this year.

In 2020, he worked with Jay Suryavanshi, an upcoming pianist, on a Marathi song, Tuze Man. After receiving a good response for it, the two started jamming together. Jay, who has given Trinity College of Music Grade 8 piano exam, adds “My father and Saleel Kaka are friends. Once Kaka had come home with Shubhankar, where my father mentioned that I was taking piano lessons and then Kaka said that we could render his new composition Tuze Man on vocals and piano. Shubhankar sang and I played it on the piano. We were impressed by the response we got. And, then Shubhankar and I worked on another song, City of Stars from La La Land.”

In early 2021, the duo started working on a bank of songs; Kulkarni wanted them to work on a playlist, put together a decent number of songs before performing in a concert. Next, Shubhankar asked his batchmates from guitar class – Arushi Pandkar and Riya Umbrani to join them. Riya is the backing vocalist and Arushi is the bassist. “I have been learning music since I was a child. My father doesn't teach just one instrument, so I started with the synthesiser, then I went on to  drums, guitar. But none of them actually stuck. Three years ago I started playing bass guitar which I really liked. And here I am!” quips Arushi Pandkar, who studies Arts in Fergusson College, Pune. The lead guitarist, Saransh Shukla, from Bhopal and drummer, Aditya Ranga from Mumbai, joined the band through auditions. That was the start of Tale of Melodies, directed by Kulkarni.

The playlist

The USP of Tale of Melodies is the different eras of music that they recreate through their performances. “We want to present a variety to the audience from Marathi, Bollywood, old Hindi film songs and then artists like Elvis and Bryan Adams. The challenge before the performers is the switch from era to era which they do with agility. They are young, but they have had years of training before they made it to the stage,” observes Kulkarni.

The youngsters, on their part, are happy to have discovered Salil Chaudhuri and Hemant Kumar. For Shubhankar, the depth of the lyrics in Kumar and Chaudhuri’s work appealed to him, whereas Jay connected with Chaudhuri because of the influence of Western classical music in the orchestration of his pieces. Aditya, at the age of 20, finds resonance with Chaudhuri and Burman music. The group, at some point, hopes to have a full-fledged concert on Elvis. Why not? The King’s voice, his energy, stage presence continues to fascinate the performers and audiences alike.

At every concert the band is constantly trying to put out something new. “The music, the sound, the lights all have to work as one, to offer one of its kind experience to our audience,” points out Aditya.

(This article was written for Dimdima magazine)