Music composer Nakul Abhyankar opens up on creative process behind hit song 'Ide Swarga…'

Bengaluru: Music composer of Ide Swarga, Nakul Abhyankar opens up about the creative process that went behind creating the hit song for the Kannada film, Love Mocktail 2. The song was sung by Sanjith Hegde, composed by Nakul Abhyankar and penned by Raghavendra Kamath.

"I was a bit surprised that they chose me instead of Raghu Dixit. So when the opportunity knocked on my door, I instantly said yes. Love Mocktail itself was such a great success and was excited about working with the team. I was looking for an opportunity and I loved the subject and could see that there was great scope for good music writing" said music composer and playback singer, Nakul Abhyankar.

He said that the song 'Ide Swarga 'was initially written as a single even before the movie. "It was just a random thing that came to me when I was bored. A year ago, I was trying to be creative and had come up with the tune and I had recorded it," he added.

When the team started discussing the songs in the movie, they asked if there were some other songs that Nakul had already composed." I played a couple of songs but as soon as the directors heard this song, they were impressed," said Nakul. Nakul says that directors could see the imagery he had in his mind while writing the song. "The 'Ide Swarga, Ide Preethi, Ide Khushi' hook, was already set in my mind and I kept picturing me standing on top of the mountain and admiring the majestic view" he added.

Nakul says that he tried to keep the song in a chill-shuffle zone and not add any surprising elements. "More I heard the song, the more I began to enjoy the groove of the song" he added. " I just wanted to keep the listeners within that one zone and not ponder about other elements in the song" he explained.

Talking about the process behind the song, Nakul says "It did not take him too much time to compose the song as he had already done the mukhda. Once the song got approved, it took around another 30 minutes to one hour to do the Antara part, It was done in parts, mukhda was done way back, one day I composed the charanam and then the saxophone BGM happened the next day".

Nakul says that the most important aspect he liked about the film was that the song complimented the film. Referencing to movies where songs serve the purpose of only entertainment, he added, "The lyrics in the song are connected to the theme and the narrative of the film. The songs have been executed very thoughtfully. " I think the industry has moved on from including 5-6 mins songs that are intended as a dream sequence or as the background score for the first time the hero and the heroine meet" he added.

Talking about his time during the pandemic, he added that he was packed with work. " I had a lot of work with AR Rahman and there were a couple of projects I had picked up before pandemic. I was working on the background score for the web series, Humble Politician Nograj. There were a lot of jingles and ads. I don't think there was idle time for me to sit around." he added. He noted that his limited free time was spent learning about modern-day music genres and discovering the technology behind music creation.

Nakul is also a prolific playback singer with vast experience in working with various regional film industries. He has sung close to 90 songs in his career and has composed around 7 songs.

"When I started as a playback singer, it was hard to get opportunities. You had to keep searching for good opportunities. But for me to make a good break in my career, I decided to leave Bengaluru and move to Chennai. After joining the KM Conservatory in Chennai, I got plenty of opportunities to work with AR Rehman and it boosted my morale," said Nakul. He noted it was a difficult decision to move to another city as there was a lot of struggle to meet the expectations of the new audience.

Explaining his decision to move to another city, he said that though Bengaluru has a good Indie movie scene, the commercial movie industry makes less noise outside the state. "It's a market with good potential but the frequency of good movies has to increase and many KGF-like movies need to be made. The industry also needs to make movies that set a precedent for good movies that can be remade into other languages as well," commented Nakul. He added that if the industry manages to connect this missing link, the industry will be back on top. Commenting on the shift in the industry, Nakul added, "But now the industry has made a drastic shift. Before the focus rested on being a trained singer but now it has changed to cultivating a peculiar style and voice for your music. Often, singers who have the unique style are preferred." he added. He also noted that with the availability of technology, you can stretch your limits and make anyone sound good.

Talking about how he can sing in languages he does not understand, he says "I can speak a couple of languages; Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Maratha but I can't speak Telugu. But it's not a problem. After you learn Devanagri and Dravidian languages, pronunciation is not your problem. Every permutation and combination is tried in every language and Kannada and Telugu are also similar. Once you learn the meaning of the words in the lyrics, I feel like I am familiar with the language itself".