Becoming a prodigal piano maestro a musical journey

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every good morning to one and all i’m so

happy to be here and addressing all of

you on this beautiful event

and thanks to uh tedx for inviting me

here as a speaker and also as a

performer

and the piece what you heard me play now

is called uh turkish march allatuca

by ulf gangamedes mozart one of the

greatest composers ever

and the species uh this piece is really

special to me is because this is the

first piece i started to play in piano

so that’s why i started today and uh

let me share you my musical journey so

when i was two years old i started to

play drums

and the very next day my father bought

me a baby size drum kit

and he taught me many patterns and he

plays keyboard in concerts

and i used to accompany him playing the

drums while my sister sang along

so we treated a lot of concerts all over

tamil nadu

and when he was four years old during

2010 we went to australia as a family

and performed there in sydney and

melbourne that was my first

overseas concert that was really an

unforgettable experience

and few years passed and i started

learning a few indian percussion

instruments such as

tabla and in 2013 i was announced as the

india’s best youngest child drummer and

in 2014 i joined a.r ramon until sk

music conservatory

in chennai to learn tabla and by the end

of the year

my father showed me a youtube video of a

chinese boy playing the piano and i got

inspired by that and my sister plays

piano and even my father plays piano

so i also got inspired by them and so i

started to play piano

and i joined in km and then i went

to russian piano studio and came music

conservatory under dr suraji chatterjee

sir

so there i learned for like a year and

there was an amazing experience and came

and i got inspired by the video which i

told and then

i was more interested in taking more

complicated pieces in piano such as

flight of the bumblebee

composed by rimsky-korsakov and fantasy

impromptu

composed by frederick chopin and also

the moonlight sonata

by beethoven’s and so on so i was more

interested in this piece called flight

of the bumblebee

and one day i saw a youtube video of a

pianist playing that piece and i showed

it to my father

and he told that uh okay i’ll give you

one month time you need to finish this

piece

and i was like okay but if i finish this

piece you need to get me

a few symbols for my drum kit and he

accepted it and even i took it as a

challenge

and i completed this piece within four

days and he was so surprised and happy

and uh thank you

thank you and he was so surprised and

happy that i completed this piece within

four days

and he bought me the expensive drum

symbols what i asked for

so the sp sounds like this thank you

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so ladies and gentlemen that was flight

of the bumblebee and i played in 230

beats per minute

and back to the story uh and a month

passed

after finishing this piece and i was

keep on practicing

and we started to take video and my

father said that uh

we want to upload videos on social media

of me playing the piano and

other instruments so the flight of the

bumblebee was the first ever video that

we uploaded in youtube

and it took more than six hours to

record this one the one single piece

and uh the six hours whole time my

father was encouraging me and motivating

even i didn’t give up and even he didn’t

give up and finally we finished

and we took one single video and even

now you can view that in youtube it’s

still there

that was our first post and i kept

practicing these

this piece and again and again and again

and again and now i can play this piece

in 300 beats per minute

so here we go

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thank you so much western classical

isn’t only my favorite journal

i also listened to jazz and pop and when

it comes to pop my biggest inspiration

is none other than king of pop michael

jackson my father used to tell me from

my childhood about

mj that is how how he struggled to

reach this level and how he composes

and how how hard he works and how famous

he is

so mj inspired me a lot and he’s not

only mastered in dancing but he also

mastered in singing

and composing and so on so he inspired

me to

learn more instrument and my master in

those

now i can play few instruments in fact

the first ever english song i learned

how to sing

is mj’s uh super hit beat it song

from its album thriller and thriller is

still the world’s largest selling album

till date so thank you mj for a

wonderful

album so now i’m i would love to play uh

two office compositions which is my

favorite

when i play them you’ll know what song

it is thank you

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thank you so much uh thanks to mj for

composing such beautiful songs

and uh as i said that i can play some

variety of instruments apart from piano

and drums

i can play a few instruments like tabla

miratangam

guitar bass guitar harmonica malaria and

herpegi merlin

the chinese instrument cr1 and flute

ganjira

and i work in music softwares and singh

as well

thank you thank you so back to the story

so uh in 2015 uh when my sister

and myself was playing at home uh she

unexpectedly covered my face with a

thick towel

and told me to play the flight of the

bumblebee and i attempted to play it

even without a mistake

and that time my family realized that i

can also play blindfold

so that’s a story for another another

day for now

uh and uh now i’m going to do something

special that is in my right hand i’m

going to play

a western classical piece called

baronary composed by j.s bach

and in my left hand i’m going to play a

jazz piece called spain composed by

chichoria

so both are different genres different

time signatures

and the western classical piece is

technically really difficult

and so was the the ja jazz piece so

uh here we go enjoy

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so that was uh veterinary in spain for

you

and i would like to share my experience

about the world’s best competition

from my childhood my father used to say

that if if you do this

at such a young age you will be

definitely called as the world’s best

if you do this you will be called as the

world’s best so i’ve been hearing that

world’s best

word for years and a competition pitched

to us entitled the world’s best

so we didn’t want to miss it and we

participated in that and finally we were

in la for the competition

and there i got to meet so many talents

around the world from 195 countries and

50 judges

50 different countries and three

american prime judges were there

and i was so thrilled to see all of them

and that was my first international

competition and i cleared all the rounds

and became the finalist and i played uh

in the finals i played

two pianos together simultaneously and i

won the title

and uh thank you

and then we got invitation to be

appeared on the ellen show

and i was really surprised after hearing

that good news and we went to l.a we saw

ellen and i appeared on her show

and we spoke a lot of things together we

discussed a lot of things together she

was so

kind and so sweet and that was a dream

come true moment for me

and many people ask me how do you manage

your studies and your music

it’s simple i’m not going to school i’m

doing my homeschooling

so that’s the thing thank you

okay and also people ask me what you

would like to say to your future

generation so

maybe i can say something from what i

was taught be passionate and dedicated

to whatever you do

since in my case it is music so i need

to feel it too

be honest and work hard and don’t envy

others

just be yourself stay healthy with good

food habits

and always be a learner so this is what

i would like to say to the future

generation

to wrap up the session of mine today i

have some special performance for you

and this machine as you can see over

here this is called a loop machine

what it does is of course it loops

everything so i’ll explain the process

so uh when i play instrument and i’ll

stop play that

but that keeps playing so by the end of

the loop you’ll hear multiple lydians

playing at a time

and we’ve just bought this two days ago

my father bought this in mumbai and this

is the first time i’m performing with

this

and there are a lot of international

musicians play with this but this is the

first time for me and it’s new for me

and i’m sure i’ll explore with this loop

mission in the future

so thank you

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we’ll first

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machines

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is she

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thank you so much