New Delhi: AR Rahman is one of the greatest music composers of India who has left an impact worldwide. In a recent podcast, the Academy Award winner opened up about learning music on his father's instruments after he passed away. AR Rahman lost his father R.K. Shekhar, a film score composer at a tender age of nine years.
AR Rahman talks about learning music on his father's instruments
Talking about his process of learning music on his own, AR Rahman said, "My father was an arranger composer, he passed away in '76. I think overworking, not sleeping, not eating. He wanted to buy a house for his family. So he did all that and he left. I was nine and I had all this gear, I had the synthesizer, all that stuff left. And my mother, at 26 she was widowed and she found that everybody said 'You have to sell all the stuff, put it in the bank, get the interest and live your life now that your husband has passed away.' She said "No, my son is going to learn this.'"
Adding further, he said, "I don't know what faith she had in me. And I grew up playing with all the synthesizers and programming the stuff and getting electrocuted also sometimes as a kid."
AR Rahman shares how he began his musical journey
"In '84, I was intrigued. So I bought a music computer called the CX5 Yamaha computer. It was a very, very tough one. Like probably for one note, you had to feed ten things. And then I got my first major gear, which was the MC-500. Then my life changed."
On being asked how he learnt to use all the stuff, the music composer said, "To even see what's happening in the rest of the world, there was one shop around 45 minutes away by cycling, which would have a magazine called the MusicMaker from England. And I would go four times a month to see whether that mag has come becuase it used to get delayed. It used to come three months, four months afterwards. And I would go buy that and read it. And now I was telling my kids how easy it is for them to download a PDF or to learn something from YouTube. It was not the case before."
AR Rahman is known for creating magic with his music. His last outing in Imtiaz Ali's directorial 'Amar Singh Chamkila' won audience's hearts with its soulful music.