Strings Attached

Friday, August 18, 2006

He has made his niche in the industry. Chintoo Singh, the son of composer Mohinderjeet Singh, is making waves with his unique expertise with the rabab. He has made his niche in the industry. Chintoo Singh, the son of composer Mohinderjeet Singh, is making waves with his unique expertise with the rabab.

"My father was a music director with NFDC and also scored music for some Punjabi and Hindi films apart from serials of Doordarshan. He also taught singers like Chitra Singh-ji, Sulakshana Pandit-ji and Jaspal Singh-ji,' says Chintoo about his musical lineage.

Chintoo's musical training began in early childhood. "At the age of 10, I started learning the violin from my father. After this I learnt the mandolin and then the guitar from 15 gurus including my father,Pandit Ramprasad Sharma, Bhupinder Singh, Tabun, Josfi and others." Exposing himself to a gamut of music genres, he learnt classical raags from his father and picked up Rock and Blues from his college.

Chintoo Singh's professional debut came in 1994 when the late R.D.Burman chose him among 20 guitarists for 1942 - A Love Story. "I was 17 then," says Chintoo. "He chose me because he told me to tune my guitar and I said that it was in tune."

It was a little later that Chintoo got acquainted with the exotic rabab, the Indian stringed instrument that has 8 to 14 strings and is said to have originated in the 12th century. "My solo rabab shows became so popular that finally I decided to concentrate on this instrument. Rabab is the precursor of the sarod and is much more difficult than any other string instrument. It is associated with the music of the mountainous regions like Kashmir and Afghanistan and has been heard in films like Zanjeer, Sholay and Khuda Gawah," says Chintoo.

Chintoo Singh has never liked to limit his talent to a single arena."I have learnt music, so I want to do everything," he says. His latest release as a musician is Omkara and next year, on invitation from Phil Collins, he will perform with him at New York's Carnegie Hall.

Rattling off a Who's Who in music for whom he has played live, he says with a shy smile that the list includes Shania Twain, DJ Dave and Bob from New Orleans among international artistes and Hariharan, Pt.Ajay Pohankar, Mehdi Hasan, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Jagjit Singh, Shivamani, Pankaj Udhas, Mahendra Kapoor and Kailash Kher back home. He has also arranged multiple albums in ghazals and other genres, and scored for TV serials like Saturday Suspense, Geet Gaata Chal, Jasoos and many others.

But his solo albums are his pride and one of them is Mumbai On The Move on Times Music. "Times Music has done something unique by releasing the same album in different metros with the names of each city. For example, it was released in Delhi as Delhi On The Move, in Bangalore as Bangalore On The Move and so on."