Jayanti's Blog » life is a musical

Tales of April and Magic in May

Jayanti — Sun, 01 May 2011 21:54:17 +0000

It’s May! That means that this month, May 13th, I’m performing at A Revolution in B-Minor! Ooooh, I’m so excited, less than 2 weeks to go!! This night is all about the essence of the song and stripping your music to the core, so I’ll be doing two short acoustic sets, including the cover you guys voted for on facebook: For the Love of You by the Isley Brothers. Rory Ronde will be strumming his guitar, as lovely as he did in our Simply Beautiful video, and we will be doing a live stream! I will update my blog, facebook and twitter with the link and of course, the songs will be uploaded on YouTube after the show.

Before May comes April. And in April, I made two videos: one came prepared, the other on a whim. Mitchell Thompson accompanied me on keys in the first video, we made a rendition of Quincy Jones’ You Put a Move on My Heart, one of my absolute favorites. Mitchell worked with me on Girl from Mars and High on Life, and I’ve been wanting to do a video with him for a while now. It was a joy, and I’m planning on doing another one with him, but that might take some time, as Mitchell just won the Dutch Sing-Off with his close harmony group Gentle Voices!! Woop woop!

Singing with my homie Mitchell!

As you may know, I love stories and truly believe Life is a Musical. So, one sunny Saturday afternoon, as I was strolling around the neighborhood, a sea (alright a pond, ok a puddle) of gorgeous red roses caught my eye and I stopped. It was the day before Easter, and I know my grandparents would love these flowers. I rummaged around my purse, but I didn’t have any cash on me. I asked the flower man whether I could pay with my card, but he said it was cash only or… I could sing him a song. Well! You know what happened next! :oD

Funny thing is, the name of the flower shop is actually The Flowerman and I didn’t know!

Those were my own videos. But April brought me 7 other videos all shot at the very same moment at the YouTubeStars convention I got invited to in Amsterdam. I did some impromptu singing at the end of this seminar because after all… I believe Life is a Musical!

One of seven: uploaded by strapschronicles

To my fellow YouTubers StrapsTalksBack, Whizprtised, howhowdecrow, HetVideobureau, spixara, maschadriessen and vit0r1979: Thank you for taking the time to grab your camera’s, hold them up in the air, save the content and then even uploading it to youtube!!

Simply Beautiful

Jayanti — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 13:09:38 +0000

Friday the 13th was one splendid day, filled with a thunderstorm, lots of sun, wonderful vibes and triple scorpio energy*! Winand -and his sexy camera- joined me for my music session with Kofi Anonymous (Rory Ronde). We finished the basic form of our song Nightlight (remember me writing and recording the very first draft of the chorus?), so that the instrumentalists can record their magic under my vocals, after which I’ll record the final vocals. After working on our song Nightlight, Rory and I decided to do an acoustic rendition of one of my favorite songs: Simply Beautiful, by Al Green.

Video by Winand Singh

*Rory, Winand and I are scorpio’s… not a big deal, just thought it added extra flavor. Yeah, maybe not. Still think it’s pretty neat. :o)

Indulge (Part 2)

Jayanti — Mon, 24 May 2010 04:26:01 +0000

In July 2009, after having dinner with my friends, they asked me to sing something. We debated over the right song for me to sing: Baby Be Mine, The Way You Make Me Feel, Girl From Mars, even My Heart Will Go On (naw…) were thrown in there, until Cas asked me about the song I used to do back when we all met: Indulge.

This was my very first YouTube video (Life is a Musical!) and we even got featured on abduzeedo for the first time (Weak also got featured later on), a Brazilian inspirational website for artists. I did the first verse and chorus and promised to do the second verse when the time was right. Today was it! We’d had our eye on these colored columns for a minute, they seemed the perfect addition to the first Indulge video at the restaurant. I hope you will indulge in the lovely colors: peach & lavender…

I wrote this song when I was 15. I was sitting on my bed one afternoon and started singing it from beginning to end, the complete song came to me all at once. Funny thing about this song is, I met my closest friends during the days I performed with Indulge, including Win & Vin (my photos, videos, website) and Al Mar (my producer, co-writer, pianist). Al Mar has even done some vocal harmonies to this song at some of the shows, cause back then, he was a pianist and vocalist with a close harmony group and we were in a hip hop musical together. So Al Mar and I will definitely include Indulge in the Exotic Tinkerbell Music Tale, along with Girl from Mars, High on Life, Nightlight (with Kofi Anonymous) and a bunch of new songs that Al Mar and I are working on. Indulging in the lovely lovin’: inspiration galore!!

Lyrics

In case you missed it, here is Indulge (Part 1)

All Life is a Musical videos (a series of me singing anywhere: bookstore, subway, roof…)

Snow!

Jayanti — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:46:26 +0000

It’s been snowing and I get all fuzzy inside watching the flakes fall while crunching virgin patches of the white fluffy stuff with my boots. So for my new Life is a Musical video, I decided to do a song which I adored as a kid and makes me feel like walking through a field of snow: weak in the knees and giddy all over!

As always, video by Winand Singh aka Wintin Tarantino (as I like to call him) :op

Reaching for Higher Ground

Jayanti — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:50:13 +0000

To me, the best feeling in the world, is to feel free. While immersed in music, my emotions go through the roof, up to the skies above and return to me covered in stardust, magically magnified…

In my latest Life is a Musical adventure, magic flowed into the concrete form of a rooftop and tickled my vocal chords into melody.

And I felt free!

I wrote a third verse to the song Fever about the epic love story Laila Majnu. I was inspired by the last act of the Bollywood movie Aaja Nachle, which amazed me with it’s use of color, narrative style and play-within-a-play portrayal of this beautiful tale. Click here if you’d like to watch the scene.

Serenade to Books

Jayanti — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:59:32 +0000

~A small tale of my infatuation with stories~

Books are awesome!! So for my new “Life is a Musical” video, I decided to go to book-paradise and pay them a little tribute.

Lyrics

~Life is a Musical~

Jayanti — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 05:24:03 +0000

It really is! Why just sing on stage or in a studio? Song is part of me, always… Even on the subway on our way home from the annual North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam… :o)

*full circle moment: I used to sing on the tram as a baby and embarrass my mother… at every stop, I’d stop… wheels in motion and I’d ad-lib my little butt off!*

Any ideas for the next “episode” of Life is a Musical?? Let me know! And I will try to shine my light upon the gray, grace white noise with melody, color the transparency of the drawings of today!

Yes.

Indulge (Part 1)

Jayanti — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:04:57 +0000

And so… Now that I’ve hopped on the Songstress plane, life is all song and praise! :op

I wrote this song, “Indulge”, when I was 15 and feeling romantic…

*This is the first verse and chorus, when the vibe is right and the Songstress plane is airborne again, I will do the rest of the song and post part 2. Any ideas for the setting…? Another restaurant? Up a tree?? Feel free to send me your ideas and if at all logistically possible, I will do it! Because, dammit: Yes We Can!!!*

Lyrics

Indulge (Part 2)