{"id":15184,"date":"2013-12-08T10:54:02","date_gmt":"2013-12-08T05:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.entecity.com\/?p=15184"},"modified":"2013-12-13T16:00:47","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T10:30:47","slug":"neha-nair-hitting-the-right-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/neha-nair-hitting-the-right-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Neha Nair: Hitting the right notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

From her popular cover versions like \u2018Etho Varmukilin<\/strong>\u2019 to \u2018Thazhvaaram<\/strong>\u2019 from the movie Thira, Neha Nair continues to wow the music lovers. With live performances and playback singing, she is quite a busy singer these days.<\/p>\n

Love for Music<\/h2>\n

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Neha\u2019s love for music started during her schooldays in Muscat. She started learning Carnatic music at the age of 6 under the guidance of Ramesh K Narayan. She was an active participant in all singing competitions during that time. In high school, she started studying Hindustani music from the Pakistani singer Ustad Khalid Anwar Jaan. After completing her schooling, she joined Women\u2019s College in Trivandru<\/a>m to pursue graduation in music. After settling here, she continued her Carnatic music classes under Perumbavoor G Raveendranath for an year. She also took few vocal training classes from B Sasikumar and western vocal training from Binu. Currently, she is continuing Hindustani music classes under Manohar Keskarji.<\/p>\n

Influences!<\/h3>\n

Like any, she was influenced a lot by Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle. If asked to pick one among them, she will go with Ashaji! She is an ardent fan of composers like RD Burman, Illayaraja and AR Rahman. However, she believes the turning point of her career happened after meeting \u2018Avial<\/strong>\u2019 band. They introduced her into a wider genre of music. After that her influences gradually got changed. She names the Icelandic singer-songwriter Bjork as her major influence now. The list also includes Kaki King, Mutemath rock band etc. She is just back in city after watching Mutemath live at Delhi NH7 weekender. Through them, she got a realisation that music is not just about films, it\u2019s a vast field yet to be explored.<\/p>\n

Into limelight<\/h3>\n

She made a demo CD and send that to many of the music directors. That\u2019s how Rahul Raj invited her to sing for Ritu. Her debut song was \u2018Chanchalam\u2019, a duet song with Job Kurian.<\/strong> However, the song didn\u2019t get much popular. She didn\u2019t have much contact in the industry. That led to a gap after Chanchalam, but she never got dejected. That\u2019s when she was invited to the \u2018Outcast Vocals<\/em>\u2019 programme of Rosebowl channel. That really was her turning point. After seeing the programme, Aashiq Abu roped her in to sing for Salt N\u2019 Pepper. The song \u2018Premikkumbol\u2019 was a runaway hit.<\/p>\n