Hitting the right notes: Young musicians emerge as Pune creates spaces to experiment with all genres

Trained in opera, she mostly sings pop or rock music. The singer-songwriter released her debut song ‘Tippity-Toe’ in 2022, which was an experimental drawing from one of her favourite artists, Fiona Apple.

“The pandemic was a tough time for me. So, I channelled my energy in writing lyrics. I wrote the song in under two minutes. That’s how I write, because I feel if I have to edit something, then I am not being honest enough,” said Kale.

She released the song with the help of her producer friend Shreyas Iyengar. “Now it has become easy to reach out to people with one’s music as everyone listens digitally. You can pay a nominal fee and they distribute it to all the platforms,” said Kale.

The Kani community aims to curate thematic musical sets and get the perfect audience for it to foster meaningful connections.

After winning the Asiapac French singing competition in Taipei in 2018, Kale got a kickstart. Shortly after that, she sang operatic parts for the songs of the Marathi movie Girlfriend. Now, at 26, she is working on her first mini album and plans to release it this year.

Arnav Deshmukh, 21, is a singer, song-writer and producer, who has experimented with indie pop and R&D music. But he also has an entrepreneurial side. Deshmukh, with his engineering student friends from Pune — Parth Ekal, Soham Jane and Anand Deshmukh started the Kani community in the summer of 2023.

The community aims to curate thematic musical sets and get the perfect audience for it to foster meaningful connections. “One has to apply as an audience member, answer a few questions about their musical taste, take on musical experiences, favourite artists, etc, and we match the ideal audience for the shows. If we have a show of primarily jazz artists, we don’t get an audience that doesn’t appreciate that style of music,” said Deshmukh.

They usually stick to around 30 to 40 invitees and each gets a plus one. “The idea is to keep it more intimate and get people who can contribute in some way or the other, so the artists can network,” said Deshmukh.

Their aim is to also make space for newer artists and undiscovered talent more accessible to audiences.

Deshmukh talks about this new accessibility musicians have found. “Some years ago, distribution mainly happened through record labels and they took a large cut and artists got stuck with their contracts. But now with freelance distributors it has become easier,” Deshmukh said.

The community has organised three shows in Pune so far and started Kani outstation chapters with a show in Panchgani last December. The only details they reveal are city and date, other details are revealed 24 hours ago and the artist line-up is a surprise.

The community has organised three shows in Pune so far and started Kani outstation chapters with a show in Panchgani last December.

With Asmay Patil, getting into music came with an unexpected turn of events. During the final year of his Agriculture Business Management course, he got to know that his degree has been debarred along with all the students because his college failed the annual NAAC accreditation.

With nothing to do and no will to enrol for an academic course again, Patil started working with a music agency. He worked different roles like a spot boy and an assistant writer and got a close look at what goes behind the scenes with famous Marathi singers putting their music out.

With that his interest peaked and he started learning music in 2018. “I did hip-hop initially, but I got bored with it,” he said. Patil released his first song Chahu Tujhe in 2021.

Without just relying on the online statistics, Patil does social experiments to find out what people really think of his music. He recently went out on FC Road, asked people to listen to his music and encouraged them to throw water on his face if they didn’t like his song, or follow him if they did.

“People used to think I am from Delhi or Mumbai, so my dad suggested I step out and talk to people. I want to know what people truly think of my music, so I understand if I should keep doing it,” said Patil. He recently performed at an Anuv Jain concert.

Patil, 25, learnt music from YouTube and says it’s very easy today to create an account and upload your music. He said, “The only tough process is making music, which you have to do.”