Pianist Upendra Lal Singh, who has so far released one solo album, Nostalgia, and two albums, Murchana and A Musical Pilgrimage, with his band Upendra and Friends, is a graduate of the Supagarn School of Music in Thailand, where he studied the piano for eight years. Currently a teacher at Nepal Sangeet Vidyalaya, Singh, who was recruited in the Fuji Rock Festival in 2007, has regularly performed with his band at the annual Japanese music festival alongside bands such as Red Hot Chili Peppers and Sigur Rós, and Japanese bands such as Asian Kung-Fu Generation and Babymetal. With his latest album scheduled to release soon, the Post’s Kripa Shrestha caught up with him for a quick chat. Excerpts:

Tell us about your new album.

It is a percussion-based album with particular focus on Nepali leather instruments that build its rhythmic style, and westernisation of the background music, which results in a delightful fusion of Eastern and Western music. To fully appreciate the style of this album, it is important to understand my motivation for creating it. African percussion instruments are celebrated all around the world; our own instruments are no less but we have not been able to show it. It is my hope that this album, which highlights the piano, bass guitar, flute, sarangi, tabala, dhime, maadal, djembe, cajon, and the drums, relishes in the opportunity to do so, and introduces our rhythms to the world.

Is your new album a compilation of original compositions?

Mostly. I do have a few old melodies that I have re-purposed in my style to create a fusion of Eastern and Western music with a more percussion-based approach.

How long have you been working on this album?

I have been working on this album for three or four years. It is my fourth album and the result of dedicated experimentation since my very first album, Murchana, in which I experimented with classical music, vocals and the tabala. I like to merge the piano with Nepali instruments and did so in my second album Upendra and Friends: A Musical Pilgrimage, in which I experimented alongside the flute, sarangi and dhime. For my solo album, Nostalgia, I interpreted celebrated Nepali songs on the piano and created instrumental tracks. My newest album builds on such experimentation over the years blending newer sounds still.

What inspired you to create this album?

I have envisioned this album for a long time now. I have always liked the piano and upon returning from studying the piano abroad, I attuned my attention to Nepali songs. My solo album, Nostalgia, has been my dream for twenty years now, which finally materialised three years ago. I hope to release a sequel to it sometime this Dashain.

How did you become a pianist? Did you always want to become a piano teacher?

I have always liked the piano. I used to play the guitar first because there weren’t any piano teachers in the country back then, which is why I had to go abroad to study music. By the time I had finished my studies, I had a band in Thailand that I’d often jam with, and was well-liked by audiences. My position during the time wasn’t one that mandated an alternative but I’d always dreamed of returning to my country and producing piano students. So I did. I returned to Nepal in 1996 and have been teaching piano since. I’ve been playing the piano for 29 years now and have been teaching for almost twenty. I enjoy being a piano teacher very much and like inspiring my students to be pianists.

What do you think of the music scene in Nepal?

I think it’s wonderful—its merit lies in its diversity and in its ability to retain its authenticity even as new songs hit the radio. As for the concept of music itself, it is often disregarded as an academic sphere and condemned as simplistic; I myself am guilty of such prejudice when I hadn’t studied music. Music isn’t acknowledged as a scholastic pursuit here; there is no such concept. It is only when I started studying music that I realised what music truly is. Nowadays, it isn’t unheard of for someone, who has never studied music, to release albums based off of learning from YouTube. They skip the basics and do not grasp a learned understanding of their own music when in fact, music should be meticulously studied in school as you would any other subject such as Nepali and mathematics. There isn’t such recognition in Nepal yet, which is why we are working very hard to teach our students to love and to respect music, and to dedicate themselves to learning music from the very basics.

Could you elaborate on the position of the piano specifically?

As for the position of the piano in local music scenes specifically, its position has yet to reach heights of popularity in Nepal despite its instrumental role in laying the foundation of music. Although the piano has found its way into our nation since the Rana regime, it was never appreciated beyond a luxurious artefact restricted to the aristocrats until much recently. So far as I know, my friends tell me I am the first Nepali to have studied the piano in a foreign music school which is why I feel a personal obligation and responsibility to be a piano teacher, something of a lifelong dream to me. A paradigm shift in perspective is fundamental to changing the conception of music in students and parents, the beginnings of which I’m starting to see in the new generation. It will take time, definitely, but I’m optimistic about the music scene in Nepal. I myself am devoted to this cause without thinking of any returns as such. As soon as my second album Nostalgia is launched, I plan on touring schools around the country to hold workshops on what music is and how we should learn music.

Tell us about an experience that comes to mind when you were working on your latest album.

Two or three experiences come to mind. I’d prepared a rhythm, to which I needed to add a melody but for as long as I practiced, no such tune conspired to mind. Then one day, I was walking on the road and it hit me. A moment of true inspiration. The melody seeped into my mind with a sudden jerk, taking me by surprise. I stopped in my track and took to the side of the road and hummed the melody into my phone so I wouldn’t lose it.

Any advice for aspiring musicians?

You have to learn music from the basics, practice and listen. Then practice some more and listen to more music. Experiment playfully with different styles and expose yourself to various forms of music. Another thing that is very important is to have the right attitude towards music and to never be arrogant. A lot of people, even those who have taken music lessons in school, skip the basics completely and plunge right into songs with the help of online resources such as YouTube; everything is on YouTube these days. Sure, anybody who has never even touched the piano before may watch online tutorials and know which keys to hit with which fingers, but it’s purely mechanical and lacks understanding. Learning the basics of music theory is imperative to understanding music and to being a musician. After all, any kind of music in the world is but a combination of scales and chords, at the foundation of which is sa re ga ma.