A 17-year-old schoolgirl who has released a nuanced pop album called 4 AM tells us about her motivations
Kiara Chettri. Pic/ Manav Parhawk
Kiara Chettri, a high-school student from Delhi, opens up about the process behind her debut album, 4 AM.
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Edited excerpts from an interview.
How did your journey in music begin?
My family is full of music lovers and my mother owns a music school called Chantochords, which I was enrolled into at the age of four to train. Honestly, I initially hated my classes because I thought I was putting too much work in for nothing. But my mother forced me to go to every single class and made me keep singing till I got better. My parents also keep telling me about childhood memories of mine. For example, when I was six years old, I was supposed to play an instrument for my mother’s music school’s annual concert. On that day, a singer got sick at the last minute and my mother started panicking. She looked at me and told me to go and sing. I freaked out and told her that I was only six years old! She told me that she believed in me, so I went on stage and sang We will rock you by Queen. That was my first ever stage performance. I am so grateful that I was raised in such a music-oriented environment, and these childhood memories will always be something that I will want to listen to because it makes me realise how far I have come.
Why is late night your favourite time to work on your music?
I actually found it really weird at first that my writing skills only came out after midnight. I then realised that I need peace and quiet when I write, so that’s why this made perfect sense. My family usually goes to bed after midnight, so there is no noise outside. The interesting fact is that I usually write at 4 am, which is how I named my album. All the songs in it were written around that time, and I recently also got to know that 4 am is actually called ‘The creator’s time’.
Tell us a bit about your writing process.
My writing process is me finding a tune and then writing down lyrics to it. I mostly make my tunes on my guitar and piano. When it comes to ideas, voice notes are my best friend. I always record myself when I’m simply playing around with a tune, just in case it turns out to be something that I really like.
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