Ssshh, the session is on

Listening sessions are finding favour with audiences who want to experience a more intimate setup with the artiste and discuss music

Drummer, composer and music educator Tarun Balani’s music listening session for the launch of his vinyl, The Shape of Things to Come, at G5A Foundation in April was full to the brim. The fact that it was a paid event didn’t deter audiences, who wanted to attend an intimate event where like minded people come together, ideally in a calming environment, and listen to music.

Music listening sessions, according to Gaurav, drummer of Bengaluru-based hard rock band Diarchy, are predominantly of three types. “If we throw the term listening session to anybody in the [music] scene, the first thing we understand is that this is probably an album listening session or a party, where the focus would be promotion,” he says. The second type would be a bunch of friends getting together at someone’s home and having themed listening sessions such as blues nights, rock, ’70s music, etc. The third that has gained prominence, especially during the pandemic, are online listening sessions on platforms like Discord and Clubhouse. Bands, musicians and music publications are usually the ones who host such rooms. “The listening session there would be a curated playlist from a particular artiste or a curated playlist on a certain theme,” says Gaurav.

Tarun Balani’s listening session last month for his vinyl launch saw the audience not only attending, but also buying his vinyls and interacting with him. Pic/Mayank Bahl

The first listening session organised by Gaurav was a pre-launch listening party for his first album Herelostwelie back in 2017. “Any time we have to launch an album, a session becomes part of that,” says the Bengaluru-based drummer. Ideally, musicians invite journalists, family, friends, and people from the music scene to these launch parties to get a 360 degree feedback. For Gaurav, this pre-launch listening session was helpful as his band could incorporate the feedback they received before releasing the album. One of the feedbacks he received was related to the sequencing of the songs, which he was able to alter.

Bands like aswekeepsearching (awks) also used a similar strategy and hosted pre-listening session tours for their albums Zia in 2017 and Rooh in 2019. They went to 13 cities for Zia and conducted 24 listening sessions for Rooh. “I observed a lot of art-related workshops, which were organised for 20-30 people and I thought why not do the same for our music. Our music is very abstract and emotional and needs some kind of relationship between the listener and song. That’s how you’ll enjoy our music,” says Uddipan Sarmah, frontman of awks, the now Goa-based post-rock band. He liked the idea of the band’s fans sitting in a room, listening to music while he shares stories about what went behind in completing the album. “We usually get to share our music and the lyrics, but never the story. There is so much more that the fans don’t get to know,” adds Sarmah.

Gaurav and Aman Gujral 

For Balani, consuming and listening to his own music with his audience is a very special and different feeling as opposed to live performances. “They [listening sessions and live performances] are worlds apart because in performance situations, there is a clear distinction between the artiste and the audience. But, in a listening session, those walls break down and it becomes a collective experience of listening to music together,” says Balani. Gaurav agrees, saying that along with reducing the logistics of a live performance, it creates an intimacy that’s hard to match.

However, the Thursday Vinyl Nights at Adagio, Chembur and Bandra, that have been held for the past seven years, do not involve an artiste. They host a listening session where they listen to one album on the vinyl record player in complete silence, which is followed by a quiz and people talking about what they felt. “We believe in a lot of analogue culture,” says Aman Gujral, founder of Adagio. “Our sessions have dim lights, people are quiet, we sit down on the carpet, with the album art in our hand, cushions all around,” he says. According to him, listening to music is not just an audio experience; the environment, the people around you, where you are sitting, the props, the room temperature, having the track list in front of you—everything matters. Listening to an entire album requires a lot of patience and that is why he believes that beginners should always start with a shorter album. “The idea is to appreciate the album entirely because most people these days listen to singles or the most popular tracks and miss out on the whole experience, especially if it is a concept album,” says Gujral.

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