Artistes come together for Out of The Box-2

Musicians’ seminar ‘Out of The Box-2’, organized by M-Table was held successfully at AIDA building, Don Bosco, Dimapur, Saturday with Minister Rural Development and REPA, CL John, as the chief guest.

In his speech, the minister strongly urged Naga musicians to explore the potentials in making music in Nagamese dialect, which, according to him, is God’s gifted dialect to unite the people. He added that by making music in Nagamese artistes would make themselves accessible even to the grass-root section of the population.

Dwelling on the crucial role played by songs in people’s lives, the minister said, “Those sentiments or hard facts which cannot be presented through memorandums, letters or spoken directly can be expressed through songs.” He cited an example by singing one of the most popular Nagamese songs sung by Methaneilie Jütakhrie Solo, ‘Nagaland City Kuribole’. 

John said Nagas were music lovers and gifted with creativity and distinct voices which for long was kept within the community and used in entertaining each other and recreational activities. And it took the people some years to take music to a professional and career setting level, he added. He congratulated the pioneers in Naga music industry who have helped achieve the recognition and respect the industry has gained in recent times. He quoted various verses from the Bible which talked about the importance of music. Adding that music is love, peace, passion, creativity, John said it was the one thing that was capable of enchanting both the heart of man and God.

Special guest of the event Methaneilie Jütakhrie Solo, gave a brief life sketch of himself and how he started his career in music. 

He said owning to his ailment he had to give up studying which led him to spend his time listening to the radio. 

Citing some of his favourite singers in those days, now regarded as global music icons, including Jim Reeves, Cliff Richards, Elvis Presley, The Beatles and Hindi singers like Kishore Kumar, Mohammad Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar, Solo said listening to those artistes sparked a passion in him to be a singer some day. He also displayed the guitar he carved himself in 1968 made out of plywood extracted from tea-leaf boxes found then.

Solo performed two songs, including his popular English song, ‘I Called Her’ and one instrumental gospel song using harmonica and guitar.

Earlier the programme was chaired by Abalü Kikon while invocation was done by Tony Johnson, pastor.  

Following the inaugural programme, the first session began with resource persons, Tetseo Sisters, Moa Subong and Among Jamir with Al Ngullie as the host.

The resource persons dwelled on the topic professionalism including the basic elements required by an artiste especially in the field of music.

Some of the crucial points the resource persons emphasized were punctuality, approachability, dedication, active social media usage and personality.

The second session dwelling on music education was held with James Swu as the resource person and Yanpo Humtsoe as the host.

Swu shared on the importance of music education a musician needs in order to be prepared to face different kind of situations.  He opined that although there were numerous music schools and institutions in the state, there still was room for more and that it was safe to say that the music sector was not over-saturated. 

In the third session, Jaya J Singh representing Hungama, was the resource person with Alobo as the host.

Jaya dwelled on the importance of using social media to one’s benefit and generating resources out of one’s creativity.

She also delivered a power-point presentation on how an artiste can get access to a wider audience with the help of Hungama’s artist-aloud platform.

Following the sessions, Music Task Force, Government of Nagaland, director Gugs Chishi in a short speech said, “As an artiste, you need to be visible, your music has to be heard and with the help of platforms like Hungama you have access to a bigger audience.”

Exhorting the participants, Chishi said artistes should plan their second and third steps of their career even before they begin their first step. He added that with the right perspectives put in place, an artiste would see positive changes faster than they had expected.

Students from various schools, musicians including some from neighbouring Assam attended the seminar.