#LifeIsMusic: Keyur Barve is a percussionist who was meant to be

Born in Panvel, one of Mumbai’s satellite towns, to a college professor and the CEO of a hospital, Keyur Barve had no musical influences around him to justify or explain why at the age of three he was playing every utensil, furniture and surface he could lay his tiny hands on. Or how, at the age of four, he managed to listen to the national anthem on television just once and replicate the exact tune, without any training, on a newly gifted Keyboard in a matter of minutes. A local tabla teacher, who he was taken to by his parents, refused to start training four year-old Barve suggesting that he was too young and that his hands were too small to play the Tabla. So, he was enrolled for piano classes, instead. After just a year’s training, when the teacher asked him if he’d take the Trinity grade exam for Piano, he agreed assuming he’d be sitting for the initials or Grade 1 exams. The teacher, however, thought he was ready for Grade 4. He cleared the test; the first and the last test he ever took.

By the time he had turned eight, he was too attracted to the sound of the Drums, influenced by watching Sivamani on television, to continue learning the Piano. “On most occasions, you’d find me bunking lectures and playing the Drums in the school’s music room. When I did attend lectures, you’d find me punished outside the class for playing music on benches,” 20 year-old Barve recalls.

There wasn’t anything usual about his behaviour, his parents realised. “I had no one in my family who played music. I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know how this works, but mom tells me that when I was in her womb, she used to listen to Zakir (Hussain) bhai a lot and think that my child should be a musician. I don’t completely believe in it… but I’d like to believe that (this is where I get it from),” he says.

In class eight, while still in school and by now completely consumed with the obsession of playing the drums, Barve announced to his parents that he’d only pursue academics till class 12 and then take up music full time. “I’m sorry, what! “was their reaction, he says, laughing.

Finding his guru

During the summer break, after class 10 exams, an advertisement in a newspaper turned the 16-year-old’s life around. The advertisement put out by a performing arts institute in Sion was to invite students to take admission for a course, where master of percussion Taufiq Qureshi was to teach. He was asked by his father if he’d like to enrol for the course and he jumped at the opportunity. “I was super excited. I had heard him (Taufiq Qureshi) on television and I was crazy about his music and what he does; he plays anything that he can lay his hands on. I loved that,” he exclaims, his tone still reflecting the sense of excitement he felt at the time.

He secured a seat in the class and remembers vividly his first session, where no one was asked to play the instrument. “He was just talking about rhythm. The first recognition of rhythm is the mother’s heart beat, the first instrument is our body and the first source of rhythm is our breath, he (Taufiq Qureshi) had said. Others probably didn’t get what it meant, but to me it made complete sense. I got it immediately,” he says.

For a year, Taufiq Qureshi would come and teach at the academy in Sion. The students in class, however, were passionate about just learning the instrument, not about taking up music as a career. Barve had other things in mind. When Taufiq Qureshi asked him if he wanted to take up music professionally, the 16 year-old’s reply was, “I had decided that when I was in class eight.”

What followed is what Barve calls a closed door, group discussion between Qureshi and his parents. “I wasn’t there for the discussion. My parents didn’t tell me what he said. They just said, ‘You have a great godfather. He’s a big and renowned percussionist. He’s a nice person. You should go ahead with this.’”

Life today

From the time he met his guru at the age of 16 till today when he’s 20, Barve has made music his only mission. He started off practicing for about an hour or two every day and managed to clear his class 12 exams, like he had informed his parents at the age of 14. He even enrolled himself in a college to pursue a B.Com, only to drop out after the first semester. “I had started recording and playing with Taufiq bhai by then. I had no time after rehearsals and recordings My name was a constant feature in the attendance defaulter list. I just couldn’t do it anymore,” he says.

The past four years, the number of hours of practice has gone up to 13 to 14 hours a day. “The decision to pursue music full time changed me. I used to hang out with my friends a lot. Now, I spend the entire day with my instrument. My parents and friends were worried; they didn’t know what to do. They thought I had gone mad, because my cell phone would be switched off, which it is even today. I used to lock myself in a room and I quit everything,” he says.

It’s this practice, however, that has made him the musician he is today and has given him the opportunities to perform at professional gigs and recordings. “It’s really not an effort. I like doing this. You need to sit at one place, without coming in contact with other people and concentrate playing music and practicing is like a state of meditation. You need to get directly connected to God. I don’t go to temples or mosques. My practice is my way of worshipping,” he says.

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