SHORT, SNAPPY & CATCHY
MAYUR JUMANI The king of mash-ups
Mayur Jumani, 30, a composer whose original music has already made it to Bollywood, had been gigging while pursuing a corporate job, but had never seen it as a career. Till his acceptance letter from the Berklee College of Music arrived.
Born into a family comprising a doctor for a father, a mother working in the field of science, and an engineer sister, Mayur studied to be an engineer and even worked as a user interface designer for two years before he quit in 2016 to pursue a Masters in music. He had always loved music and had learned the keys and the guitar from YouTube videos when he was a teen, moving to using his laptop to make electronic music during his second year in engineering college.
LOCKDOWN PROJECT
The long lockdown of 2020 worked for him, when two of his songs were featured in the movie Bypass Road. “Bollywood is something every composer looks up to, irrespective of social media numbers,” shrugs Mayur.
But most social media users know Mayur as the man who created extremely entertaining content during the bleak initial months of the pandemic. “I started putting comical posts on my page rather than just showing off my singing prowess,” he grins.” Around the time TikTok was banned in India and Reels was picking up, I took an Arnab Goswami dialogue and mixed it with a beat. I thought it would make my then less than 2k followers smile. The next day, it was everywhere.”
This was supposed to be a lockdown project. “But the response I got was so overwhelming that I had to continue. It was all about the timing—the pandemic pushed me to experiment. In my right mind, I would not have done this. I always considered myself to be doing more serious music,” laughs Mayur.
WHY SO SERIOUS?
“THIS IS NOTHING NEW—PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS THINKING OF WAYS TO CONVEY MESSAGES IN THE SHORTEST AMOUNT OF TIME” —MAYUR JUMANI, MUSICIAN
Mayur’s sister had told him to make a list of 10 back-up plans for what he could do in music in case he didn’t make it big.
“In three years, I have done eight of those things, such as accepting jobs like removing the backgroun d noise in interviews,” Mayur says. It took about five videos to go viral before he started getting requests for music production gigs in 2020. “Social media helped me get more involved in the composition space and showcasing my production skills. I had bran ds coming to me to make 30-second pieces for them,” adds Mayur, whose first big gig was a number for the IPL.
The whole thing became so successful that Mayur has now taken up content creation, and the music production and composition work that’s come his way via that, full time. “My family is happy that I’m pursuing something that I am passionate about,” says the musician and creator, who notes that in today’s day and age, everyone is thinking about short audio snippets that may trend.
“Even bigger names are sitting in their dressing rooms and thinking about the 30-second part from their song that can be used in a ‘viral’ video,” explains Mayur. “This is nothing new—people are always thinking of ways to convey messages in the shortest amount of time. It’s good that people are trying to make catchy tunes that people will like as soon as it starts. But, at the same time, it’s not great because you stop innovating and only look at data. An d music isn’t about looking at data or just going by what works.”
Musicians online also face accusations of not being “real musicians.” Something Mayur was told recently, accompanied with, “yaar, tu TikTok banata hai, na [You make TikTok stuff, right]?”
“It’s good to have feedback because you can build your content according to that and figure the balance between your own musicianship and what the audience likes,” says Mayur.