Ajay Jayanthi

We had a chit chat with Ajay Jayanthi, who spoke to us about his entry into the music space, why he picked violin, his inspiration, his music and lastly his message for upcoming artists.

How did your begin your journey in the music industry?

A couple of friends in college wanted to put a band together and I was the only guy who could play the violin. Wasn’t good at it, but that was where it started. One thing lead to another and more and more people wanted me to play with them.

Any specific reason why you picked the Violin?

I’ve got a lot of Carnatic classical musicians in the family. Amma’s a vocalist and an All India Radio A grade artist herself. She was apprehensive about training me in Carnatic classical vocals because with men, there’s always a fear that their voice might not be really suited for singing after puberty hits. So I was taught the violin for a bit. Never really liked going for violin classes as a kid. The day seemed to slow down for that 1 hour and my poor teacher had to put up with my indolence. I tried my hand at many different instruments and thoroughly enjoyed learning them. But somewhere around my 11th grade, I started liking the sound and the versatility of the violin and decided to get back to it.

What makes Ajay Jayanthi as a musician special?

I’m still trying to figure that out. I guess what works for me is that I listen to so many different genres that I can blend in with any form of music. There are plenty of violinists out there who are much better than me as far as skill is concerned. I have indeed been very lucky to get so many opportunities and from such a wide variety of genres. A lot of musicians I know are biased against a particular genre or form of music. To me that’s weird because every genre has a certain situation, time and an emotion that only that particular genre can portray.