Stage Matters

Ep. 1. Siennor - Music is in the Moment

• aravind murali • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Aravind Murali's "Stage Matters" podcast features Siennor, a soulful Chennai singer-songwriter, who opens up about his journey into live performance. From accidental open mic nights to commanding stages, Siennor reveals the profound personal growth and freedom he finds on stage. He shares captivating anecdotes, including a powerful moment when an audience sang his song for him. The discussion covers his unique preparation techniques, the spiritual dimension of live music, embracing improvisation and mistakes, and his belief in the enduring power of human connection in performance. Siennor also offers grounded advice on the financial realities faced by artists, making this a must-listen for anyone curious about the heart of live art.

Hello and welcome to Stage Matters, the podcast that gets right into the heart of what happens when artists take the stage. I'm your host, Arvind Murli, and it's great to have you with me. For any artist, the act of performance is a transformation. 

It's where countless hours of dedication meet the unpredictable energy of a live movement. It's about more than the art itself. It's about delivery, the connection, the vulnerability, and the sheer power of being present. 

On this podcast, we are cutting through the noise to understand the true essence of what makes a performance soar, what challenges performers face, and how they consistently deliver those transcendent moments. I'll be chatting with amazing artists and performers, from seasoned veterans to rising stars, to hear their stories directly. We'll discuss the highs, the lows, the techniques, and the mindset that defines their approach to performance. 

If you ever wondered what it truly feels like to command a stage, or what goes into those breathtaking artistic moments, you are in the right place. Let's pull back the curtain and dive into stage matters. My guest today is a truly unique voice, a brilliant artist whose music tells stories and moves souls. 

He's a Chennai-based singer-songwriter, composer, and producer, known for his incredible ability to blend heartfelt lyrics with captivating soundscapes. I'm also super happy that he's my bandmate and a good friend. Let's dive straight in with the one and only Sienor. 

Hi, Sienor, and welcome. Hello, thank you for having me. Okay, let's go straight in. 

What first drew you to performance, and what keeps you going back to it? I should say it was accidental when it began, because I did not know what to do with all the music I had written, all the songs I had written, and I started performing in open mics. But I felt there's something about performance, something about the moment when there are audience actually sitting in front of you and listening to you, and you can actually go crazy on stage and unlike real life. And I really liked that. 

It felt like a space that I have always wanted to own, like a place where I always belonged, the stage. And yep, that's how it started. And what draws me back again and again is it gives me a lot of chances to work on myself. 

And with every flaw, I find something new about myself that I can work on and get better at. It also changed me as a person, because as a person, I usually used to be, I still am a little timid, reserved, and fear of being judged, or fear of abandonment, everything. But on stage, I'm like, fuck you, this is my stage. 

I'm going to do what I'm going to do. And because I love what I do. It's not like I want to offend anybody, but I love what I like to do and what I do. 

And it's a great place to be at the stage where we perform our hearts out. So, yes, wonderful. That's a great start. 

Now, how was your understanding of performance evolved over time from when you started to now? So, when I started off, I had absolutely no idea. All I was considered was I should not make any mistakes on stage or what people are going to think about me or how they are going to judge me. But over time, I feel there's a lot of things that go behind performance, like rehearsals. 

And what draws me especially is the little improvisations that happen on stage, where I can try out cool stuff. It's just like Frank Zappa once said, it's just me versus time within this frame. So, I'm going to do something, I'm going to see how it comes out. 

And it is going to be a new experience for me as well. That on one side, and then there's this whole rehearsed section, where I've written the music, where we rehearse together, where there are like a lot of intricate changes, breaks, chord changes, harmonic changes, everything happening. And so bringing both of these together. 

At the same time, being in the moment, they're performing for the people where I can connect with the people, communicate with the people. Sorry, I think I lost track of the question. It's fine. 

I think you answered it. Can you describe to me a pivotal performance experience, either as a performer or as an audience, which kind of defined what made you a performer and said, aha, this is what I want to do. As an audience, there's a lot of gigs that I've seen on YouTube growing up, like say, the Live Aid by Queen and the Montreal Rock Show by The Queen. 

And there's a lot of such artists, including like everybody, like there's a lot like the doors. And all of these are like different experiences, right? For the Queen, everybody is singing together. And for the doors, the band has no clue what's going on. 

And it's just the front man doing stuff. And in live, I would really say this band many things. Thanks to you. 

Because that is one of the few acts where I get to see the artists getting into the zone, performing and then coming out. It's almost like a tent, like a trip. Like we get on the flight, we travel and we get back. 

And I really love that I'm drawn to that as well. And when I'm playing, there's a lot of shows I can say, including the recent one I played at Nagaland where there was this moment when the audience wouldn't let me sing. And they started singing the song. 

And I had no clue what to do. I just paused, took my phone and took a video of them singing. It was the other way around. 

And the museum theatre show that we played, it was great. It was a very new experience, because that was our first time with visuals. And though it was for a seated audience, the audience were really hooked to the stage, the visuals or the performance, the performances and everything. 

And before that, there's a lot of club scenes that happen. And every time I play in clubs, people get drunk and they sing along. They have a great time. 

And I feel really comfortable because I can make mistakes when people are drunk. They don't care. And it helps me move on quick on stage. 

Like, okay, next, next, what next, what next. And it's almost like an acid trip. We don't flip. 

We try to do the next thing. And we make sure the trip goes good for us as well as the listeners. Wonderful. 

Okay, this was our first segment. It was called the journey. Now we're going to the second one, which is about all about preparation and mindset. 

Okay. So the first question in this, how do you do you have like a way you prepare mentally or emotionally before every performance? Do you have some kind of ritual? I do I do I do. So I prefer a short meditation, where I am silent, where I don't think about anything. 

And then I have the small phase where I recollect all lyrics. So I don't mess up on stage because we have about 25 to 30 songs when we get on stage. Yeah, I better don't. 

Because I don't look at the lyrics and sing. That's there. And then I come back to the meditation phase again and think about nothing and surrender when I get on stage. 

So one important thing I noticed is say I write a love song, I like somebody, or I write a hate song, I hate somebody. And this happened like 10 years ago. But now I don't love them. 

But now I don't hate them. So this is where I really was thinking what to do and acting kind of helped me. Like how one acts on stage in theatre or how one pretends, but pretends so soulfully and honestly. 

So every time I sing a song, it's mostly like me revisiting that emotion that I had when I wrote the song and trying to be true to it. Okay, either that or I tried to adapt the song to this moment and how I'm feeling like now. So both happened. 

Like, for example, say there's a love song, I'm not feeling the love anymore. But now I'm going to think about somebody else or some other situation or even my cat. Like, hey, cat, I love you. 

And think about my cat and those kind of visual imagery when I'm singing on stage, provided the lyrics are in my muscle memory, they're going to add like a lot of emotions and soul for me. And or else I go to the acting zone, where I'm an actor on stage. And I revisit the emotion that once I had. 

And I'm living that moment like a time machine. I'm just living that old, younger, slimmer scene or in a fat body with white hair. And so how like, do you do this like on the day of the show? Or like how how much time before they will get on stage? Do you do this? These routines and these things. 

So from the previous night, I start slowly thinking about these thinking about the lyrics that I'm going to sing the next day and what I want to talk. I don't write them down. I don't plan plan. 

But things keep running in my head. Okay, what am I going to talk? What am I going to talk? What am I going to talk? And there's like a bunch of things like a shelf. When I'm on stage, I randomly pick something based on the mood of the audience as well as my mood. 

The acting thing I practise regularly, like every time I practise a song, because most of the times the song, I'm done feeling the song once I'm done writing the song, okay, and I'll have to keep acting that out again. And being an actor certainly did help me and is helping me know, okay, because even when I'm going through some rough day, I'm having a bad day, but I'll have to sing a happy song on stage. Being an actor really helps because nobody can even figure out not even me if I see the video I was having a bad day. 

And same goes to the opposite as well. So I'm having a good day. I love to sing a sad song. 

I'm going to act. And that acting, it's not just on a surface level. When I act, I feel I live that again. 

And it kind of I go into that and come out and the speed at which I go in and come out, it's kind of reducing with the years of performing. Initially, once I sing a sad song, I take a lot of time to come out of it, because I just felt that now I'm like sad. Okay, now happy. 

Okay, now the next one. I'm still working on it. I'm getting better at it with every show. 

So okay, there is an aspect of skill and technique to performance. We all take for granted, I think anyone who's performing has to have that and has to have practised and all that. Yeah. 

But is there something beyond that? Like, maybe something in the spiritual zone? Or is there some aspect of spirituality in performance? Or is it just purely a form of communication? I feel it's a bit of both communication is important. So we don't ruin the spiritual part of it. And the spiritual part is important. 

So we don't ruin the communication part of it. Like, I believe in feeling more than my lyrics within the music, how we make the audience feel and how us as musicians feel on stage. And 

I'm very particular about the way somebody should feel. 

Like, this is the feeling I want to give you through the song. I'm very particular about that. And I think that is the spiritual realm, like Rumi once said, beyond the fields of good doing and right doings and wrong doings, there's a field, I'll meet you there. 

And we don't need any words there. It goes something like that. I believe in that. 

It's kind of one poetry that shaped my life. One of the poems that shaped my life. And the spiritual connection also, when there's like a lot of audience, I feel there is one collective energy happening. 

Like one person claps, and it is very contagious that sometimes we just clap unconsciously, or one person laughs. Maybe if we take a video of that, and look at it later, it might not be funny, or it might not be applause worthy. But there is this collective energy happening in live shows. 

And I feel that is another spiritual aspect of the in the sense, the things that we cannot see in our eyes, things that we can only feel, things that happen when we are on stage. Okay, super. Now, we'll just we'll segue to the next segment. 

It's called the craft. We'll discuss about the craft of. Yeah. 

So, what role does improv play? Is improv like a massive part of your performance? I think I'm going in the direction because I really love improv. I would ideally want to have improv sections in every song of mine. But right now, I've just started to dip my toes slowly. 

I'm slowly learning my scales, practising, revisiting everything again and again. So that the scope for improvement is there in the future. Like right now, we haven't been doing a lot of improvs. 

But there are improvs like, for example, the songs like Nenjam Nenjam or Mugyal Thottam. But improv is something I really love. And I really want to try. 

There's some kind of barrier, maybe fear or the fear of being judged, like I said earlier, that is blocking me right now. But I'd like to try improv in every aspect, be it in the melodic sense, or be it in the lyrical sense, the stuff that I talk in between songs before the songs. So that is something I love personally, I don't know if I can comment on it generally, because there are a lot of pop acts with no improv. 

And they sound exactly like how they sound in the album. And that's another talent. That's some other level. 

When we cannot say which one is the album version and which one is the live version. And then there are acts where we cannot, we take a lot of time to identify which song it is, even though we've heard the song a few times. And then there's improv where I have a section, which for the audience, for myself, we are going to know what's going to happen. 

And then there's the section where both me and the audience are unaware of what's going to happen. Okay, great. What's the most challenging aspect of your of performance? And how do you navigate it? For me personally, I've been having this dilemma, or some kind of fear about my own singing, where if I'll be on pitch, or if I'll not be on pitch, and just that fear kind of makes me do mistakes, like makes my pitch go wrong. 

I realised this like recently four or five gigs back, a few months back, where confidence plays a huge role. And when I'm confident, I don't tend to make those mistakes. Even when recording on phone, because when I'm at home, and when I'm doing a recording, like a proper recording, I don't do those mistakes. 

Now, just because people are watching, I get nervous about my voice, because we've heard a lot of comments, I'm not a trained singer. And all my life has been like, you don't sing well, you don't sing well, you don't sing well. And I started believing in it. 

And when I start to own it, automatically, I tend to fall on pitch for some reason. Oh, what's the question again? I'm sorry. Yeah. 

What is the most challenging aspect of? I think getting a gig is the most challenging. Yeah. Everything else is fun after that. 

Yeah. Since you talked about mistakes, well, how do you deal with the unexpected mistakes happen, unexpected things happen, there are like screw ups in the gig, something goes wrong. And do you think these unexpected things can be like generative and lead to something new? Generative in the sense I don't Because there's a mistake, it's converted into a new thing. 

And no, I totally believe in that. I totally believe in that. Or something happens in the auditorium and Yeah, I remembering soloing once, trying to solo once, I hit a very bad, wrong note. 

And I did not stop there. I just kept hitting that repeatedly. And then went into another melody. 

So I believe in that mistakes can be beautiful sometimes. If they're not beautiful, we can we always have the possibility of resolving it into something not a mistake. Okay, wonderful. 

Okay, now let's go to the segment four. This is about connection and the audience. So, what role, how do you perceive your audience? Are they like passive observers? Or are they like active participants? How do you wish to connect to them? And what is the experience you want to create? I feel it depends on the situation. 

Like in a place such as the Aura studio or museum where we have a seated audience, the audience seem to be very quiet, wonderful observers. But when we do at a pub, when we do in a club, people tend to be a huge contribution and a part of our performance where they keep singing out, singing out, cheering out loud always. And I like both. 

I think it's it purely depends on the situation. Can you recall a specific instance or a performance where the audience made it like so magical for you? This was in 2017. And actually, this incident has happened quite sometimes. 

When I was, I was very new back then, not a lot of people had listened to say not then. There was a show at Music Musicals, where I was opening for this band called Kurangan. And they were supposed to be the main act. 

And I was just an opening act. I was singing. And the audience started singing along with me. 

And I was super shocked. I was like, Wow, what? Where were you guys all this way? And that that was good, right? Because I did not expect that it would happen. I was just focussing on my set. 

I just wanted to give a good set. And halfway through the set, the audience started singing along. And it was a great experience. 

That is something I would because that happened for the first time also, that had that incident has happened like a lot of times after that since then. But because that was the first incident, and I did not expect that happening. That is like a core memory to me that is like very beautiful. 

Okay. So like, how do you handle audience feedback? Do you react to it? Do you change your things because of it? Or is it just something you keep within you and suppose an audience feedback is negative for something? Do you like try and rectify things? Or you say no, this is what I do. So I am super detached from all the positive responses. 

Because I have this fear or I have this quality of getting satisfied and not improving. So I am super detached from all compliments. Like, okay, thank you. 

And I fuck off. When it comes to negative responses, I keep them in my mind. And I think about it. 

And I will see if it makes sense. And if it is something that I really want to do. Because some audience tend to have responses based only on their taste. 

And we cannot cater to like, I cannot take cater to everybody's taste. I will have to look at what I want to do and how I want to do it. So if what they say is aligning with what I want to do, then definitely I'll consider it and try making a change in the future. 

I'm not gonna I cannot change the past all the from all the past recordings. But I will have that in my mind. And maybe I'll make a change in the future. 

But compliments, I'm like, okay, keep that to yourself. Thank you for coming for the show, buy your tickets and show your compliments that way. Obviously, sometimes compliments make you feel good, no? I think that's one mental defect they have. 

Compliments are supposed to make one feel good. But I tend to get into flight or fight mode when somebody compliments. I'm like, no, don't let me stagnate here. 

I want to like learn more. Don't make me fat. Okay, let's go to the penultimate segment. 

This is about the broader impact of what performance is to us and to society at large. I know you always say music belongs to the moment. But like what is unique about a performance that cannot be recreated in a recorded medium? Number one, the flaws, because we never know how the flaws are going to dissolve. 

And we never know how the audience are going to react. Sometimes there is this possibility of them turning out very beautiful. And the things we talk, either between songs as a spoken word or before each song, are things that are going to be relevant to that night, to that audience and to that performance that are there on stage. 

That is something the audience will never get in when listening to a recorded version of that song on say Spotify or YouTube or whatever. And then the audience get to be in that space, where the sound is also created in that space. I feel there's something spiritual about it. 

Like there's a person in front of me, because I look at life that way maybe. Because like we are not going to sit and watch, we cannot watch Beethoven or Mozart because those guys are dead. And we cannot watch all those artists who are going to be born someday after us. 

Right now there is somebody alive, there's somebody doing music and I get the privilege of sitting there and watching them live. And they get the privilege of playing music for me. I think that's a beautiful feeling like celebrating life. 

And I really like that. I'm really for it, always. Very well said. 

This next one is actually a very personal pet subject of mine. In this increasingly digitised world, what role do you feel that performance has for that toward to society? And also how is it different from other art forms, other ways of expressing art? So humans are social animals. We always love like, I'm more of a solitude guy. 

I like spending a lot of time alone. But even for me, every once in a while when I meet people in a place, when I socialise with people, even though I talk less, I just get to observe them. I get to listen to them a lot. 

I see different characteristics, different personalities. I feel that will never get old and no digital medium can recreate that. That's the reason why even if there are so many OTTs, film theatres still have a huge business. 

Right. And even though music directors from the film scene, even though they are doing like minus one, plus one tracks, they're doing it live. And a lot of people want to come there because they're going to meet like a lot of other people. 

And meeting another human being is a whole other spiritual experience. There's also something Rumi said, when he talks about a friend. Oh friend, without you, how will I be able to experience the whole universe that you experience? Because we all have our own lives, own universes. 

And it's almost like two universes coming together, two different thought processes, two different behaviour patterns, two different stories coming together. I feel that something, that is something that cannot be replaced. And as far as music is concerned, rather than films or theatre, music does something to the emotions. 

Of course, theatre does too. I'm just interjecting. I'm not, it's not about music. I'm talking about performance. It can be anything. Okay. 

Yeah. So performance, like I said, towards somebody in person, doing something in front of us, like I cannot pause that and go check my gas stove. I cannot pause that and go to the loo. 

I'll have to miss it or witness it. So that is something that's really special. That's like life. 

That's like, see, there's a rainbow. Now, either I watch it or I go and say, I'm going to miss it and it's going to be gone. It's like a shooting star. 

You watch it when it happens or you blink and it's gone. So it's like one, one very special event. Okay, great. 

So, okay. One aspect of it, is entertainment, which is obviously non-negotiable, I would say, but some people might feel otherwise, but is there some other purpose to it, which is there to this whole aspect of performance? Sharing stories is something really important. And for every artist, I feel the way they look at the world is important. 

And that's what makes them, them. Like, I look at life a certain way, and I look at the people around me a certain way. And that's the artist I am. 

I cannot be somebody else, unless I really push myself to be pretentious to earn money or whatever it is. I don't mind doing that one. Maybe I should try. 

But I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question again? Is there anything beyond entertainment? Yes. So, yes. 

So about sharing stories, each story has a curve as an arc, it starts somewhere, and it ends somewhere. And that arc will connect to a lot of people who are going through like a different story. Say, I say a story of a soldier in a warfield, a school kid might connect to it, who's like, feeling the same emotion when he's doing his homework that he doesn't like. 

So these kind of connections, help us feel connected, help us feel one. Like, oh my god, I thought I was the only one going through this, whether happy or sad. Now there's somebody 

else. 

And what now there's so many people in the audience. And that gives us a feeling of oneness, so that we can evolve from that. I don't have to be stuck in that place. 

So if I have some problem, if I have some good emotion, happy emotion, I don't have to be stuck there. Like, okay, this is normal. A lot of people are feeling that. 

And it can be educational also, like telling political stories and informing people. I don't believe in preaching or being just informative. I also believe in entertainment. 

But that can also be a part of live shows. And apart from that, live stages inspired kids. When I was a kid, every time I saw a band played, I was like, Whoa, what's the bass guitarist doing? What's the drummer doing? And I've seen my friends grow up who are like, okay, I want to become a drummer, because that guy's a cool drummer. 

That guy's a cool guitarist. So when I grow up, I'm going to become a guitarist, like him. So live shows give these opportunities to kids as well as to elders. 

Now I've seen like even 20 year olds who want to pick up the guitar, who want to pick up the keyboard, the piano, the bass guitar, because they saw someone cool on stage. And that is also like inspiring people. It's also an important thing that live shows automatically do. 

We don't work for that. But that happens. Yeah, yeah, I guess. 

Like nobody asked me to get inspired by Queen or get inspired by Doors. I saw and it touched me and I got inspired. So all it takes is a moment. 

And that will happen. How do you define success in a performance? Right now, I feel this is very funny, maybe. From the start of the performance to the end of the performance. 

I just finish it without flipping. And if there's any flipping moments, I get back quickly and make sure the next one is right. Okay. 

So always like a trip, like, like I said, an acid trip. Okay. Hi, Bruce Lee. 

We have a visitor here. That one and yeah, okay. Yeah, sorry. 

So that has been my mindset recently, because I've been exploring and I've been trying out like improvise, improvising and trying out new stuff, basically in gigs, they might be very small, little, but there are they are new stuff for me. They're not in my muscle memory yet. So hence I'm having this feeling now. 

Otherwise, I would also include the point of selling tickets. Because if we have to sustain, we'll have to look at the business aspect of it as well. And we'll have to take it's like sad reality. 

I was going to ask you that because you spoke from inside, but is there anything outward? 

Definitely, because we'll have to get our next gig, considering the sad reality today. So selling tickets and marketing for the show or whatever we can, be it some expensive marketing, or I do like all the free Instagram reels marketing. So whatever works, I feel that's important too, because the promoter should be convinced man that else like, we're not going anywhere, even if we are like, I don't know genius today. 

Yeah, because it's all like selling for the promoter to call us again, or for the audience to come back. We're coming to the final segment of our show. Now, this is about personal reflection, and also like a final wrap up. 

So this starving, starving musicians, starving performer trope is like very common. Everyone talks about it. And it's almost like one romantic thing. 

Yeah. But like, what is your relationship with how was your relationship with money been as a performer? And because I know it's difficult. As a performer, things are getting better, I would say, but I love money. 

I want a lot of money. Like I want to come in a private jet for my gig and or a Rolls Royce or something like that. Right now, I've been doing other things like classes or freelancing or whatever it takes to make that money. 

Hopefully in the future. So yeah, performances right now, I cannot depend only on performances for my survival. But I'm really hoping we get there one day. 

And things will get better because the mainstream performance scenes are crazy. People make a hell lot of money from that, which means it's not something impossible. That's something possible. 

And it has been done before here in our own city. So we still have a great possibility of doing that. But right now, no, not yet. 

I would say what you have any like advice you would give to an upcoming performer about in this aspect about money? Money is important. And we need that to live life. We need a lot of money to tell people that money is not important. 

So save up, earn well, do what it takes. 

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