Anand Bhaskar: Write to the story, edit to visuals

Emraan Hashmiled web offering Showtime marks composer Anand Bhaskarrsquos third collaboration with director Mihir Desai The project says Bhaskar came as a relief to the duo who had until then worked on shows that were ldquoleftofcentrerdquo Bhaskar with offerings like Mirzapur and Masoom to his credit discusses why his working style fits the web spaceEdited excerpts of the interviewWhen this project came your way what was your understanding of the requirements of the five numbers that you were appointed to createIrsquove worked on five songs and the score of this project I have been working with Mihir for eight years after we first began to work on Mirzapur For a while we had been wanting to work on a commercial film because we had been working on projects that were well leftofcentre This one is based on Bollywood politics so I was interested When we started working on it we created everything from pop to jazz and hiphop to rock We narrowed it down to hiphop electronic music and rock He liked the rockbased themes I wrote But as things progressed we realised that the music should lean towards hiphop pop and electronic Thatrsquos how the musical landscape was built Because they were simultaneously building the script and Irsquod often play pieces of music to him during our meetings they used some of my pieces in the edits to build both worlds simultaneously This is the process I follow with all my clientsmdashI prefer to work from the ground up and not wait for the visualsWe speak to a lot of score composers and most of them speak of how the visuals determine the way they work Can you delve deeper into what yoursquove said and explain why the visuals are not so crucial for youAs a composer it is my duty to accentuate the story and the emotions in each scene I donrsquot want the audience to notice my music I want them to get lost in the story I will be successful if my music comes and goes and the viewer doesnrsquot even realise that there is some music in it I donrsquot want the music to trump the dialogue or the acting and that is why I write to the story and not the visuals I start writing the moment I finish reading the script Later they may change the script a bit but the world has already been built in my head Because therersquos no external stimulus to guide my creativity I can write music that is perfectly suitable for the project So for me writing the story is more important We write to the story but edit to the visualsCan you speak of the genres across all the songs and how you arrive at the collaborators on the various numbersHiphop and electronic textures have been used throughout Therersquos a little bit of orchestral scoring in the climax piece and that was new to me I had to take a crash course to learn how to write for orchestral sections like the violin cellos basses and horn sections And you also have to write horn sections from different perspectives including the pauses But primarily it is hiphop and rap Based on the songs we already know if we want a highpitched singer someone in the midrange or somebody who can sing baritone Thereafter we have a discussion I try to get singers who are more active in the indie space because they have unique textures Irsquom not a big fan of highpitched female voices So in my songs yoursquoll see powerful voices I also do a lot of scouting work online to find new voices For one song I put up an Instagram post asking for singers and a girl called Shivya reached out to me I found her skilled so we recorded portions on social media On other occasions we want people who are experienced because they add a different flavour