MUMBAI: As a young and enthusiastic person, Janvi Anand is not just a solo artiste but is also a guitarist, singer, songwriter, composer, entrepreneur, and teacher.
Her passion for music just did not stop her from doing what she loves to do. She exclaimed how it happened while she was still a student at Delhi University. The happy singer said, “It has been an amazing journey. We all have been students at one point of time, whether it is DU or any other university. However, the kind of exposure I have received while I was in DU is remarkable. It gave me a solid background and an opportunity to explore anything and everything I wanted to. From there it’s all about consistency. Your drive and hard work is enough to push you forward.”
She shared the lessons she learnt in her musical timeline. She said, “Always be true to yourself and your work. In your journey, you will find a lot of people telling you what to do. But you need to do what is right for you. I am not implying everything they say is wrong. There is always something to learn from the experienced, but every story is different and you have to write your own. Also be professional and grounded. Irrespective of what one achieves in one’s career, these things define the character.”
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Her recent album Faces of Love is a concept album with songs inspired by true stories of people close to her. It’s an album where everyone can find a song with their story. As the title suggests they all love songs. Love is an emotion we all have in ourselves but have felt it in different capacities. The album has songs talking about long distance relationships, to unrequited love, to forbidden love and many more. The album consists of 11 originals – Faces of Love, The Girl On The Train, Lose Myself In You, Don’t Care Where It Goes, Wish You Goodnight, Perfectly Imperfect, Come With Me To Another World, To Be Your Husband I’ll Be Your Wife, 440 Volt Bolt, How Can I and Tattoo Your Name.
As a solo artiste it’s not an easy task to do everything by your own. Janvi is solo musician and she does everything herself. She said, “It’s hard, but you have to learn to manage your time. As it’s rightly said, you want to reach a point where you are so busy that you just cannot handle everything by yourself and that’s when you need a team or at least another individual to join you in this journey.”
As a youngster, she fell in love with music and she learnt multiple instruments. Among which she finds guitar close to her heart. She said, “There’s something about the acoustic guitar that no other instrument has. You can seamlessly combine the piano on your left hand, percussion on your right; play a bass line while playing your harmony. You have the complete orchestra imbibed in a single instrument. I play basic keyboard and drums too. And you can apply the same concept to those instruments too. But for me, guitar does it the best.”
To be successful in life one needs to have good mentors to guide through the path. Janvi found her mentors who guided her and always inspired her to do the best. “I studied with various teachers throughout my career. For me, the most important people who made an impact were Aditya Balani, founder of Global Music Institute, Noida and Nilotpal Sinha, my musician from Delhi. Nilotpal was the first one to encourage me to write my own music and then, of course, all my teachers at Musicians Institute. I would like to specially mention Dale Turner and Michael Anderson. These two are responsible for imparting so much knowledge; I can never thank them enough. I have been blessed to have an amazing set of musicians, mentors and friends to guide me when I feel stuck so haven’t really struggled to be a solo artiste. It actually helps to always try something new and different.”
She has performed extensively as a solo artiste in India and is now fronting her latest project ‘The Janvi Anand Trio’. She informed, “I have always performed as a solo artiste. When I first moved to LA, I started playing with a bass player and drummer and we named our group as ‘The Janvi Anand Trio’. However, even at that time, I was technically still a solo artiste with the same players backing me. I have now expanded the trio into a collective however, that is basically my ensemble with whom I play live. I am and have always been a solo artiste.”
She also started a music school by the name of Crescendo Institute of Music in June 2012. “While in India I was managing the music school alongside my studies and music career with the help of the amazing and dedicated team. However, when I moved to LA, I drastically reduced operations for Crescendo and now teach a few students in person or online. Though I always welcome more students,” she said.
As of now, it has been a back and forth process for Janvi. Since she is one man show, she constantly juggles between performing and doing the back-end work. If there is a gig which comes her way, of course, she takes up the opportunity. But if she is planning a tour or something long term it takes up time and effort.
Currently, as a songwriter, she has a few ideas which she is exploring. But most of her time is currently spent on going out and performing with the album Faces of Love. “I am trying to book as many shows as I can wherever I can. I try my best to perform at venues which are professional. I have been lucky enough that all my payments till date have been cleared. However I have seen both sides where I was paid right before my performance, to following up for weeks for my payment,” Janvi added.
