Gaurav Dagaonkar on the business of music, learning from the legends, the golden age of independent musicians, keeping the freshness alive in the art [#22]

Best in Class with Harish Narayanan

Gaurav Dagaonkar (Wiki) is a music director, singer, songwriter, Youtuber and founder. After his engineering degree and MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, he choose to go down the unconventional route of becoming a full time musician, even though he had no formal training or experience in the field. Since then he has composed and performed many albums, scored multiple Bollywood movies and worked with many legends in the Indian music scene. We talk about his journey, his path to success in this notoriously difficult industry, his favorite artists and much more.

For all budding young musicians out there, this one is a no-miss episode! Hope you enjoy it.

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Timestamps:

• 1:17 Intro.
• 6:53 Journey into music, working with Ranjit Barot, learning Indian classical music later in life.
• 15:05 The business of music, getting the 'foot in the door', getting sponsors for music albums, falling in love with the art form.
• 22:05 Mentors, learning from the experts, putting out work consistently.
• 27:19 Stories of favourite artists - A R Rahman, KK, Shankar Mahadevan, Sonu Nigam, Pritam, Arijit Singh.
• 35:00 Music in India, then and now. Indipop, Mp3s and then, YouTube and streaming. The 'golden age' of independent musicians.
• 45:40 Creating a music content brand with 'Songfest' and pivoting to an ad agency.
• 50:29 Launching a music SAAS product with hoopr.ai.
• 54:20 What should you NOT do while pursuing music as a career path.
• 1.04:00 Keeping the freshness alive in the art.
• 1.07:53 'Ek ajnabee haseena se' and 'College days'.

Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed during the series are solely personal and do not necessarily represent those of my company / employers.