Karthikbab 's Beats Music Studio - Theme music and stage shows

Theme music and stage shows

K. JESHI - The Hindu
The trend of creating theme-based music for stage shows is the result of awareness among students, parents and teachers.

They want to strike a balance between studies and extra-curricular activities. And, boost their confidence levels and leadership skills in the process. Now, school students want to express their talent through music, they go in for theme music and create a cinematic background to add value to their stage performances. “Be it an inter-school competition or the school annual day, they come up with a theme and we create the background music,” says DJ Karthikbab, w ho has set up a DJ music studio for entertainers, to create theme based music for stage shows.

For instance, Nursery school kids. He has created music for fairy tale stories. “When a kid wants to perform a Cinderella story, we create the story, step by step with music and sound effects and even the voice dubbing, and create a cinematic background for the performance,” the DJ explains. He has worked on more than hundreds of school projects for students in Coimbatore, Udhagamandalam, Kodaikanal and in other cities too.

Besides entertainment based themes, students also come up with public awareness concepts such as banning plastic bags, cutting trees and obeying traffic rules. The most recent one being ‘police and public relationship’, a single unit dance performance by students of various schools in Coimbatore. “It took three-months and we had incorporated music from the 1950s to 2008 in various forms,” he adds.

The positive trend is attributed to growing awareness levels among students, parents and teachers. Schools and colleges encourage students to explore their creative talent; so do the parents. So, they are open to experimenting new concepts that add value to their display of talent.

Students come up with one line story. And, the build up is created for a stage performance with music, right from stage entrance to various scenes. For instance, traffic awareness. Sound effects to indicate the traffic signal, the background vehicle movement, etc are used to convey the theme in a better way and also to make students aware of the issues.

Sound library

Karthikbab has a sound effect library of 10,000 sound samples, some created and some collected — sounds of vehicles, animals, weather, thunder, rain, water, sea shore, birds, war sounds, jungle effect, sci-fi robot effects, kitchen sounds, water flow, train accidents, car crash, screams, jokes with laughing effects, all find a place in the collection. The DJ has worked with students of G.D. School, Vivekalaya and Air Force School. “We create new sounds from our library. For children, it is an exposure to a new world and it boosts their confidence levels immensely. And, parents are willing to provide that platform for their children,” he adds.