Root Murphy
From India to the World When did you first get into music? Please explain. Music has always been a part of our individual journeys. As kids we were introduced to music early on and practiced regularly. I remember writing my first few poems and songs as a 14-year-old in 2003, it had already been a few years of playing the guitar and singing. We were both involved with school and university level performances. For Vishwam, performing live took a serious turn post school. Root Murphy came together in late 2011. Post-graduation, I wanted to create more music and had found like-minded people. In 2014 over practices at Soundstation, Vishwam and I first met and began to talk more of an approach that we found interesting. We agreed to work on projects of different kinds and create more as we went along. What genre of music do you perform and why? Our performances included multiple songs and playing styles. We used to carry registers full of lyrics and cues, and had begun liking and performing music of different categories. Soon after, we also produced for collaborations where we indulged in the approach that drove our interest – to experiment with the environment sound could create. Genres are meant to categorise music according to what listeners perceive. It is the listener’s definition of music and is usually judged by the playing styles, the sound and the instruments used in a song. In creating music, the genre framework can relate to us to the point of our instrumentation, our primary instruments being the drums and guitar. But when we include different musical styles and add sounds to the environment, it creates an experience where we may become slightly genre fluid. We can look at this approach as supporting a storyline in our writing.
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And why did you choose that style of music? The imagination can be a wild field of ideas. At times we lose a lot in the translation of these ideas by fitting a sound rather than exploring the idea. In further exploring the idea and supporting it, there is a creative pursuit or challenge that keeps us motivated and excited. Building different expressions has further nudged the knitting of a storyline we would like our listeners to experience. This approach has been natural to how we play and view music. We like to explore soundscapes and playing styles, which in turn helps us create breadth and depth in our music.
