This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Ashoka chapter.
For those of us who love and enjoy music, an immediate update of our playlists seems mandatory. We’re hungry for more, almost all the time. For example, I usually exhaust even my new list of songs within a period of a week, max. To cope with this emergency, I had to resort to finding more spaces on campus where I’d be bound to catch some more tunes.
*Shazam or SoundHound are must-have apps to be able to utilize the following spaces to explore music. You also need to do a lot of fearless asking around, because you often don’t get all songs on these apps, plus it’s a great way to make new like-minded friends!
- Gym: In the gym at our sports block, people can connect their aux to the gym speakers, and as a result, you often find yourself listening to some hip-hop, rap, or pop music while working out.
- Washrooms: During shower hours, or hot water timings, there’s almost always someone in the washroom who is blasting music on their speakers. This is personally my favorite time to go in there and shazam. In my experience, I’ve usually found this music to be on the mellow/ romantic and “diva” side.
- Lawns in the evening: Around 4:30 pm in the lawns, people can experience quite a bit of culture on campus. From photography, where the quintessential caption is #sonepatskies, to lying down on the little hills, one could also come across some people contributing to the vibe with music on their speakers.
- Beauty parlour: The parlour that we have on campus also has an active music system where they’re constantly playing something. Mostly I’ve heard them play popular Punjabi and Hindi dance songs, like Honey Singh.
- Mess: The TV in the mess and extension area is usually set on a Hindi music channel, which often plays 90s Hindi music tracks.
- Particular classes: Performing arts classes like Carnatic Music- Rasa Anubhava, Indian Dance- Kathak ka Pehchaan, Western Classical Music- Masterpieces of Western Music etc., invariably introduce their students to new music. You could ask the people taking these classes to introduce you to some of these tracks, or even ask the professors to share the names of artists/tracks.
- Crashing practices: Vistaar’s (the music society) various teams, like acapella, choirs, bands obviously have a lot of music going on. You could crash their practices if/when you find out about them. Even the dance practices would obviously have some great tracks playing. Specific club events like Vistaar’s yearly concert or sessions by the rock music appreciation club also contribute to avenues where you can explore and appreciate music.
- Open mic nights: This event takes place at least 2-3 times in a semester, where various artists get together and use the stage in whichever way they please. There’s often a lot of music, apart from slam poetry and stand-up comedy. You may not be able to Shazaam the songs you hear at these performances because they’re essentially covers, but you could always go up to the performers later and ask them the name of the piece they performed, and in the process, give them some gratitude and regard, which every artist appreciates. You’ll usually come across acoustic covers of English and Hindi songs here.
- Jashn-e-Jazba: A club showcase event hosted by the cultural ministry, you have musicians from Vistaar and dancers from Abhinaya and otherwise performing.
- Parties: The balls, freshers’ parties etc. make it a point to have a talented student to DJ for them. Even though most of the music is pop, it makes for a good space to explore English dance songs, Hindi Bollywood, and Punjabi tracks.
- Sonu and other taverns: Back when it existed, ‘Sonu Sutta’ also allowed its customers to connect their phones to the speakers with an aux wire. This would, of course, give the customers the agency to play their own music, and in that process, others around can get to hear other people’s tastes and playlists. The spaces around Sonu still have some music playing from somebody’s speakers. The genre here would predominantly be pop, EDM and rap here.
So if you want to increase your music base, go explore! It’s the one thing that may keep you sane in college.
Videography Credits: Amrita Tuli
Edited by Vasudha Malani