Watch, Dance And Sing-A-Long With ‘Fun With Slokas’
Speaking on this occasion Jaya said “Kids today spend a lot of time on phones, tablets and television watching nursery rhymes or animated shows. Observing my granddaughter and her friends gave me the idea of using this medium to familiarize them instead with our traditional slokas and culture. That’s why we’ve used simple melodies, lively music and colourful videos to appeal to young children.”
“Learning these slokas is something of a rite of passage for kids, and with this collection, we want to make it a whole lot of fun. This is a project that comes straight from the heart,” she added.
‘Fun with Slokas’ is a reflection of all that Jaya holds closest to her heart – her love of music, her deep fondness for children, and her belief in using music to teach, and to heal worry and anxiety in even the very young.
The project began in 2014 when Jaya came up with the first set of simple tunes for the slokas she was trying to teach her three-year old granddaughter Disha, who picked up them effortlessly. When she shared these sloka songs among Disha’s friends and their parents, she was encouraged by the response. She then contacted R. Chandrasekhar, a musician of many years standing, to set them to lively music. The first batch of tracks he created made Disha dance along, and the project was well on the way as Jaya began formally recording the songs she had created on a whim for her granddaughter. It was truly a family affair in every sense -- over the next couple of years, Jaya's son Viraj and daughter Divya, both trained singers, added their backing vocals to the songs as well.
When friends and family wanted to know how to access these songs, the most obvious answer for this generation of kids was YouTube! The team of Suriya Narayanan, Director and Sara Divya Mohan of The Studio Madras helped create fun visuals to go with the songs. The director’s creative vision brought the slokas alive with entertaining, imaginative stories, complete with little actors dressed as Anjaneya, Shiva and Saraswathi.
Watch, dance and sing-a-long to the sloka songs through the 'Fun with Slokas' collection, which is available on YouTube.
About Jaya Kumar
Jaya Kumar is a singer-song-writer, and a psychologist and counselor. She was born in Madras into a musical family – the esteemed composer Sri Lalita Dasar was her great uncle – and trained extensively in both Carnatic and Hindustani classical music. Her father worked for most of Jaya’s formative years in Calcutta, Shillong, and other parts of North Eastern India, which meant that she grew up surrounded by several other genres of music as well, everything from Rabindra Sangeet and Nazrul Geet to the popular Hindi film music and Western pop/folk/rock music of the era.
Shortly after marriage, she moved to Muscat, Oman, where she became interested in ghazals and started performing extensively onstage. Over the next few decades, she extended her repertoire to light/film music and even Western music performances. When her children were born, Jaya drew immense joy from motherhood, and became very passionate about children’s causes and their physical and mental development. In 2009, she completed her Masters in Psychology from the University of Madras, also doing workshops and courses in Music Therapy. In the past decade, she has been composing extensively. True to the varied musical influences of her youth, the compositions are eclectic, including bhajans, ghazals, and Western music.
For more details, please contact:
Karthisree | 9789907796 | karthisree@adfactorspr.com;
Divya Kumar | 9841285920 | divyak@gmail.com;
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