Poca-A-Poca is a Bengaluru-based musical ensemble that believes in the sound of music over the experience. They had their first on-stage performance in February and have covered over five stages ever since. The team has musicians, both professional and amateur, between the ages of 15 to 50. Shubira D’Sa, pianist, vocalist and voice trainer for the group, believes that everyone who speaks can sing.
Yamini Kumar, an architect and member of the ensemble, says, “We are all professionals who are united by the love of music. A few of us in the team are trained musicians but most are amateurs. We gather together, make music, mostly acoustic but we also focus on covering as many genres as possible. At our first performance, we ensured that every song was a different genre and from a different time period. We also tried to give attention to each song being from a different country. We truly believe that everyone should be able to connect to at least one song, hence, the diversity in our music.”
Yamini explains, “We have minimal instruments since we want singing to be the focus. We have the djembe (the box you drum on) and the piano. Since, acoustic is more about the music, we also use the cello and violin. This time, we are using the tabla as well, since we are playing indie and Indian fusion.”
The troupe is currently focusing on creating new acoustic versions of different songs for their upcoming performance. They also have a Poca-A-Poca Junior team that focuses on young and budding musicians, both singers and instrumentalists. Shubira is now conducting a professional vocal training class for these junior musicians between the ages of five to 15 years. Poca-A-Poca junior’s upcoming performance is in November and the main idea of the performance is to celebrate these trained budding musicians entering the music scene.
