When asked for his best advice, he says “There is no shortcut to learning music and nothing beats working hard and practising to become a good musician.”
Born in Tamil Nadu and raised in Gujarat, Ebenezer recalls his younger days when nobody around him understood western music since they were more exposed to Indian cinema and Bollywood music. “My mother (Mrs.Jayanthi Balachandaran) always played the guitar. She was the one who inspired me to pick up the stringed instrument and taught me my first three chords in standard 3. From a small age, I had a passion to become a good guitarist and be a blessing to others.”
It was only during a holiday visit to Chennai that Ebenezer’s zeal for music became a reality. “An uncle of mine (Mr.CM.Rajendran) taught me how to pluck and connect chords. I was fascinated by his way of playing. I went back to Gujarat, started listening to songs on the radio and one song that really gripped me was Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears in Heaven’. I was astonished by the variations played on the solo guitar with a chord, a melody, a rhythm and a bass playing on the top – all this from one guitar. That’s where I further developed my ear for music and worked out something called chord voicing (finger style playing).”
During a brief period in his college days, he deviated and explored different genres like rock and metal with his electric guitar. “That’s the teenage fantasy trip all musicians go through when they are young and I was no exception. It was only in my 2nd semester of college that I realised something was truly missing in my music. I realised I was playing depressing and de-motivating songs and had only become an entertainer. I stepped back and decided to take a stand to return to my original calling. That day I realised that I was designed for a higher purpose and my transformation took place.”
This fervour burned so bright that, he began training people as soon as he finished college in 2007. “My vision is not just to make people musicians, but also to make them better human beings, I focus a lot on character building and encourage my students to be confident. Character plays a major role in a musician’s life. Me and my other workshop conductors like Keba Jeremiah, Naveen Thomas make sure we touch on character building during our lessons.”
Ebenezer points out that the one thing he teaches his students in his workshops is to be humble. “The middle letter of pride is ‘I’, the opposite is true with humility where the ‘U’ comes before the ‘I’. Therefore when you humble yourself as a musician and put others before yourself, you put a smile in their lives and change them forever. Humility as a musician takes you to a different level altogether.”
