Meet 28-year-old Abhinav Singh, a banker turned musician

Music is known to invoke a lot of emotions. It can boost the creative side of people and give wings to their imagination. Abhinav Singh (28) experienced just that when he turned towards music and released his first ever single ‘Berlin, New Delhi, or Copenhagen’.

Abhinav was an investment banker, known as a deal-maker and the money-churner among his family and friends. How did he then transition into a musician?

“My seniors in college would ask me to either dance or sing to keep them entertained. I am someone who just cannot shake a leg and so, I chose to sing. That was when my tryst with music began. At the end of my first year of engineering course, I watched John Mayer play one of his numbers and told myself that I would do what he’s doing. From then on, there was no looking back,” Abhinav Singh, the banker turned musician, tells YS Weekender.

His affinity towards creating and producing rhythms and beats only increased over time. He eventually learned to play the guitar on his own and even made it a point to practise regularly. “I got the hang of most of the music notes. It came easily to me. I used to head home straight from college and play the guitar every day. This went on for four years,” recollects Abhinav.

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The story behind ‘Berlin, New Delhi, or Copenhagen’

You know, I sometimes don't mind a month of blue slippery waves,

A month you feel like you're in a movie, walking down those Viennese lanes…

…You know I'm quite alright, with the sun shining in my face,

And, I don't know why, we'll find our way though…

…Be it Berlin, New Delhi, or Copenhagen

These are a few lines from Abhinav’s first single released in March 2019. The song has been made available on both Apple Music and Spotify, and has a lot more to it than just a catchy melody. It captures the essence of an experience.

“The music narrates the event of me meeting someone in New Delhi, and travelling to Berlin and Copenhagen with the same person. The song encapsulates the time that I spent in these three cities."

The musician follows blues, jazz and pop music ardently, which is evident in his compositions. He has also performed at multiple venues and social gatherings across the country like Chowdiah Memorial and UB City in Bengaluru, Piano Man and Blue Frog in Delhi, and Adagio and The Quarter in Mumbai.

However, he claims that his first few compositions were ‘horrible.’ “I used to write songs, then go back and wonder how I managed to bring out such a clumsy version. Nonetheless, I realised that it takes a lot of work to get to a good position. Today, I can proudly say that it was because of all those bad attempts that I was able to compose ‘Berlin, New Delhi, or Copenhagen’,” Abhinav says. 

Before being bitten by the music bug

Abhinav completed his engineering from the Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology in Patiala and then transitioned into the investment banking space. His inclination towards finance and economics prompted him to join as an associate with an investment banking firm called IndigoEdge. He then went on to work with Unitus Capital to accelerate the development of local and international capital markets for the benefit of businesses.

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In 2017, he started Quadarch, a hedge fund focussed on keeping track of movements in crypto sphere and investing in blockchain assets. However, due to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) clamping down on cryptocurrencies as part of its bi-monthly monetary policy statement, he closed operations in December 2018.

Abhinav’s streak of work in the financial space is probably one of the reasons as to why he sees the creation of music as a B2C business. “I perceive my music to be a product, where I am the developer. My goal is to sell my music to as many people as possible. The commercialisation of art is as important as the passion associated with it,” he explains.  

Of late, the musician has been dedicating all his time towards making new music and already has four releases lined up for this year.  

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