Berkleemusic Student Spotlight - Tuhin Mehta

After 10 years as a successful DJ in India, Tuhin Mehta was looking for a way to add a new level of excitement to his set. The Producing Music with Ableton Live online course provided the creative spark he needed. “From the very first interaction I had with Berkleemusic I felt like I was at home,” explains Tuhin. “Everyone here has been extremely helpful and supportive. And more importantly, the course has helped me to push harder with my music.”

It takes more than hard work to become one of the top DJs in Chennai, India – the fourth largest metropolitan city in India with more than 6 million inhabitants. To differentiate yourself from your competition in this DJ community, you have to not only spent time researching music and refining your skills, but also embracing the performance side of the craft.

Tuhin Mehta, who has been DJ’ing since the age of 14 knows this well. “I started to play at a local club which ran only on Sunday afternoons. It was an awesome experience because most people were really stunned to see a 14-year old playing music,” explains Mehta from his home in the capital city of Tamil Nadu. “But somewhere along the line I started to get termed as too hardcore a DJ. Comments like ‘He does not play for a crowd’, made me rethink what DJ'ing meant to me.”

Tuhin realized that in order to set himself apart he needed to create a personal connection between his music and the audience by adding a performance aspect to his show. “I realized that the most important part of being a DJ is to be an effective communicator,” he explains. “I wanted to be an entertainer. I wanted to be an artist. And I wanted to be a class apart.”

His first experience with Ableton Live came through a friend that owned a local music store. “My friend called me and said he had started experimenting with Live, and went on to tell me that it was rated the #1 software for DJs around the world,” says Tuhin. “He showed me a few things the software could do and immediately I was turning new ideas over in my head.” After spending some time with the software and understanding all it could do, Tuhin realized that he needed professional instruction to take full advantage of Live’s on-stage capabilities. “When I heard about Berkleemusic’s online Ableton Live course, I signed up right away,” he says. “From the very first interaction I had with Berkleemusic I felt like I was at home. Everyone was extremely helpful and supportive.” Producing Music with Ableton Live was a great experience for Tuhin – he learned not only how to operate the software, but also the successful techniques that his instructor and classmates from around the world have used to great effect. “I was always eager to hear what my fellow students had to say about the assignments,” explains Tuhin. “We were not only learning from the instructor, but from each other! I feel that is the best part of the online course experience – interacting from people from around the world, people with different tastes and styles in music. For me sitting half way around the globe in India, it was indeed a fulfilling course.”

Tuhin has big plans for incorporating his newfound knowledge into his set. “This course left me with immense knowledge, and most importantly, it helped me break out of the mindset of just working with hardware. I'm now more confident about myself as a performer. I’m looking to put Live into my sets on a full time basis by working on a tag team of DJs behind two laptops running Live. It's the only way to lift the game.”

Producing Music with Ableton Live online course at Berkleemusic:

Producing Music with Ableton Live

Production Resources