Live Performances!
From Cover songs to originals to completely improvised songs based on Audience suggestions, Rohit’s got you covered with his voice, the Piano and the Guitar! JHere’s a clip of him Improvising a song “Happiness in the Air” at Pizza Express Live in Dubai! Wait and watch for a Saxophone surprise at the end…
Musical Improv ME
Since 2018, with Rohit Iyengar as the Artistic Director, Musical Improv ME was the region’s first community dedicated to Improvised Musical Theater in the UAE and India. Organizing online and offline workshops, showcases and socials!
Workshops
Our flagship offering, designed to take a bunch of strangers from shy to singers in under 3 hours. The session consists of escalating vocal, rhythm, storytelling, songwriting and improv exercises that culminate in improvised musical scene work. The exercises are also designed to boost confidence, connection, collaboration and communication skills.
When we started out in 2018, word of mouth in the improv community was our main source of new students. In the middle of Q1 2019 we started our social media presence, with Instagram being our primary focus. Before Instagram, our average share of new participants per session was 20%. After implementing a coordinated combination of stories, feed posts and direct messages, we increased the share of new participants to 40% in 2020.
In total we have run over 80 Musical Improv ME workshops and over 850 people (250+ unique) attended them.
Online
Any community today needs to exist in both the digital and physical space. During the Coronavirus Pandemic we developed 5 online workshop formats: Intro to Improv L1 & L2, Performance Training, Improv Songwriting and Tongue-Tied: Improv Speech.
Musical Improv ME also has a strong presence on Instagram, YouTube, Telegram & WhatsApp including a 4 part online educational series, Intro to Musical Improv, for beginners getting started!
Showcases
Musical Improv ME showcases give students that participate in our workshops an opportunity to perform in front of an audience. The shows feature a mix of musical improv games, short-form open scenes and even a long-form improvised musical. We also used our platform to promote other talent including dancers, singers & stand-up comedians.
The showcases allow people to get a taste of what musical improv is without having to participate in a workshop and a lot of show attendees end up attending our workshops too.
In total we ran 4 dedicated Musical Improv ME showcases and got performance slots at multiple venues, and even made it to the finals of the Dubai Short+Sweet Comedy Festival.
Socials
Building a community is all about strengthening human connection. That’s why we organize fun social activities outside the classroom and off the stage. Karaoke, lunches, dinners. movie and board-game nights all boost the community spirit. Keeping them open attracted new members to the community too.
At the Indian School of Business, Rohit organized their first Improv Speed Dating social event which attracted 64 sign ups with a 60:40 gender ratio of males to females, in-line with the student demographic composition.
Music on YouTube
Rohit uploaded his first music video to YouTube in 2011. Here are the stories behind his most successful videos since.
LOVE ME LIKE YOU DO - HINDI VERSION
Originally sung by Ellie Goulding for the soundtrack of 50 Shades of Grey. Rohit conceived the idea for a Hindi Version to capitalize on the success of the movie in India. Working with Sandhya Prakash a Hindi Native translator and Priya Vedula, a singer that made it to American Idol, Rohit engineered the track and played the keyboards for the minimalist piano version of the song. The translation cover was a success with over 600,000 views as of April 2020. A great follow up to the previously successful translation cover of Let it Go from Disney’s Frozen, which has over 850,000 views.
RAHUL GANDHI AUTO-TUNE REMIX
It’s January 2014 and election season is heating up. BJP vs. Congress. Narendra Modi vs. Rahul Gandhi. After a successful AutoTune Remix of famous loud-mouth news anchor Arnab Goswami, Rohit came across a “powerful” speech delivered by Rahul Gandhi, which showed uncharacteristic leadership qualities. During the speech Gandhi says “Opposition Kehta hai, Congress Party ko desh se nikalo” which translates to “The opposition says, get the Congress Party out of the nation.” That was the inspiration needed to start making a remix! Gandhi’s speech was also in Hindi and English, with was explored with the first half of the remix in English with an electo-pop beat and the 2nd half in Hindi with a Punjabi Bhangra inspired dhol beat.
MALLS OF DUBAI SONG
Growing up in Dubai, Rohit spent a lot of time in Malls. Given the scorching hot climate of the UAE, air-conditioned indoor shopping malls are very important part of life. They are the destination for kids, teens and adults for groceries, luxuries, dining, leisure, social gatherings, entertainment and more.
Given their cultural significance, Rohit wrote and produced a song capturing their uniqueness. The Malls of Dubai song was born. The initial response wasn’t positive. A lot of people compared it to Friday by Rebecca Black due to both songs liberal use of Auto-Tune. However, that negative attention lead to the video going viral. It was covered by major local newspapers and magazines. Eventually the likes overtook the dislikes and the song has over 220,000 views as of Jan 2021.
In 2019, Rohit released an updated version called 30 Dubai Malls in one song, featuring 10 new malls!
Cover Songs & Collaborations
Here’s a playlist of song covers by Rohit, both solo and in collaboration with other very talented artists in both English and Hindi, with some whistling and dance thrown in too!