There was a time when, if you liked music a lot and had the gift of the gab, you could become a DJ. But now it's a little more specialised than that. DJ-ing has become a competitive, full-time profession, for which you need loads of talent of course, but excellent training and practice as well. And that's what DJ Abhishek Mantri offers at his DJ academy Mantri's Music Mantra, popularly known as Mcube. Abhishek, who learnt on the job himself, to become one of Pune's leading DJs, strongly felt that he should transform what he had learnt into a formal training course. Previously, anyone with ambitions of becoming a DJ needed to get on the party circuit, make contacts, watch DJs at parties and on T.V., and carve out his or her own style and clientèle. It was a rather unstructured, tough task, and Mantri had experienced it first-hand. A training academy that would bring all these elements together was really needed, he felt.

Launched a year ago, his academy offers a basic, an intermediate and a final course, each one a month-long. In the basic course, the student is acquainted with all the technical equipment involved. He attends parties with Abhishek, to observe and learn, and also assists senior students, to learn the ropes. At the intermediate level, he learns the software part of the profession, getting to know and use various software in the market, learning about mixing music, etc; at the practical level, he assists Abhishek at parties. After this stage the student goes to the final level where he learns how to make his own re-mixes, edit, mix or even scratch his own music. If he's a good learner, he is poised to do what every great DJ in town does: rock the party!

The academy provides a thorough grounding in the nitty-gritty details of the job, and at the same time, provides a chance to a budding DJ to attend parties, interact with people, increase contacts and learn with an experienced person. As Abhishek says, "After you're out of a DJ academy you don't really need to go around saying to a client 'hello, I'm a DJ' - the client has already seen you around, knows your name, and has seen your potential too."

With absolutely no age or qualification bar, just about anyone who's been bitten by the DJ bug can join the academy and pitch for a career doing what they like best: listening and playing music, getting the ice to melt, and keeping those feet moving on the dance floor!

Nisreen Karachiwala