Music Director Advait Nemlekar On Crafting Unforgettable Background Music For Films And Web Series

When you work with diverse filmmakers, and in varied genres and languages, you need a rock-solid foundation to sustain. And it is to this lucky factor that Advait Nemlekar, 37, modestly attributes his career of 20 years. He has been low-profile to a fault, whether as a background score composer or as a tunesmith.

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The year 2026 has been an unusually prolific one for him. In January, he scored the BGM, as we term Background Music in India, for Neeraj Pandey’s edge-of-the-seat series, Taskaree. In February, his score was one of the highlights of the crackerjack thriller, Vadh 2. March saw the acclaimed Marathi hit, Tighee, in which he also composed two songs besides the score, April witnessed Prakash Jha’s Sankalp, while May-end saw the release of his first Punjabi effort, Zakhma Toh Chardikala Tak and also the animation film, Return of the Jungle.

“My love for music is probably there from birth!” he smiles when we meet at his studio. “I was less than four years old when I laid my hands on a synthesizer that my aunt had gifted to my mother. I began to play it wildly, figuring out the notes and generally having fun for about an hour before I realized that both my parents had actually been watching me for a while! I began to cry, thinking I will be punished for toying with it, but my parents decided to encourage me instead and put me under the tutelage of Sadanand Dhopte, a lab assistant who had mastered Hindustani Classical music.”

Soon, Advait was introduced to Raju Singh. “Raju sir advised that my left hand was not so developed and suggested that I learn Western Classical as well.” This led to another great teacher, Mrs. Acharya, who taught Advait the piano and staff notation. Says Advait, “The two styles—Hindustani and Western Classical—are totally different, but after my classes were over, she would ask me to play any Hindi song I liked and then change its chords. By the age of seven, I could thus replicate any song on the piano!”

He recalls his mother being very supportive, but his businessman father having apprehensions about an insecure profession. “I knew it was up to me to prove myself!” he smiles.

The struggle

Siddharth Kumar Tewary, the noted TV director, was making the series, Ambar Dhara, on conjoined twins, and Advait composed for the pilot episode. He also assistant Sneha Khanwalkar, who taught him the technical aspects, including how to feed his compositions into software. A friend, Rishabh Bhatnagar, was making a short film for Whistling Woods International (WWI) and that became the first time Advait recorded with a live musician, Jitendra Jawda, a violinist who is still his go-to musician whenever he needs strings.

Taskaree: The Smuggler's Web

This led to Advait composing music for over 20 WWI short films under the mentorship of music professor D. Wood. “I slowly began to get work,” the composer recalls.

Advait terms himself as belonging to the “middle” era between analogue and digital. His big break happened with Special Ops in 2020, and he has an interesting story to narrate about it.

“Raghav, Neeraj’s associate director, approached me to score for a scene from Special Ops as a kind of trial,” recalls the composer. “But I was then doing the score of Saand Ki Aankh, so I asked for a fortnight’s time. That stretched into three weeks, and I realized that I must have lost the project. I called Raghav to apologize and told him that I could still send him the scene with the music done, just so that I can get Neeraj sir’s feedback on it. I had assumed that I had lost the chance of doing the series. And I was on a holiday with my wife abroad when Raghav called and said that Neeraj sir had loved what I had done and asked if I would like to come on board!”

How does he work on his music? “Different filmmakers have different approaches!” says Advait. “The most difficult and challenging aspect is when Neeraj-sir just sends the visuals with the dialogues and tells me to figure the soundscape and give him ideas. There are no references. Prakash (Jha)-sir sometimes does give a reference, as with his new film, Janadesh. But he did not provide any guideline for Aashram or Sankalp!”

How long does it take to compose a score? “If a director approves my work quickly and the stars seem to align, it can be fast!” he grins. “I had a lot of fun doing Jaspal Singh Sandhu’s Vadh 2, for example, which I completed in 22 days. The film also helped me further understand where silence is needed instead of music! The characters were set in a specific period and for a while, in the future. And I decided the soundscape with the cello as my main instrument and created a world around it.”

Tighee

He elaborates, “The cello is a versatile instrument. It can sound sad and its shaking notes can be scary too. It has personality and power. The film was slow-paced out of necessity, so my music had to show pace. A slow story with a languid musical score will lead to many yawners among viewers!”

Which genres are easy to score? “Thrillers, sad or romantic stories are easy to do. Comedy and the horror genre are difficult!” he replies.

Without undue modesty, he elaborates, “I realize that I am approached for my talent. I am blessed that I am technically good and can arrange my own music. One must know how to produce music so that there is no dependence on anyone. I make what I term a ‘musical palette’, in which I decide which instrument comes in, what are the theme pieces for each lead and supporting character, the fillers, and a standardization of moods like romantic, sad and so on.”

What about acoustics and Raags? Advait shows videos of the Punjabi film he is doing to illustrate that both elements come when necessary, the Raags usually at a subconscious level.

And that brings us to his song compositions, including in the Gujarati Gujjubhai and Marathi Naal franchises and the recent Tighee. So why is he not doing Hindi film songs? “In Hindi, there is a surfeit of music composers pitching their work to music labels, and I don’t like doing that!” is his frank reply.

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