Saturday, 10 February 2018

The Lost Voice of Cinema: A Brief Study of Bollywood Music

Music, the strongest form of Magic, has been captivating people in the Indian Cinema for over a Century now. Going as far into the past as 1901, the First Music Schools in India, had no Idea how vast and how complex the musical legacy of India would get. The foundations laid out by the maestros like Mohammad Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh Mathur, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosale, etc. have provided a steady and firm nurturing ground for the Musicians of this era to learn and polish, but lately, there has been a steady downfall in the character of Music in India, and it is crumbling down. Why is this happening?

The basic essentials of a good song are appropriate portions of authentic music, great singing, and capturing lyrics. Indian Cinema, till some time ago, had all of these. But off-late, things have changed in all the three areas, enormously. The Music has become more and more electronic, more dominant and less accommodating & caring to the lyrics. In fact, sometimes the music is so overwhelming that at times people hardly care about the lyrics, and ignore the fine singing.

Lyrics are said to be the soul of a song. The diversity and the variety of lyrics are dead. There are points at which the lyrics stop making any sense, and are just written to compliment the music that is playing in the background.
Singing is one of those domains where the role of technology is so underrated. More often than you think, the involvement of software that tunes the voice to the perfect pitch is used. This is not an issue just with Indian Music, the whole music fraternity has fallen prey to this bad influence. This has given rise to singers who are not trained and don’t really know anything about music in general.

Still, there is hope for Indian Music with the hidden talent that is brewing amongst a busy lifestyle of the crowded cities. The hidden artists and singers, who are not getting exposure, are the ones who need to be focussed on & groomed in such a way that they can balance out the highs and the lows of Bollywood Music, and give a new birth to music, and shine.

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