Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated December 27, 2010)
In our times, music was like the Qutub Minar – tall, distinct and sacred. Today, it’s like a vast ocean that is constantly evolving and flowing in different directions. For any kind of art to survive over generations, change is necessary. Change helps in keeping it alive. Music all over the world has been changing constantly, which is why it has remained living with the audience. Rigidity causes hurdles in creating music; adopting new styles and displaying it in their own style keeps music alive. A musician has to move beyond the gharana that he/she has been trained in and create something of his/her own by sticking to the basics, which is the true art of music.
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Unlike earlier, today’s musicians are more focused on the aesthetics of the song. In our time, it was more about riyaz (practice). The riyaz would be without mikes, so we had to sing aloud, mostly in the higher note of Raga Darbari. Thanks to technology, today singers don’t have to stretch their voices and or even rehearse for long hours. We would rehearse for over 14 hours a day, not continuously but in instalments in order to memorise a song. Technological innovations and access to good quality music through FM channels have curtailed the number of hours spent in riyaz. Today, with just two hours of practice, singers can easily memorise a five-to-seven-minute song.
Apart from being an art, music is also vidya (knowledge). The only way to learn music was through the guru-shishya method. This left no room for self-learning and everything was taught in a fixed format. Compared to the bunch of FM channels available now, we had access only to Vividh Bharati and Radio Ceylon. The focus now is on creating good quality music. This is a welcome change as the musician gets to cultivate a unique style.
I believe that the audiences at home and abroad are intelligent. Musicians can’t fool them as they come with a strong understanding of music. Earlier, the performances used to take place in front of a crowd of barely 50 to 100 people. Nowadays, the crowd strength ranges between 10,000 and 25,000 people with 80 per cent of them being the young. Today’s young singers are talented and wealthy in terms of music.
They are also quite lucky as they have the freedom to create their own style and the means to display their art. The widespread media presence helps them get the right exposure and reach out to the audience. I won’t say that reality shows are an adequate platform; in fact, they help young singers gain confidence. But their talent needs to be nurtured even after the show is over. Unfortunately, they are all forgotten once the winner of the show is declared.
Indian music is unique. It’s a blend of scientific and spiritual knowledge. It’s a land where instruments like the harmonium, sarangi and the sitar were born, the place where saints made music to connect with the God. Besides being a sacred art, it is also a vidya which needs to spread, and grow far and wide with every generation.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
