Indian Music
1) Music is the organisation of sounds with
some degree of rhythm, melody, and
harmony. 2) Popular Music is music
produced for and sold to a broad audience.
Indian popular music, which is
most strongly influenced by Indian folk music is
shaped by social, economic,
and technological forces. Popular music is closely
linked to the social
identity of its performers and audiences. 3) Indian Popular
Music has one
of the world’s most extensive popular music industries. Most
Indian
popular music is associated with the commercial film industry, centred
on
Mumbai, in which song-and-dance scenes are inserted into plots. 4)
Film songs
are heard all over India, in city streets and even in remote
villages, and have
also become one of the country's major cultural exports.
It is a remarkably
eclectic genre, borrowing freely from other Indian musics
and popular music's
from around the world, including some Western harmonic
procedures. 5) Both
Indian cinema and its film music are widely popular
elsewhere in the developing
world, from Africa and the Middle East to Eastern
Europe and other parts of
Asia. 6) While it is difficult to generalize
about such a vast and diverse
entity, certain observations can be made about
Indian popular music. Like
classical Indian music and Indian folk music, it
is overwhelmingly monophonic:
melodies are sung or played solo, rather than
in harmony with another singer. 7)
The Indian music industry got off to
an early start with the production of local
recordings in 1901. By the 1950s
the film industry had grown phenomenally, and
soon became the largest in the
world, producing some 700-feature films annually.
Music directors like
Naushad and S. D. Burman composed scores for hundreds of
films, while top
singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Mohammed Rafi, and
Kishore
Kumar have each recorded several thousand film songs. Most were
sentimental
love songs designed to fit the romantic and often escapist
cinematic
melodramas. 8) In the late 1970s and early 1980s the spread of
cheap audio
cassette players dramatically restructured the popular music
industry. Since
cassettes and cassette players are so cheap, portable, and
durable, many
millions of poorer rural consumers could afford them and thus
enter the popular
music market. As a result the popular music industry has
become much more
decentralized, and its products much more diverse in terms
of style, language,
and subject matter. 9) Indian popular music has continued
to evolve and thrive.
Western influence remains strong, and many film
music composers borrow pop
melodies from the West. Nevertheless, the thriving
cottage-industry cassette
producers still rely heavily on regional folk music
for inspiration and ideas.
In the United Kingdom, South Asians of Punjabi
descent have popularized a
dynamic hybrid style called bhangra, which
typically combines Punjabi folk
melodies with elements of disco, techno-pop,
and dance-hall reggae. 10) I made a
survey in which I found out that 90 % of
the people whether they are of the new
generation or the old say that music
has lost its sentimental values. It is no
longer made the way it used to be.
These days the focus is not in giving a
message but just to give some typical
masala or dance sequence in the film.
Where as the remaining 10 % say
that the trends and traditional values are
changing and in this ever changing
world one must keep up to date. 11) I am in
favour of both the groups because
I think that Song like "jab tak rahe ga
samse main aloo" or "dil ke gate ki
name plate per likha hai tera nam"
are degrading the Indian music industry.
But these are the exceptions people
like Javed Akhter,A.R. Rehman Yash Chopra
and so many others are still there who
respect the values of Indian music and
cenima and make movies like dil se kuch
kuch hota hai dil to pagal hai hum
apke hai kaun. These are only a few of the
indian movies which depict the
actual Indian sentiments.