NEW DELHI: â€?Any music that is soothing to the ears is good, irrespective of whether it is classical, contemporary or fusion’, according to Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit.
Inaugurating a day-long seminar on â€?Hindi film music: its styles and thematic concerns’ organised as part of the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the Federation of Film Societies of India (FFSI), she said the main competition that good music faces is from piracy and television, â€?which is as crass as crass can be’. She said she was unable to comprehend why producers of TV series used such â€?terrible musical effects’ and why the make-up was always so â€?awful’. The seminar was organised in collaboration with the Sangeet Natak Akademi, whose president Ram Niwas Mirdha was the Guest of Honour.
In comparison to TV serials, some recent films she had seen were â€?as slick as slick can be’, she added.
Dikshit also released a set of CDs of â€?Geetmala’, the popular programme on All India Radio’s Vividh Bharati presented by renowned presenter Ameen Sayani, and also a re-print of a report of a seminar held on Indian cinema by the Akademi in the early fifties
Mirdha said the Akademi had started the institution of awarding films before the National Film Awards were introduced. The Akademi was still continuing this tradition and had given its latest award to senior music director Khayyam. He expressed the hope that the FFSI would become pro-active and offered the screening all of the SNA for this purpose.
Presiding over the seminar, renowned critic Vijaya Mulay said it was necessary to understand that music was the total sound track and not merely the songs. She said good background music had sometimes helped to take Indian films overseas. But she referred to rampant violations of copyright.
Speaking on the occasion, eminent music director Vanraj Bhatia said people generally got the kind of music they liked, as people today wanted rhythm and not melody as dance music was taking over. But he was confident that classical music would make a comeback. He said that was why the golden era of film music had ended, since those singers had knowledge of classical music.
Tracing the history of film music from its earliest days, he said the music on TV – particularly the background music, was changing. In any case, TV was the future of cinema, he felt.
Senior filmmaker Kumar Shahani said the government should come forward to support good films and music. Cinema was the fourth dimension of art, he said. He stressed the need of good background scores to underline emotions and said he had found musicians giving excellent suggestions at times. But he said composing music did not mean just putting together tunes, but understanding the musicality underlying the film. He said it was interesting that even in the early days, there were filmmakers who worked first on the songs and only later on the film. He said the degradation in language in films had also contributed to the low quality of music.
Earlier, FFSI Northern Region Council Member M S Maheshwari said in his introductory remarks that it was music that had often created a market for good films.It was therefore a most essential part of cinema, he added.