NEW DELHI: It is up to the listeners and the media including radio and music television channels to help change the tastes of the public to good lyrics and better music, since a lyricist or a music director is often under compulsion to give what the producer or director want.
It was different three decades earlier when filmmakers like Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt and Dev Anand had some knowledge of music and the music directors put their soul into the music for those films.
Participating in an interaction on â€?Film music: then and now’, renowned music director Shamir Tandon said it was up to listeners to reject the kind of music being dished out. Speaking for himself, he said he had to earn a living and therefore would continue to give the kind of music that filmmakers wanted. It was therefore important to change the way the filmmakers think, he added.
Tandon said the present generation of music directors were talented and could deliver, but had no motivation to do the kind of music that had come in the golden period of Hindi film music in the fifties and sixties.
He said most FM channels and music TV channels preferred to show only music that was suitable for dancing, and so producers and directors insisted on that kind of music. But if these filmmakers realised that they could make money even on good songs, then the task of music directors would become easier.
Answering a question about plagiarism, he said the laws here were lax and so many music directors got away with copied music.
Veteran music director Anandji did not agree. He said there was no question of supply and demand. People will take what we give them – the music director needs to have confidence that his work will be appreciated, he added.
He said technology had changed the styles of singing. When singers had to at the time of single cameras, they could not sing in high notes in keeping with the kind of expression that the character could give. When the moving cameras came, it affected the singing, just as the introduction of the zoom lens did. But he said the introduction of the synthesizer did not mean that the Indian element in music disappeared.
Answering a question, he quipped amidst laughter: â€?if songs do not last these days, it is because they are too loud. If your wife is shouting at you, you will not be able to tolerate her more than a minute or two’. On a more serious note, he said there was need to change the direction of today’s youth and their thinking processes. He was sure the present era of bad music would not last too long.
He said the emotion appeared to be disappearing from the songs of today. But asked about the Oscar that was bagged by â€?Jai Ho’, he wondered if the song would have won an award if the film had been made by an Indian director.
He said he was unable to understand why expletives had become so important for songs, even under the excuse that the rural folk spoke in such a language.
Singer Ila Arun was emphatic that good songs were coming out even today, but were generally blocked out by radio and TV channels. She said the era of good voices had also come back today.
There was a time when the songs â€?were close to us and we lived those songs’. But, she added, â€?what sells is what survives’
Referring to documentary films, she said many music directors began their careers with documentaries but gave life to them.
Singer Sudesh Bhosle said he had rendered devotional songs for films only to find these had been taken out of the film. He said his own image had been his undoing. The fact that he could imitate voices of actors was used by most directors – particularly in films starring Amitabh Bachchan – and so his own voice had got lost in this mayhem.
He referred to times when music directors went according to the mood of the film. For example, though Kishore Kumar gave voice to Rajesh Khanna in all other songs, the song â€?Koi jab tumhara ridd-he tordh day’ was sung by Mukesh because he could render that emotion better.