The birth of the Indian film song may be traced to the advent
of India’s first sound motion picture in 1931. Between 1931 and 1940, India
produced 931 Hindi feature films with an average of 10 songs per film.
In the 1930s, many of the original actors and actresses sang
their own songs. Many times, actors were chosen specifically for their singing
abilities, such as Bal Gandharva and Baburao Pendharkar. There was no concept
of a ‘playback singer’ at that time. Songs had to be recorded along with the
shooting.
The numbers for the regional films were much lower, but the
orientation towards music was similar. Bollywood
is known for certain fixtures—like elaborate song-and-dance sequences, romantic
melodrama, and striking set design—but there's so much more to this diverse
film industry where those came from.
Indian cinema evolved separately from Hollywood, and retains
its own characteristics. One of the most striking examples of Bollywood's
unique aesthetic are the movies' use of song and dance.
Saroj Khan, one of Bollywood's leading choreographers, passed away in July of 2020. Over the
course of her 60-year career, she was behind over 2,000 dances, many of them
legendary. She was known for her collaborations with Madhuri Dixit and Sridevi,
who died in 2018.
Music continues to be a fixture of Bollywood movies, however,
with songs from films living on as pop hits. "An Indian movie without
music is an anomaly,". "Music tells you a story. You could be saying
something, but if there's music, you could be adding something to that
scene."
Some stories never get old, though. Devdas, an acclaimed high-budget
movie released in 2002 and starring Aishwarya Rai and Shah Rukh Khan, was the
third Hindi-language iteration of the movie.
Music-
An Art:
What
is Bollywood without its song and dance? From the “running around trees” to the
age of remixes, Indian films have seen enough in terms of changing trends. And
since Bollywood movies are musicals, a good packaging and picturisation of its
songs become as important as its basic plot.
We
might agree that gone are the days when our films had enchanting tunes and the
uniqueness of beautiful shots, but we cannot ignore that be it any age, shelf
life or not, original or recreations, dance numbers or romantic ballets, songs
have always been the soul of Bollywood.
In a film, music, both in itself and accompanied with dance,
has been used for many purposes including "heightening a situation,
accentuating a mood, commenting on theme and action, providing relief and
serving as interior monologue”.
Bollywood music has many non-Indian influences, especially
from the West.
Many Hindi film music composers learned and mimicked
Hollywood's style of matching music to scene atmospheres into their own film songs,
the result being Bollywood music. These songs can be considered a combination
of Western influences and Hindi music.
The International Success of Indian Film Music:
India’s traditional music, including Hindustani and Classical
music, has always has immense appeal among International audiences. However,
the recent years have brought about tremendous success for Indian film music on
the International scene.
While it is almost impossible to characterize the musical
aspects of Indian film music, it is this originality that has encouraged its
mass appeal.
Although Classical and traditional elements are part of the
genre, it is more likely to be dominated by Western jazz, rap, disco or
whatever styles may currently be in vogue.
Very often songs are produced with a mix of all of the
various elements, giving birth to the original style that has come to symbolize
Indian film music.
A Forbes.com article titled “Bollywood Films Head Abroad” spoke
about how the International market contributed to a considerable amount of
revenue towards the Indian film music industry.
Even though western audiences may not be comfortable with the
usual song-and-dance routine in an Indian film, Indian film songs as standalone
unit are immensely popular.
Proof enough is the two Academy awards won by internationally
acclaimed film music director and composer, A.R. Rahman.
Winning the 2009 Academy Award for Best Original Music Score
and Best Original Song for the movie Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman brought
international acclaim and recognition for the Indian film music genre.
"We have a different philosophy of approaching film
music and I would say there's lots to give which I always wanted to
happen," said Rahman, in an interview with the International Herald
Tribune, about how Indian film music differs from other music genres.
Importance and Role of Music:
‘Formula’ music became the trend there were a certain number
of songs, with a certain set variety. The ‘playback’ singer was introduced. The
earlier artists acted and sang, but the movies of this period had actors who
did not sign their own songs and instead had other singers do this for them.
Film music derived its melodies from three diverse sources:
Indian classical music, folk music from different regions, and Western
classical and popular music. Initial music directors adapted and modified music
from these sources to create a music tradition suitable to the common man.
Music in Indian films is generally not conceived as an
autonomous entity within itself, but has to be intimately connected to the
storyline. So songs and music were created in accordance with the requirements
of the film and were woven into the various situations of the film. Much
melodious music was produced.
Music has great qualities of healing a person emotionally and
mentally. Music is a form of meditation. While composing or listening music
ones tends to forget all his worries, sorrows and pains.
But, in order to appreciate good music, we need to cultivate
our musical taste. Also, the research has proved that the plants which hear the
Music grow at a faster rate in comparison to the others.
It has the power to cure diseases such as anxiety,
depression, insomnia, etc.
The power of Music can be testified by the legends about
Tansen of his bringing the rains by singing Raag Megh Malhar and lighting lamps
by Raga Deepak. It also helps in improving the concentration and is thus of
great help to the students.
Music is the essence of life. Everything that has rhythm has
music. Our breathing also has a rhythm. Thus, we can say that there is music in
every human being or a living creature.
Music has the ability to convey all sorts of emotions to people.
Music is also a very powerful means to connect with God.
Conclusion:
Overproduction
of cinema houses coupled with ever- increasing entertainment taxes have made it
difficult for many theatre owners to survive in recent times. This has shaken
the distribution networks even though multiplexes have come up in big cities.
Today,
Hindi film music or filmy sangeet is not as well-defined as it once was. Songs
do not fit the context of the scenes in the film any longer. A song and dance
sequence is introduced just for the sake of introducing it: to appeal to the
masses and rake in the moolah.
Over
the last few decades Bollywood producers have been releasing the film’s
soundtrack, as tapes or CDs, before the main movie release, hoping that the
music will pull audiences into the cinema later.
Often
the soundtrack is more popular than the movie. Some producers have also been
releasing music videos, usually featuring a song or songs from the film.
However, some promotional videos feature songs which are not included in the
movie. This is done for publicity.
Music is a universal language, meaning that we don’t
necessarily need to understand the words in a song to enjoy the music. In this
way, music connects people all over the world with its universal language. I
love listening to music especially because of this reason.
Music has the power to unite people, make us feel at peace,
make us feel understood; it is something to dance to, bond over, and even
listen to when alone. Music is not just sound, it is its own language and it
communicates so much; it is a beautiful thing.
Written by – Sakshi Chauhan
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