Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Border between music and noise....

I was just forced to write this about International music arena. I respect A.R Rahman for his talent and I am one of his great fans. It was a great feeling when the great maestro received an international acclaim. Its been 24 years he has been in the industry and from the first to the last song he has composed were marvelous and there are still many more to come.

But I am too much concerned about the growing patriotism and intolerance in our country. I think its a high time we should grow our self out of the country. I have been observing so much narrow mindedness in our democratic nation and I am too much concerned. To think upon there has been an incident in Karnataka where local BJP body resisted the Charlie Chaplin statue being erected for a movie. There have been some bullshit reasons they have given (As he is a christian, a foreigner etc). But there is no one to control all the narrow thoughts. Who is there to preach these people about the real values of all religions, and about love. I am so much worried about our country and such narrow mindedness should not be tolerated. India is supposed to be a country of tolerance and I am sad to say it is no more a tolerant country. Individual freedom for expression should be protected at any cost.

What I wanted to say originally is, when a British singer is given Grammy, the British doesn't take the credit, the credit goes to the singer and all the fans feels proud and they are all around the globe. We should open our eyes to the other countries and other professionals. Each fan of Rahman should feel proud, but when we put that as a country's achievement the whole worlds perception of us would be we as a narrow and selfish country. When A.R Rahman starts to compete against the professionals who are on the UK and US Chart busters we should understand some facts. The sound scores from "only" movies are considered for Academy awards, and most of the English movies do not have a great sound score. When a movie with songs composed by AR goes to the Academy Awards its obvious that there is not much competition. Do you remember the Celine Dion song from Titanic? I don't think the "Jai Ho" was as good as "My Heart Will Go On", no offences meant but this particular song of AR was not so great compared to other songs of him.

The tight competition for music is on Grammy Awards and that's were actually great musicians are exposed for competition. I just want to take the attention to the International music as our musicians have started competing in the international arena. Our music has been always melodic why because the music has been in Indian culture for centuries and has been mainly associated with Gods and worships. I would say it has not evolved out of that much. According to musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez "the border between music and noise is always culturally defined". Its been high time for our thinking and musics' to evolve. We should start learning to accept the other musicians from other countries too.

I have been really amazed by the professionalism shown by foreign musicians. In US and UK (where most famous bands are born) the music is controlled by the so called Rock, Pop, Rap, Metal, Heavy Metal, Jazz, Trance, Electronic bands (many more but these have more followers). Indian Music is a different classification. One of the very first rock bands "Led Zeppelin" was started doing shows in 1968. The dedication of these people are amazing. Most of these guys are always high on drugs and alcohol. But then their life is full of music. I am not sure how many of us know about Iron Maiden touring US; yes they are on a 365 day world tour. The team leader is 52 years old (Steve Harris) and he started the band Iron Maiden band at the age of 19, the one of the most admired heavy metal band of all time. Rest of the team members are also as old as him. Can you imagine that old people performing heavy metal songs on stage? I found it incredible. In India we are not exposed to the success of all these bands and such bands are not encouraged in India. You should try to see one of such bands - Iron Maiden, Linkin Park, Metallica - live performance (they are available in YouTube). I can assure you, not even a single Indian composer or singer can command such crowds. The bands are driven purely by energy and fans. I have attended one of the Alternative Rock band - Cold Play - concert in Washington. You won't believe the turn out was around 20,000 people. Ya of course later they won the Grammy for the best song of the year ("Viva La Vida").

All these guys write their own lyrics, compose their own songs, sing their on songs and play their own instruments. Isn't that called professionalism, they even come on stage and perform and entertain. They are a package, real "performers". A well admired package; capable or defining the attitude and expressions of a majority of youth in US and UK and the rest of the world. As I have told before music is the representation of culture and we should accommodate other cultures also to ours. Its high time for an evolution like that.. When world culture starts to accommodate us we should reciprocate.. Make our self more flexible towards different cultures and respect them. Throw away the superiority complex infused by fundamentalists. It does no good to humanity. I used the sample of music to convey this message.

No comments: