A voice that can reach high crecendos without sounding ominous. Mohammad Rafi had a voice that has a good bass and high scale. He also had the ability to reach a high crecendo and sound the same powerful way as he usually does. Examples being 'akele akele kahn ja rahe ho', 'taqdeer ka fasana' etc. he could add emotion to each word. How could one do that?
In 'Deewana hua badal' from Kashmir ki Kali, and the line 'yeh dekh ke dil jhooma, how can anybody ever say 'ma' like rafi did ??, NEVER!!. Only Rafi could do that Said SP Balasubrahmanyam once. And Yesudas said that the beauty of Rafi's voice is the comfort level over ranges which you feel when you hear his voice.
That was the beauty of Rafi that his voice was extraordinary in the fact it could convey a wide range of emotions.
A.R. Rahman said in one of is interviews that he is inspired by Rafi's voice because it could convey a range of emotions effortlessly. His tonal quality of voice and timber was so smooth, free flowing, and of perfectly circular, uniform cross section without any burrs, rough edges or splashes, or
out of shape even for a brief moment. SPB's sister has also said that she has never seen such tone of expression in a voice to this day than that of Rafi's voice. Rafi's voice was also very flexible that it could be stretched to high octaves without thinning and could be compressed to a lower
octave without affecting the shape, and could be bent and manipulated at any angle in any dimension without disturbing the shape or cross section (alaaps, murkis, and taans). Imagine such a voice !.
Listen to 'O duniya ke rakhwale'from Baiju Bawra: Rafi starts normally with "mehal udaas aur galiyan sooni" and jumps up "dil kya ujada duniya ujadi". He then advances rapidly to "hum jeevan kaise guzarein" peaks at "mandir girta phir ban jaata" and slides down smoothly to "dil ko kaun samhaley". The vocal technicals are very smooth and effortless.
Rafi was also the best at switching from high notes to low notes without sliding from one to another.
This is a gift which Rafi had and not something you can develop. In the song 'khilona jankar', Rafi touches the low note with ease in each
antra 'khuda ka vasta dekar mananu' and has displayed his low octave range in other songs as well. Rafi perhaps was the only singer with a rare capability of smooth ascent and descent with in such a short space.
In terms of high pitches there is no comparison to him as Rafi literally ruled at high pitches which is an open fact and could match Lata 'gayaki' for 'gayaki' and even go above her. For voice modulation,
Rafi matched each and every actor on screen without reducing his voice quality. If you hear a song you can visulize what actor it is on screen. Before each song, Rafi used to study the character whom he was singing for and would fit right into his personality. Many reviews have mentioned that Rafi would sound more like the actor than the actor himself. This is another extraordinary aspect of his voice.
In terms of singing different types of songs, he has sung many different types ranging from fast, romantic, sad, happy, classical, pop etc. Rafi though has an edge in versatality since he could easily glide over a song with his voice range and the ability to reach different levels
Swami, who is an 83 year old vetran wrote he had been with all the greats such as Rafi, Kishor Kumar, Mukesh, SPB, Lata, Yesudas etc. said Rafi had a natural ability to glide over and reach different levels in a song which made him so great and which no other singer could do. Combine this gliding with a range as high as the himalayas and a voice packed with emotions is what made him so versatile.
Ravindra Jain said on the show Sa re ga ma that he had approached
Rafi to sing the songs of Chitchor before he approahed Yesudas but Rafi told him to give the songs to Yesudas because he was new and an upcoming singer at that time. Such was the character of Rafi that he gave it to another singer and ironically this same singer idolizes him so much. RJ goes on to say that it is impossible to think that Rafi could not sing anything because he could sing everything.
In 1979 Rafi was the only singer to sing over 30,000 songs, Rafi was in the 'golden era' of film music through the 40's to end of the 70's and throughout that time, melody was king, lyrics were beautiful
and music was just phenomenal filled with beautiful orchestras etc. All the songs which Rafi sang were beautiful and never before imagined. Music directors used to create songs unimaginable because of the range Rafi had and made compositions to challenge his voice.
When the 80's and 90's came around music deteriorated and became worse and therefore today you see many old songs being played more than ewer
Singers right from Mukesh to Kishore to Manna Dey to Yesudas, Janaki, MS Viswanathan etc have said Rafi is the best and is their favourite. The great Lataji said that a singer like Rafi comes once in many centuries. Such compliments are hard to find for any singer from other singers. Everyone has their own favourite.
The majority of singers in India say Rafi and Lata are the ultimate. respond but please don't list a whole bunch of awards and songs and say take a look at these.
No other singer in India has more clones than Rafi. Right from Sonu Nigam, Shabbir Kumar, Mohd. Aziz, Anwar to Udit Narayan (who said he tries to sing in the Rafi style). All of them are not even a speck of dust to the original but they do base their singing style in the way of Rafi. I read once that hearing Rafi sing made SPB try to sing in the Rafi style and when you hear him sing you can see some shades of Rafi in his style. Such was the style of Rafi that many have tried to sing in his way. Also, many have tried to sing to sing songs of Rafi but they end up failing. This is because his songs had such phenomenal range that it is hard for others to copy. This original aspect is with every singer because no one can sing a song as good as the original as been sung.
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