Analysis by Disciple of Pt. Bhimsen Joshi - Page 5

Lessons learned today in this thread
1.No one is allowed to have their own individual opinion and should keep their mouth shut if you disagree with majority of people.
2.You need to know and learn good english before even coming to this forum .
3 It doesn't matter even if you really are pundit in music or not they will call you a fake if you don't agree with them.
4 You are not allowed to like anyone other than the person they think is the best .(Its like saying just becasue Lataji is the greatest singer on earth you will go to hell if you say i prefer ashaji and say she is the best )
5 If you are a newbie you opinion doesn't count .Only after posting 2000 or so posts which mostly consists of bashing someone or praising someone you actually can start thinking about having one.

come on guys its time we stop fighting .Unless someone uses foul langauage against a contestant i think he or she is allowed to have his or her opinion.
I see everyday people bashing each other calling Vinit's fan fanatic.In my opinion same goes for people who hate Vinit. They hate him so much that they started behaving like them and calling vinit(dedh fut insaan ) and all.Not just vinit but its been happening with other contestants .(i remember someone calling one contestant a braying dog )What right do we have to say such things to people who we never met before.

In female contestants i personally think that Nihira is the best in all of them.She was very plain and she touched my heart with her voice .I liked Himani too .I preferred her in some episodes and actually wasn't sure who was the best that day.

In male contestants i prefer Hema .But i do feel that in previous saregampa episodes Hrishikesh and Gopal and few others created more majic .

Putting male and female contestants in one group and trying to find voice of India is not right .
How can you compare a male voice to a female and judje who is better.? And what is this "voice of India ".Only these 12 contestants are the best in all over India? come on give me a break.

Now I am seriously thinking about calling the genuine Anurag ji at Boston and ask him whether he at all knows about India Forum? I missed so many thinks in just 1 hour.

The first thing that strikes me is that a true student of Bhimsen Joshi ji will never write in the subject " From the desk of desciple of Pt. BSJ." The genuine Anurag ji is already so accomplished that he doesn't need to seek attention this way. The first thing taught by any Guru's of Pt. BSJ ji and Pt. Jasraj ji's stature is to be humble, down to earth and not to boast about himself. That's where I felt " Yeh lo aur ek aaya phekne"

No offence to anyone, but I still cannot trust this guy.

Dear Anurag ji,

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and opinion on the singers. I am ashamed, how some of the members of this forum have reacted to your "opinion." I am sure, you understand that in any public medium there will be some members with extreme biases. No matter what you post, there will be sharp reaction from such members from one side or the other.

I hope, more folks such as you share your knowledge in spite of such nuisances. That is the only way public awareness of our rich culture and music will propagate. And hopefully, a better public awareness will align the "reality" shows more towards their purported objective than cheap showmanship.

AK

Originally posted by: sreejan

i remember someone calling one contestant a braying dog

😆

Did someone really say that? (I am not doubting that, but I got to find out what the hell that means though, humari GRE ka wordlist me nahi tha woh word, shayad abhi dala hoga).

Originally posted by: qwertyasdfgh

When I am responding to your comment feels like I should say "kapde zhalle ki bhaandi dhuvun ghe bolat basu nakos" - no hard feelings I was just finding the id humorous..

Man that is outright funny, that was the funniest comment I read on the forum today, zhakaaaaaaaas!

sorry shantibai not to pick on you, but the id does remind me of Kal-ho-na-ho

bagh me pan vahtya ganget haath-pay dhoon ghetle

Originally posted by: sareg

😆

Did someone really say that? (I am not doubting that, but I got to find out what the hell that means though, humari GRE ka wordlist me nahi tha woh word, shayad abhi dala hoga).

No, it was a IF member (love_vinit) who called Hema a braying donkey. 😡 And that too after his final performance (Taal).

Just read the name of the member you will understand.

Originally posted by: apparaohoare

Now I am seriously thinking about calling the genuine Anurag ji at Boston and ask him whether he at all knows about India Forum? I missed so many thinks in just 1 hour.

The first thing that strikes me is that a true student of Bhimsen Joshi ji will never write in the subject " From the desk of desciple of Pt. BSJ." The genuine Anurag ji is already so accomplished that he doesn't need to seek attention this way. The first thing taught by any Guru's of Pt. BSJ ji and Pt. Jasraj ji's stature is to be humble, down to earth and not to boast about himself. That's where I felt " Yeh lo aur ek aaya phekne"

No offence to anyone, but I still cannot trust this guy.

I think this is genuine and he is entitled to his opinion. However he could have shown a little humility by not putting his claim right on the topic. I am sure his teachers would have told him to always be humble. Then again, he seems to be young so I would not take it seriously. As far as my opinion goes, if it matters, Nihira is way above all the contestants. This is after I sat down with my teacher, who learnt under the same guru as Jagjit singh did. She heard all the tapes that I played for her and gave her analysis. She insisted I do not reveal her name so I cannot.

I still think Nihira is the best singer!!!

Originally posted by: bigmac

Himani was perhaps the slightly better of the two girls (Nihira and Himani). At times each of them sang certain songs better than the other, but on the whole Himani had a more natural and Surila rendition. Her voice also had a little more "pain" in it. She too was overwhelmed by all the dance-drama that she had to do on stage – I don't think these contestants realize that all that "action" on stage has a significant affect on their songs! It takes a lot of training to do both and most leading singers who hop around a lot on stage will at some point go Besura – and its that one point that kills the song (sort of like "Ek Balti Doodh Mein Ek Makkhi (housefly) ka Gir Jana".

Nihira was also good, but again she had issues with Sur basically. Anything more complicated and the Sur went in and out on multiple occasions. This can be corrected with practice and training, however we are assuming that the top spot in SRGMP was for he/she who faltered the least. I did like her singing and voice though.

On the whole, I would have ranked them as follows:

1. Hemachandra
2. Himani
3. Nihira
4. Vineet
5. Debojit

-Anurag Harsh
Listen to Music on www.AnuragHarsh.com

Ok Boss, I will not dispute you are a shisya of Bhimsenji(I have way too much respect for the name, to think someone is misusing the name)

but here is my issue with the above

first of all you need to be backing up your arguments with more details than this. you are not putting anything substantive in the argument from a music standpoint, you are talking about it much from a layman perspective and everyone is able to do that. We do have to hold you to a higher standard b'cos of your higher credentials

I do respectfully disagree with you on the Nihira/Himani statement. Both of them are good singers. But if one singer than a song of difficulty 5 and aces it consistently and other takes a song of difficulty 10 and hits B+ grades and aces the difficult 5 song as well, does that make the former better than the latter?

On the feel perspective, the feel is a personal choice, and I have to give you this Himani sounded better on more songs than Nihira b'cos the scales were almost always lowered, While singing a film composition, you have to concentrate on the sur as well as the feel, if you lower the scales on the sur, you have more flexibility to concentrate on the sur, Take for example Jiya Dhadak Dhadak

Did you listen to the original compositions before commenting on this? do you realize some of the songs that Himani rendered were sung by men and the feel and look is different for a male sung song as compared to a female sung song

I am in no way saying your analysis is incorrect, however I cannot take an argument made without details as seriously

Thank you

Originally posted by: bigmac

Guys

I realise there is the issue of Himani Versus Nihira and people have their own reasons for voting either way. I did not really say specifically that i considered Himani any better than Nihira. Yes in the ranking chart I felt that in the overall performance Himani jived with me slightly better than Nihira in terms of overall versatility of songs. I know it is hard to for people to understand but these singers by and large sing out of tune a lot of the times. Its not on one occasion or instance. Every time they did something slightly cumbersome, the sur went out the window. But the mentors kept saying "bahut sur mein gaya"- what are they smoking when they say things like that! I know of a lot of music teachers and trained musicians who sing that way so its not that one has to blame these new upcoming playback singers for anything. Its just the way things are. With training and riyaz they will get much better. Its a function of effort. And sometimes one either has it or one doesnt.

Like Asha Bhonsle ji has said in her article on this forum - at the end of the day there are 4 or 5 musicians who are born once in centuries.

Thats why it is important to get extremely talented judges to adjudicate the final 5 or 10, so that all the little nuances can be honed in on, and addressed while making a judgement. Each of the singers in the final 5 on SRGMP has a distinctive style and will fit a certain type of singing role and genre very well. That was the way in the past during the early years, and it is the way now.

The thing is that one really doesnt need to be a very good singer nowdays to sing in bollywoood playback (as quoted by Manna Dey in his interview posted in this forum, and I agree with him. There is really no music director of the caliber today of say Salil Chaudury or SD Burman etc. AR Rahman came close and produces amazing music but even he comes out with some real crap sometimes. Much of music composing today is "computer engineering" - using the best techniques to produce the best tunes and they still cant get the songs right! Many a times the singers are recorded separately and then their voice is pluggedinto the music at certain places. This is odd but happens a lot in bollywood! Voice is simply a sound byte like guitar or bass - thats why they call it "vocals" now. And vocals can be adjusted by the computer to sound like anything. I am serious!

Nihira and Himani are good singers and they will go places I am sure. So are Hema and Vineet and Debo in their own respect. Each of them falters in certain types of songs but thats ok. They are young and have decades ahead of them. With time, their voices and style will mature, hopefully.

I am sorry but I didn't like Sharib and some other past singers. But that's just me. Dont beat me for it. Its just an opinion like each of you have. I hear and see things from my perspective thats all. The singing of these contestants realy doesn't move me. When people say they got goosebumps after hearing the song, I really wonder - but I respect that. But then I think that if you are getting goosebumps by these contestants, what happens to you when you listen to a Kishore or a Rafi or a Manna Dey or Late, Asha, Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali....

The world has become strange now - In the U.S. Talat Aziz was touring with Ghulam Ali - can you believe it! The most besura Ghazal singer doing jugal bandis with among the best Ghazal singers ever born! But that's life.

Lastly as regards those saying I am a fraud - I wonder how one can possibly come to that conclusion after I voluntarily gave my web address where some of my recordings and concerts are posted. Unless they think I didn't sing those concerts! Yeh bhi theek hai. I respect your views. Its ok.

Wow, Anuragji, your analysis about Paresh and Rajiv are spot on. They were both not fit to be in saregamapa. I like Nihira better than Himani overall but I agree with you about Himani being in sur more than Nihira. Here are some examples of Nihira slightly off sur.

1. Oh lala la - when she transitions to the higher notes in jhoomeja jhoomeja

2. She was a little sharp in Dulfli waale almost everytime she sang the mukhda"dufliwaale"

3.Kajra re one place she is a little off, but the whole song was mindblowing.

4.She sang the swaras in Kehina hi kya a little besur probably because of the scale.

I do feel that Himani sounds lifeless sometimes. I find something missing in her songs.

I do understand how difficult it is to dance and sing, I tell the people in my music band to concentrate on their singing as well during a live show. Often in our shows the slower songs come out better than the high energy songs.

-a