Restructuring Saregamapa for 2006 - Page 23

Agreed that diction is extremely important and the singers should work towards that.. I only hope that the talents like Hemachandra will get over this very soon and prove very successful...

My only point was that one should not become overconfident or start consider them as better than the others just because they are singing in their mother tongue.. i still remember the episode in SRGMP where all were supposed to sing punjabi songs.. I am great fan of Himani, but I thought she really sounded over confident that day as she thought that she had the mother tongue advantage.. nihira had put up an equally brave effort that day.. so its just that its important but it should not affect the singers to think that they start off with an advantage over the others

Originally posted by: punjini

This new SRGMP Ek Main aur Ek Tu sounds like a mockery of the earlier Challenge 2006. By calling back all the contestants, isn't it like an admission that the earlier Challenge 2005 wasn't meant to be taken seriously?

It alludes to one of the points of my one and only thread full of confusions: End of the deceit named SRGMPC
Sadly nobody replied to it....my budding career as a writer ended thus....😭😭😭

Originally posted by: Shantibai

exactly my point for past five months

Ai Shantibai, apun ko lait hone ko bilkul pasand nakko...woh bhi akha 5 maas....no way...

The saving grace is I didn't know you that much five-month back😉

This time I am giving this deep observation of mine to you, but next time my thing would be mine and yours be yours.........ok?😳

Originally posted by: qwertyasdfgh

I suggest sur taal ko baaju mein rakho - if you cant speak chaste hindi to start with.. send them home right away.. we dont want again a pathetic winner like this years "Mr Diction".. Any non-hindi who wants to participate should prepare his diction by taking classes and sound properly hindi,

I second this. First round is decided.😉

Originally posted by: Shantibai

WHEN AIRTEL OFFERS A FAT DISCOUNT TO GADDHAJI AND SLIMY HIMMY PROMISES TO NEVER RETURN FROM HIS SANYAAS

Sadly, former and hopefully later.🤔

Originally posted by: jayc1234

I would only say that lets not divide the singers again as Hindi speaking and Non-Hindi speaking.. Lets not forget that the greatest singers of our generations - Lataji, Ashaji or Kishoreda - none of them spoke Hindi as their mother tongue..

Now, what is here to divide hindi and non-hindi?????😕

Singing hindi demands sing hindi, meaning you should compromise on singing hindi as much as you compromised on participating in a hindi-song competition. Lata, asha, kishore....et al didn't show their marathi or bangali anytime while singing....speak your mother tongue but sing your singing tongue....simple. Why to be sorry for your mother-tongue??? I would kick anything for my mothertongue. Singing comes next.

Originally posted by: jayc1234

i still remember the episode in SRGMP where all were supposed to sing punjabi songs..

Blame it on the institution of marriage and incidental dancing and jumping. People attending a marriage used to find themselves ostracised because of lack of dancing skills. Thanks to this monotonous beat of punjabi bhangra, even people like me can have a name in the list of good dancers - it is acceptable to trample a fellow dancer in the process - once considered lack of dancing ettiquette. I am afraid of the day when punjabi torture other than the bollywood one is going to 'embellish' SRGMP like shows. Then, I am sure nobody can snatch from Himani the home advantage thing...🤔

Originally posted by: punjini

Dear All

Saregamapa Challenge 2005 had a completely new format from the earlier years and was watched by far more people than ever before. It was exciting, inspiring, emotional, yet often unjust, irritating and even downright funny.

Now, we should give ideas to the Saregamapa organisers to devise a new format whereby real talent gets rewarded and biases are reduced to a minimum. The winners of the challenge in 2006 should find the going even more tough and exacting. So let's give our ideas.

For starters, I would say:

1)A panel consisting of Shaan, Gajendra Singh and a few others should do the initial screening of candidates based on the cassette recordings sent by candidates. Let's say 50 are selected.

2) 5 gharanas should be set up and 10 candidates put in each gharana. My choices for the mentors would be Jatin-Lalit, Shankar Mahadevan, A.R. Rahman, Ismail Darbar and Shiv-Hari. Of course, it would be too much to expect all these people to agree to give their dates!

3) Out of the 50, we can filter the contestants based on public voting and bring down the number to 10.

4) Now a panel of distinguished judges from the musical world should come into focus. These judges should be given a good briefing about what judging is all about. A format should be made whereby a weighted ranking is given to various aspects of singing such as sur, taal, breathing, variation from original song, dance movements etc. The marks given by each judge should be shown on screen. Over several weeks of singing, the candidates can be eliminated until one girl and one boy are left standing. So there should be two 1st prize winners.

Would love to hear more ideas.

punjini, your ideas are good no doubt but your suggestion of para 3 on public voting is not accepted as it will again end in voting for favouritism and arise regional controversy . The money we spend for sms and telephone can be sent as our [fixed] contibution directly to the producer to enable him to meet the expenditure for the programme. [I am sure the music lovers will contribute as per their ability for the programme] One additional point is to be added that one round for old songs [including classical and semi classical ] shd be compulsory bcos thier valuable contribution of good songs are not given importance and we shd not let them to vanish these golden songs. hope everybody will agree.

Originally posted by: punjini

Earlier on in this thread, I had put some figures to what I thought were the most important aspects of singing. Others might like to add more parameters.

1.Originality of voice: 5%
2.Ability to sing song close to original song:5%
3.Ability to sing in sur: 60%
4.Ability to sing in accordance with taal: 20%
5.Performance: 5%
6.Complexity of song: 5%

In some other thread on this forum, there is a lively discussion taking place on what is more important - singing or performance?

One member (Chatbuster) pointed out that in public speaking, delivery is more important that content and that marketing cannot be ignored. Others are arguing about the importance of content.

As far as I know, even in Public Speaking (even I am a toastmaster), we are asked to strike a fine balance between content and delivery. Give too much importance to content and none to delivery, and your speech will fall flat. Give too much importance to delivery and body language without adequate attention to content, and once again, people will not be impressed.

Definitely SRGMP has highlighted the importance of delivery or performance because nowadays, singers cannot remain just in the background as in yester-years. They are required to sing in stage shows, to accompany actors abroad for musicals and so on. They need to dress well too.

But SRGMP 2005 didn't realise when the balance tilted towards performance and moved away from pure music.

No one can deny that singers have to move with the times. But let not the balance between form and content be upset.

It is good to assign weightage to various aspects of singing. Judges should be clear in their mind about exactly what factor is impressing them about a singer.

In a scoring pattern like what I have mentioned above, Nihira would have got high marks in all departments except #5 for performance and probably #1 for originality of voice. Vinit would have scored in all departments except originality of voice and so on.

This is western influence, instant recognition, short-cut preference, overestimating one's ability, un-employment, easy money, fame and lack of values and number of other similar things that is guiding todays music world. When mastery in a single instrument demands more than a single life (bismillah, shiv, hari, amjad, zakir, ravi...), to become a versatile singer-performer or we can say a diva one has to be a jack of all trades but master of none. On our part, it is expecting a bit too much from these kids. The question arises, how than a madonna or michael jackson be one? The answer is, for that the aspirant has to start a bit too early in his life - an age at which only one can be guided to be someone and can't be enlightened as such. Other aspect is, if we evaluate michael jackson, by assuming ourselves to be real western music buff, we would know he is more of a performer and less a singer. This might be an inspiration but SRGMP should not be a stepping stone for that, well it can come in-between down the lane. Please don't wish a 30 year 'old dog' (debo) to learn new tricks (perform; when he has lot to learn in (barking) singing in the first place).

Now on parameters:
We can only set parameters when we have clarity regarding what we are looking for, which in this case (SRGMPC) lacked. It is one's own level that decides what parameters one is capable of setting. I could have set mine had I considered myself to be at any level or given a chance to influence the parameters of Gajji.😉

But, sorry punjini, on a scale of 10, I would put your parameters on a mere 2.5.😉

Originally posted by: jayc1234

Agreed that diction is extremely important and the singers should work towards that.. I only hope that the talents like Hemachandra will get over this very soon and prove very successful...

My only point was that one should not become overconfident or start consider them as better than the others just because they are singing in their mother tongue.. i still remember the episode in SRGMP where all were supposed to sing punjabi songs.. I am great fan of Himani, but I thought she really sounded over confident that day as she thought that she had the mother tongue advantage.. nihira had put up an equally brave effort that day.. so its just that its important but it should not affect the singers to think that they start off with an advantage over the others

I think the contestants from the Hindi heartland or those who speak Hindi and Punjabi fluently will always have an advantage over others. That can't be avoided because, after all this is a Hindi programme. 😊