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Originally posted by: ummm

Wow.. it is wonderful to know that you too are closely associated to music. Honestly, after learning that, I don't have any comments on the "tananana" piece, except that I still it imperfect. But as they say, music is all about how it appears to the listener, just the way beauty to the beholder. So I guess, we can keep our differences on that.

Just curious - what do you think about Saathiya song that Hema had sung. He got plenty of accolades for that song and 10 on 10 from all mentors. With my (limited) knowledge, I think there were mistakes in that song too, but he deserved the accolades vecause he attempted a very very difficult song, and carried it off nicely for most part.

Ya I agree with the Saathiya bit. Did he get 10 from both mentors though?I thought ID gave him a 9. I think that song was very difficult. Another reason I felt which didn't give the song the 'same' effect as the original is the fact that the original song had a lot of synthesizer effect.. he had to sing it live..

I thought his Woh Lamhe was exceptional. What do you say Ummm ?

And I agree with your post about him getting 8 for the tananana. I went back and heard it and I agree totally. 8 is a good score too =D !I wasn't bashing ID fyi, I was just wondering. I've always wished they explain y they r giving the mark. It adds to our knowledge

Originally posted by: MrspetloverUS

Saathiya song very difficult song to sing. I have the same observation besides voice cracking once I thought he sang it very well and did full justice.

In my opinion none of the contestants should ever get 10 because there is a room for improvement. There has to be a damn good and valid reason why one should get 10.

I agree with you on the 10 on 10 thing. For this song, where he had a cracked voice once and also diction and lyrics errors, I think it would have helped him, the other singers and listeners as well to know about the mistakes. The mentors should also have explained what they thought was compelling enough in the song to overlook the mistakes and give him a perfect score (or to Vinit for Fiza song, for that matter). That, I think, would have been good education for performers and viewers.

I have heard Sonu sing it live in Pakistan concert, and it was not the most easily carried out song, so kudos to Hema for singing it live in this challenge.

Hi autmother ... I've embedded my inputs in your post below.

Originally posted by: autmother

I disagree with umm. IOn tananana t is a female voice in the actual song and he sang it with the same pitch Alka used in the movie. Listen to the original and you will know what I am talking about.
Hema chandra is a trained vocalist and will not take chance making a silly mistake like that, especially that tanana tanana part is relatively easy. My opinion

I agree that Hema sang the "tananana" lines in the same pitch as original. The problem was not with the pitch change (from male to female scale), but loss of sur on those lower range notes.

Also curious UMMM are you or your husband trained in hindustani or carnatic. That might tell something about your view also.

I took training in Hindustani classical music from Khairagarh university for a while. Later, my family changed cities and the new university asked me to start from scratch on the music because of curriculum differences, and I gave up on my pursuit of music in frustration, something that I repent even now.

My husband is not vocally, but instrumentally trained. He has extensive training and knowledge of carnatic, hindustani and western classical music. He was associated with several musical groups and teachers in India, and attended college in the US for western classical music and midi composition. He has performed in several concerts. I trust his musical instinct and knowledge more than mine.

Saathiya is a difficult song and the pitch variation is unbelievable. To sing that live on stage and especially if you are comparing it to oriiginal is impossible. Just as the rangeela song Nihira sang. ARR tends to overlap the song with different recordings. It is extremely difficult

I am also surprised that you thought Vinit did good on Chale Chalo. In the high notes he was going flat and shrill voice. I personally thought that ID was not happy that Debojit was given 7 by AS and was getting back at him by giving 8 to Hemu. It definitely deserved 9

I firmly believe that Vinit's surs are his greatest asset. Before I say any further, I'd like to clarify that I am not his fan, and so this is not a biased opinion. He goes offkey very few times as compared to the other male singers of this challenge. I believe he was in sur in "baar baar haan" song also, but his voice was so strained at the "toot gayi jo " piece, that it sounded shrill and gave the impression that it was besura.

I think ID was in general a fair judge, but unable to put up with the other mentors' antics he had to give in to cheap gimmicks like these.

I still think ID was the best judge they had in Mentor's challenge. He praised all contestants when they performed well, no matter whose gharana they were from. He confronted AS and HR, when he thought they were unfair to Debu, but I didn't feel even once that he was unfair towards any contestant.

Vinit has a good voice, but his control is bad. But that can come with lots of practice. He has a hard time ending his notes smoothly especially if it is high pitch, alaap or harkatein(gamakas)

I still do not agree with UMMM. I think you need to listen or play the notes Hema sang and play it on an instrument and compare with theoriginal. I have heard it several times. It wasdefinitely not besura.

I dont really understand your training. YOu think Vinit sang most in sur compared to other males and you tell me that you are not Vinit's fan, very contradicting.
He was going most out of Sur after DEbojit.
It is just that he picked songs which did not require much sur to start with.
If you remember the only comment Subhash Ghai could make for him was Dil se Gaya and nothing about his musical abilities.
May be not intentionally, but I definitely think subconscioulsy you may be biased by the mentor's comments and the hype surrounding Vinit.

I did not say that he lost sur. I thought he sang it perfectly. It was ummm who pointed it out and you seemed to have got it mixed up.
Tell me what you mean by losing sur. I would like to know what he sang wrong. Tell me hypothetically if he had to sing taananaa in Pancham did he fall flat? I want to know the gory details. To my ears it was near perfect.
Vinit goes shrill on high notes, to me that is bad. His voice is strained that is bad singing. Doesnt deserve a 9 then.
i really would like to know
Thanks

Originally posted by: bangboy

Hi Umm..

Was 8 for Vande Mataram justified.Also could u justify ID giving 8 for Hemu in Saathiya song(Interestingly HR had given 10).I feel HR was really better in giving these mentometer marks than ID.I just want to Impart Ur music knowledge so that I can change my fanship from BEsura Hemu to sureela Rajeev, Qazi or someone else

Hi Bangboy.. I'm taking your scorn with a smile. I am not an authority in music. I do believe I have an instinct for, and basic understanding of it, and that's the basis of my opinions. I am also not a fan of any of the singers, and so I look at their performances very objectively.

Here's what I think about Hema (and the songs you've mentioned) : Hema has a beautiful voice - the best among the male contestants in challenge 2005. It sounds great, and I can confidently call it "golden". I have observed two issues on a consistent manner in his singing: (1) His golden voice is extremely good in a limited range. That's the range he is most comfortable in. When he strikes higher notes, he appeares to be exerting a lot of effort, or his coice occassionally cracks, and when he sings in low notes, his voice becomes gruffy. This could largely be attributed to his age - he is still in his teens and his voice is developing. And you can very clearly observe his voice change from gruffy to golden in "yahan wahan sara jahan.... koi nahi hai" in "Maa tujhe salaam" song. (2) If we can think of perfect sur as a straight line, then Hema's sur follows this straight line for most part, but fluctuates a teeny-weeny bit from it now and then. He has a tendency to lose the sur often. But he probably has a good ear for it, because he immediately catches it back. Most singers don't have that ability to catch it as quickly as he does. A casual listener may not even be able to make out when he lost sur, and when he caught it back. But if you dig deeper into his songs and study them very carefully, one can make out what went wrong where. With experience, practice and training, this problem will reduce and hema will probably have a very refined voice and singing in the near future.

He deviated from sur several times in Maa tujhe salaam (prominently in the "Vande Mataram" pieces). In Saathiya, as I mentioned earlier, I think he got 10 from ID as well, although he had a cracked voice once, he sang "mausam mausam" in place of "maddham maddham", and had evident promounciation errors.

He also has another problem, which is diction. And I can understand that it is because of his upbringing in the south. But this is a very small problem, and certainly not difficult to overcome, but very critical to be addressed for playback singing.

Sorry raghav that email reply was intended for UMMM.
I think she/he is just going off on some tangent rattling about music she knows. I think there is no point arguing, because we are talking at different levels. Next she is going to say Nihira was out of sur too. I think this will be my last mail about this.

Ummmm you need to change your music teacher asap.
Now you are talking about Vandemataram, have you heard the original. ARR is not a great singer and that is exactly he composed. It starts off with a really low pitch and sudden change in ptich. Please listen to theoriginal and try singing it. Youknow whaat I am talking about. I feel that most songs Hema sang are not even songs you are familiar with. I dont think Hema had much towork with it in that song. Please stop it, you are giving a headache with your ridiculous analysis. I am sorry to be this inflamed, but it annoys me when someone makes ridiculous judgements under the guise of being trained. NOt every one who goes to music classes necessarily means trained

Originally posted by: autmother

Sorry raghav that email reply was intended for UMMM.
I think she/he is just going off on some tangent rattling about music she knows. I think there is no point arguing, because we are talking at different levels. Next she is going to say Nihira was out of sur too. I think this will be my last mail about this.

Ummmm you need to change your music teacher asap.
Now you are talking about Vandemataram, have you heard the original. ARR is not a great singer and that is exactly he composed. It starts off with a really low pitch and sudden change in ptich. Please listen to theoriginal and try singing it. Youknow whaat I am talking about. I feel that most songs Hema sang are not even songs you are familiar with. I dont think Hema had much towork with it in that song. Please stop it, you are giving a headache with your ridiculous analysis. I am sorry to be this inflamed, but it annoys me when someone makes ridiculous judgements under the guise of being trained. NOt every one who goes to music classes necessarily means trained

Well, I did not intend it for you but the person who posted above you. Anyway, it is not important to me anymore. I also know that a lot of people consider Shankar Mahadevan besura. I am not qualified to comment on these finer points but would love to understand the more qualified people's explanations.

Autmother... I link the word "fan" to having "blind faith or liking". I think being somedy's fan makes one see fewer mistakes in their singing than what were really there. By that definition, I'm probably only Sonu Nigam's fan, as far as today's Indian Film male playback singing is oncerned.

Between Vinit and Debu, I probably have a bent towards Debu, because of his overall versatality, style and voice quality, although Vinit has consistently performed well, and lost sur fewer times that Debu. If you've seen the episode where the three music directors (shandilya, moitra etc) had come as judges, Vinit performed much better than Debu (sur wise) in almost all songs. But I was zapped by many of Debu's performances in the show and hence I voted for him. I actually chuckled when you addressed me as Vinit's fan! 😊

But as I've said before, judgement is purely an individual thing. If you see "Iron Chef" cookery show on Food Network, whenever they show a breakup of points by the judges, you'll almost always notice that one judge liked one cook, while another liked another cook. Similarly, your and my judgement of music could be very different. Something that would touch my heart and make me say wow, may not evoke the same response from you, and vice-versa.

Originally posted by: autmother

I still do not agree with UMMM. I think you need to listen or play the notes Hema sang and play it on an instrument and compare with theoriginal. I have heard it several times. It wasdefinitely not besura.

I dont really understand your training. YOu think Vinit sang most in sur compared to other males and you tell me that you are not Vinit's fan, very contradicting.
He was going most out of Sur after DEbojit.
It is just that he picked songs which did not require much sur to start with.
If you remember the only comment Subhash Ghai could make for him was Dil se Gaya and nothing about his musical abilities.
May be not intentionally, but I definitely think subconscioulsy you may be biased by the mentor's comments and the hype surrounding Vinit.