OP Nayyar...Loss of the Veteran composer - Page 14

Originally posted by: Dawn05

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Well it is practically impossible to keep personal life and professional
life separate especially in show bizz but I find it unethical to drag their
personal issues like this without knowing complete truth .

Media people doit .... well they have commercial reasons , but why
should we ????

I don't know what is more wrong .......... saying some thing bad or
practically doing some thing wrong?????

Casting couch is common term ....... but nobody like to talk about it [/
P]

I guess we can condemn some one who openly say something . but
what about the reality .......

what is more humiliating ????

Well here is the other aspect of this personal-life/professional. We may
say an MD shouldn't have had an affair with his singer, or that a musician
should not have divorced his wife or drunk etc.. but it is quite possible
that their creative impulse is driven by the same things that drive their
behaviour. Their life-experiences - their weaknesses, their bitterness and
so on, can be the actual source of their creations.

Hence, we end up in a bit of difficult position of appreciating someone's
art and criticizing its inspiration.

I agree with Dawn about being judgmental... perhaps what OPN or Asha -
(couldn't Asha-ji be criticised as a divorcee who romanced her bosses?? I
mean a mean-spirited person could say that was how she climbed the
ladder no? PLEASE NOTE, that I DO NOT say that)- do is not what we
would ourselves do in personal life... but then most of us are not OPN or
Asha, for that matter... most of us don't make the level of contribution
they have either.

In judging a human being, let us look at both sides of the scale...

Originally posted by: sangeetaa

Well here is the other aspect of this personal-life/professional. We may
say an MD shouldn't have had an affair with his singer, or that a musician
should not have divorced his wife or drunk etc.. but it is quite possible
that their creative impulse is driven by the same things that drive their
behavior. Their life-experiences - their weaknesses, their bitterness and
so on, can be the actual source of their creations.

Hence, we end up in a bit of difficult position of appreciating someone's
art and criticizing its inspiration.

I agree with Dawn about being judgmental... perhaps what OPN or Asha -
(couldn't Asha-ji be criticized as a divorce who romanced her bosses?? I
mean a mean-spirited person could say that was how she climbed the
ladder no? PLEASE NOTE, that I DO NOT say that)- do is not what we
would ourselves do in personal life... but then most of us are not OPN or
Asha, for that matter... most of us don't make the level of contribution
they have either.

In judging a human being, let us look at both sides of the scale...

Till date Asha ji did not said a word about all these bitterness and so on, WHY???? God only knows.

Originally posted by: qwertyasdfgh

Every artist has some amount of projection on the individual who becomes their medium of expression...unless they are painting, sculpting... OPN found asha to be more than a perfect match for the kind of songs he was composing.. Infact if you listen to his songs more carefully, Lata wouldnt produce the effect Asha or GD did.. his songs required slightly thicker voice than the fine mellilfuous Lata to produce the emotion of his punjabi folk and zesty spirit.. which is why his eventual dependence on Asha and his arrogance got under her skin and so till date she doesnt credit him although he constitutes about 55-60% of what she could do with her voice....

When I met him few years ago.. he said... inn do behenone mera career barbaad kar diya... 😭 which in a part was the cause of his disturbance.....he was an arrogant eccentric genius just like Kishore.....

I do agree with your opinion. Still I belive that it is RDB is his reason more than Asha ji, reason of my saying that he lost both end of his life one is Asha and his music.

Originally posted by: Dawn05

I partly agree on you when you say MD has a big hand in their success.

but credit can't go to only one person. Both have their share.

I am sure Even Golden Era MD can't make me Lata.... forget about current MDs.

Please make me correct If I am wrong in quoting one interview. few days back I read in one interview of Mannada where he mentioned that his uncle\Guru made one tune and asked Rafi to sing not Mannada and Mannada really felt that too.

Ofcourse there is no question about capability of Mannada . and good MD could make him sing the way he wanted to but there are certain requirements , certain charachteristics Which Md can't produce in a singer.

Md can take the best song out of singer . but only upto the limit of the capability of singer not more than that.

Dawnji, even with that, we still dont know that she was the best singer for the job. do we know if others could not have performed better?

some of the stories that have done the rounds actually point in the other direction- professional insecurities, her relationship with OPN etc.; with so much talent, how did the insecurity seep in? some inconsistency? given the circumstances of her "hire" by OPN, isnt it fair to also wonder if she was indeed the best person for the job? btw, since we have been so fond of referring to those interviews, maybe we shld then also realize that he had other folks "dying" to be with him. not sure if the other way around was true. so even by those accounts, he had the power in the relationship, at least till the point she was established.

actually, it's noone's fault. it's basic human nature to build people to the moon AFTER we find they were successful, as if they were indispensable and as if they came down as manna from heaven. we can then see greatness in folks like ashaTAI that shld have been apparent to everyone back then. looking back, we can "see" all the turns in one's lives, in stock price movements etc., that should have been apparent to even a fool. but hopefully we now do understand how things seem so clear ONLY in hindsight, dont we? it was NOT apparent at that time that she had some extraordinary talent "waiting to explode". else everyone else wld have made a bee-line for her. and we didnt have too many hit MDs chasing her down, did we?

btw, what have we seen with c2005? savvy mentors signing on rank newcomers. are these mentors stupid to think they can mold these contestants, and use them to churn out hits, that too in such a competitive era. well, they dont look stupid to me. now, wasn't the competition that OPN faced significantly less? if these less-talented MDs can mold rank newcomers, cldn't OPN have gotten great success out of other singers?

and we keep forgetting there were some other great singers at that stage. OPN cld have hired any of them and they wld have sung their hearts out. if he cld have "hired" someone like ashaTAI at least partly for "private" reasons, u bet he cld have driven some other singer to give their best. the only difference wld have been that we wld have immortalized some other voices today. now that wld have been interesting.

Originally posted by: chatbuster

actually, it's noone's fault. it's basic human nature to build people to the moon AFTER we find they were successful, as if they were indispensable and as if they came down as manna from heaven. we can then see greatness in folks like ashaTAI that shld have been apparent to everyone back then. looking back, we can "see" all the turns in one's lives, in stock price movements etc., that should have been apparent to even a fool. but hopefully we now do understand how things seem so clear ONLY in hindsight, dont we? it was NOT apparent at that time that she had some extraordinary talent "waiting to explode". else everyone else wld have made a bee-line for her. and we didnt have too many hit MDs chasing her down, did we?

IIt's not just hindsight. Among the singers available at that time, only Lata and Asha could effortlessly sing in 3 octaves. Geeta could not, Shamshad could not, nor could anyone else (except probably in the world of pure classical singing). It's not for nothing that MDs flocked to either Lata or Asha or both and that Asha Bhonsle holds the Guiness World Record of singing maximum number of songs.

With Asha, the MDs were tempted to try all kinds of different songs, never attempted before e.g. in Jawani Diwani, RD made her sing in a lower pitch while KK sang at a higher pitch (jaaane jaa dhoondta phir raha). In Teesri Manzil, RD made her sing the racy "Aa aa aaja aa aa aa jaa" along with Rafi which required tremendous voice control. In "raat akeli hai" from Jewel Thief, SD made her reach some impossible notes. Here was a voice which could swing from swar to swar like an acrobat and the MDs were inspired to compose songs that made the most use of her voice.

yaar, if we go with hindsights, we'd all be mega successes in our respective fields. we'd hit the markets just right, we'd sign the right talent at the right time, we'd know when to walk away from the gaming tables etc. But we do see folks lose money in the markets, we do have movies bomb even after serious attempts at casting. dont we? yaar, we see these delusions every day. we also see how hard it is to disabuse certain people of these notions.

several additional points:

1. we can quibble about individual aspects, but what about the entire post i had all pointing one way? including the fact that OPN had more choices, while Asha did not? sort of "inaccurate" to pick a point here or there to quibble with.

2. i once heard a song (dont recall) that sounded so beautiful that i thought it had to be the best of lata. i was astonished to find later it was suman kalyanpur. feel cheated now when i think there were possibly so many other great talents who got crowded out by the sisters. have always found monopolistic behavior as hurting the "consumer" while perpetuating certain self-serving myths (in this case, the sisters' claim that only they cld deliver the goods). yaar, there are so many other examples, let's not hold music out as a field that is somehow divorced from the realities of all other human endeavors.

3. the first big break/ banner is often the most significant. the first big client is the make-or-break event in most cases, and the examples you have cited come afterwards. it only gets easier afterwards. success breeds upon success. in fact, the person gets "better" over time because the success gives them better opportunities. eg. today, SRK has the best of banners which increases his odds of success. he has the best producer, the best director, the best MD etc. A newcomer does not have as many options, and they shld be thankful for the breaks they do get.

in similar vein, Madhuri Dixit was struggling till she was signed on by subhash ghai in tezaab. she had most of that talent from the start, didnt she? then why was it that only a big banner launch lifted her career? another few years and wld people have touched her? there are a lot of pretty faces. and there were a lot of singers, then and now.

today we cld say that Madhuri or someone else helped ghai as much as he helped them. isnt that short-changing him though? is there really so much difference between excellent calibre singers/ artistes that only a specific one can fill the requirements? someone who has been close to OPN cld have also changed some of the requirements to suit their ends, cldn't they?

4. if we have a singer (product) out in the market for a while who (which) still hasn't caught on, we will often view that singer (product) with suspicion. what is wrong with that singer (product) that the market has overlooked them. time usually works against, not for. the break asha got from OPN had the right element of time.

5. OPN's compositions speak for themselves. yes, asha's later performances with RDB are more about her, but those were later.

6. we immortalize those who are successful, those we have known to be successful. it's psychological. does it mean there were not others who fell by the road-side?

sorry for the long one. but i dont believe in chipping away...

Originally posted by: Dawn05

CBji

I don't disagree with you completely (I guess miracle again 😆) and I didn't disagree with Iron either. I always admit that MDs have a very big role in singers career . I am only saying kay mold karnay ko bhee eik particular material chahye hota hay .

I agree there might be some great singers who were left behind for what ever reasons (Never know) . My point is that any great MD can not turn ANYONE into great singer. one has to have some qualities before molding can be considered.

Talking about mentors in c2005 , NO.... they are not stupid , no body is saying that ..... but at what level they start talking about molding some one ? Did they said it to all the participants came for the audition for the very first time? (count must be in thousands or more )

or they said it to some selected contestants?

Btw: I didn t watch C2005 , so I don't know details of it.

but I am sure people who came for very first audition from all over the country must be in a very large number. and out of those only few were selected on SOME GROUNDS(Qualities)....... and THEN they might have talked about moulding.

A singer is the representation of MDs work so I think any sensible MD would go for some one who is able to represent his\her work according to his\her desire , even for a new comer he wouldn't go blindly just for any personal reason. May be he would show personal preference to some one from same caliber group or to some one about the potential of whom he\she would be very confident otherwise it would be a professional suicide for an MD

yaar, what do u want me to say here? in c2005 they did audition thousands. what do u think the MDs back then did? they implicitly and explicitly auditioned by taking on only those who had come up the hard way. if anything it's gotten easier for singers to reach MDs today. it was a lot harder back then. given that, i feel asha owes it to OPN a lot more than someone who can reach out to many MDs today at the same time.

also, from eons ago, i have been shouting that there is very little difference between exceptional folks. remember my "elite" college example. yaar, we can go and hire almost anyone from any of those ELITE colleges, can sign on almost any exceptional singer, and they all have A PRIORI almost equal likelihood of doing a similarly good/ bad job. you will in fact find studies suggesting almost zero correlation between how someone does in those colleges and later success. The rest of it comes down to who the MD/ employer wants to work with. Yaar, let's not take short-cuts by suggesting that anyone is talking about mediocre talent. i never said that, did i? were the alternatives OPN had to asha only the mediocre singers? yes, over time, asha surged ahead, but in large part because of the opportunities/ break she got thru OPN. (pls see my SRK example above)

and let's cut to c2005 finals. do we seriously believe that the songs picked by ID for debo and by HR for Vinit ones that only those singers could perform? yaar, hit ho jayega toh we will have monday morning quarterbacks tell us how that song was tailor-made, and how only those singers could do justice to those songs.

it's often what happends with CEOS also. they think the world will stop and their companies will go bankrupt when they leave. nothing like that happens. yaar, let's get over the delusional/ psychological state- i can bore you with at least 2000 examples from 2000 in-depth case studies right now to suggest why that is so often the wrong track to take!!!

more from c2005- hema, nihira. assuming we all think they have great talent, are we so confident they'll all make it? so many around here feel that hema and nihira are talents waiting to explode. keyword is "waiting". another 2 years, and there might be others we get fond of. public perceptions can be fickle. dont we feel a bit anxious for them? honestly?

on the other hand, tomorrow, assume Nihira or Hema is signed on by ARR and they give out hits after hits. let's even assume these hits take ARR to new heights. shldnt they still owe their success to ARR. or shld ARR be made to feel that he owes his greater success to these relative newcomers? remember Nihira has had the Bunty Babli song to her credit, but it's not really set her career graph rocking so far, has it? not very different from where asha was back then. like it or not, fair or not, one needs a good banner. OPN was that banner for asha. why grudge him?

O.P.Nayyar...Not forgotten

Charismatic Musician