Why do we ignore instrumental work? - Page 4

What to say of instrument, they are dead. living people who play
these instruments don't get the recognition.only music director gets
all the recognition.

many thanks every one for reading & kind words.

Dear Priya

Actually producer of movie Teesri Manzil wanted SD Burman for his scores, Mehmood was the catalyst( He has helped Pancham da lot in initial days to establish career, including giving RD a chance in Bhoot Bangla & Bombay to Goa), once he made him listen to Pancham's Jazz influenced : O haseena zulfo wali, producer had no doubt in his mind.

Hey Sinha Saab, thats just a great piece of information. I did not know that

Thanks

just a layman's point-of-view, but i feel kabh-kya-choo jaye pata nahee. sometimes it's the instrumentation, sometimes its the lyrics or the singer. from what i know, western music is more about instrumentation- some of my favorites such as Boz Scaggs' Someone Loan Me A Dime is a 17 min piece, about 3 mins of which is vocal. Ditto for some of the Pink Floyd stuff. Indian music in my opinion is more balanced, perhaps tilted more heavily towards the quality of the vocals. See there is something about Lata or Asha or Kishore or Rafi's voices which is so exceptional that it is the predominant effect. Unke samne instruments aur lyrics bhee pheeke pad jate hain. Which is why also so many singers try to "better" what those greats have sung and they fall flat.

btw, some of my audiophile friends claim that western music, esp classical, goes down all the way to 25Hz whereas most Hindi music gets down only as far as 100Hz. So we may have grown up thinking that our classical music is great, maybe it is, but technically the range of instruments that are typically deployed is not as wide as in western music.

again, just a musically-uneducated pov.

fwiw, wld love to have ur top lists on the Chart Busters topic i started. wld learn more abt specifics things i cld listen to. Edited by chatbuster - 18 years ago

Originally posted by: adwarakanath

Well, blame the excessive usage of the stupid Harmonium for that. Earlier, we used to have the extremely versatile Sarangi and Violin. The sarangi is by far my most favourite instrument. No instrument can match it's vibracy, it's expressiveness and it's wide range of imitating the human voice. Khayyam, Roshan and Naushad used the Sarangi to devastating effect.

Some of the harmonised violin effects used by Madan Mohan and S-J has been very very screechy...but never besura...i think it reaches upto quite high frequencies.

All said and done about frequencies, the truth is that Western Classical doesn't hold a candle to Indian Classical when it comes to expressiveness, emotions, and sheer complexity and range.

agree with some, not other points.

point with 25Hz/ 100Hz is the lower range of frequency, not the higher, although from what i hear from professionals in the field the point is also true for the higher frequency ranges. To put it another way, i do not know what specific instruments are used, but most EE types wld tell u that Western music has wider freq ranges.

As for emotions and expressiveness, i think its a personal preference. What do we go by? Population? Well, most folks in Europe swear by Western classical, as do some of the older Americans. I have seen them invest enormous time, energy and money on equipment and on listening to Western classical. They are not dummies, some have also been exposed to Indian classical and they have their prefs. As a northie, i can also tell you that Indian classical is not very popular. So what does that mean? Just personal pref. I think it's good at times to go beyond the provincial aspects and see what is really out there.

I also have an impression of some of the Western composers who went mad- they were such geniuses. Dont know about too many of our Indian classical composers going mad😉

look as an Indian, i'd love to be able to say that our classical music is the best. but i have been open to other forms and i think i have seen enuff on the other side to feel that some of the Western classical is as good as it gets

Originally posted by: adwarakanath

Well, blame the excessive usage of the stupid Harmonium for that. Earlier, we used to have the extremely versatile Sarangi and Violin. The sarangi is by far my most favourite instrument. No instrument can match it's vibracy, it's expressiveness and it's wide range of imitating the human voice. Khayyam, Roshan and Naushad used the Sarangi to devastating effect.

Some of the harmonised violin effects used by Madan Mohan and S-J has been very very screechy...but never besura...i think it reaches upto quite high frequencies.

All said and done about frequencies, the truth is that Western Classical doesn't hold a candle to Indian Classical when it comes to expressiveness, emotions, and sheer complexity and range.

I can't agree more. Sorry Abhi to foll you here.😉. Sarangi is my fav too. It can conjure up pathos and passions in single stroke.And some composers have used it so well..fav again being Roshan Sahab.

Originally posted by: chatbuster

look as an Indian, i'd love to be able to say that our classical music is the best. but i have been open to other forms and i think i have seen enuff on the other side to feel that some of the Western classical is as good as it gets

in fact, i'd love to be convinced. and am not wanting to run down our own music. but, analytical points that help me truly be convinced. remember u are talking to a layman here

Originally posted by: chatbuster

from what i know, western music is more about instrumentation- some of my favorites such as Boz Scaggs' Someone Loan Me A Dime is a 17 min piece, about 3 mins of which is vocal. Ditto for some of the Pink Floyd stuff. 

 

Quite some of Pink Floyd stuff actually. Even if I discard their live recording albums, "piper at the gates of dawn", "animals","obscured by clouds", "wish you were here", "collection of great dance songs" and "division bells" had two or more songs which were purely instrumental. Infact one of their biggest hits "Shine on you crazy diamond" had five parts three of which were completely instrumental and the remaining two had only few minutes of singing. Infact even in their biggest hits "comfortably numb" and "another brick in the wall" the instrumentation is more pronounced and has a way bigger impact than the vocals .....

😉 😉 😉

Originally posted by: adwarakanath

Well, chatbusterji, I've listened to my fair share of WEstern classical. In fact, right now on my PC is nearly 1 GB of western classical. I absolutely love Vivaldi and Mozart. But since I've studied Indian Classical in some depth, I can tell you that there's absolutely no other musical form in the world to match it's

1) Expressiveness
2) Range
3) Emotional vitality
4) Improvisation
5) Complexity
6) Organisation

And Indian classical includes both the Hindustani and the Carnatic forms.

Just my opinion. 😊

fine. nice words (will use those without giving u royalty)😉

now, 3 specific points/ qns (btw, hope i have not digressed from the thread, if so we can stop it here):

1. what instruments are actually used for most indian film music, how far do those instruments go?

2. my impression, but our film music is not as wide ranging as our  classical music. whereas for western music, instrumentation is wide even for pop.

3. i certainly dont feel that all folks up north are abt aping "amreeca". speaking for myself, its abt overall appeal. something just doesnt appeal to me abt the music u mentioned. for others it may be a qn of mkting, for me its abt appeal. fwiw, as a punjabi, i dont even much care for bhangra, so i cant say i am regionally biased.

btw, do u have Rachmaninoff on ur list?