Food for Thought for Prospective Singers
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: Music
Classical training for light music
I find an interesting argument doing the rounds in music circles. When asked if you have undergone training in classical music, some people have a ready reply: ‘what about Kishore Kumar and O.P. Nayyar? They had no formal training in classical music. See the beauty with which they did their music. Who says classical training is necessary for light music?’

Well, let me tell you if you have the caliber and pratibha of a Kishore Kumar or an O.P.Nayyar, you don’t need to read me. Maybe I should come and take a lesson or two from you. For all the rest, it may make more sense to listen to what I have to say here.

There are grades of difficult songs, but we can roughly classify them into three categories:

1.Easy, 2. Difficult, and 3. Very Difficult.

This classification is from the point of singing, and has nothing to do with the worth or ability of the singer rendering it.

1. Easy:
Songs like ‘Mera joota hai japani’, ‘Kisiki muskurahaton pe ho nisar,’ can be classified in the Easy category. In fact a number of Mukesh numbers sung for Raj Kapoor were like that. They were meant to be, for the master film-maker wanted simple heart touching melodies for his films which would appeal to the common man’s emotions. Here, even if you have no classical training whatsoever, only a basic understanding of sur, tala and laya, you can enjoy a number of such melodies all through life without bothering about anything else.
So many light, foot tapping numbers of this type keep on getting produced from earlier times till today, and no classical base is necessary to enjoy singing them.

2. DifficultSongs like those sung by Rafi for Naushad like ‘Suhani raat dhal chuki,’ of Lata sung for Madan Mohan like ‘Yoon hasraton ke daagh’, or even the Melodies of Khayyam like, ‘Who subaha kabhi to ayegi’ will come in this category. Even Talat Mehmood’s most popular songs like ‘Jalte hain jiske liye,’ or ‘Tasveer banata hoon’, also fall here. In this case classical training is not obligatory, but facilitates the voice flexibility that the grinding undergone by a classical training brings about.
So it will help you for sure, but you may do without it if you carry out serious riyaz of light music.
3. Very DifficultIn this category come songs like ‘Ayega anewala’ of Lata, ‘Dekhi zamane ki yari’ of Rafi, most songs of Manna Dey with a classical base like ‘Bhay bhanjana’, non-filmi songs of Jagjit Singh like ‘Koi paas aya sawere sawere’, of Mehdi Hasan like ‘Konpalen phir phoot aayin’, and the difficult Ghulam Ali numbers like,‘Hungama hai kyun barpa’, and some songs of Talat like ‘Tasveer teri dil mera behla na sakegi’, or ‘Beraham aasman’.
These songs cannot be faithfully rendered without a classical base, howsoever hard you try.
If your dream is to sing such numbers, (or even songs rendered in films by classical maestros like ‘Ketaki gulab juhi champaka bana phoole’), go and take refuge under the feet of a guru who will chisel and fashion your voice to make it capable of such rendition. He may or may not teach you to sing such songs (most probably, he will not), but he will help you get such control over sur that is the essence of high quality singing

Any effort in this direction, properly guided, will reap rich rewards.

Any attempt to prove me wrong may just be so much effort gone down the drain.

I would hardly recommend you do that to your self, at least not in the field of music, and definitely not since you are in Swara Sampada*.


Ajai
16 June 2005


*Written as The President Speaks His Mind for Swara Sampada, a music organisation. See: http://swarasampada.tripod.com