Music In Indian Cinema
Bollywood or the Hindi film industry along with the regional film industries releases a large number of movies a year. And most of the movies are loaded with musical number. The film industry has never shied away from using music and songs for conveying all kinds of emotions. Earlier people use to listen to the radio, then came cassettes and CDs and now internet is the savior. Every year a large number of talented singers, lyricist and music composers enter Bollywood. Some of them are fortunate enough to make it big and some are not but songs are hummed and appreciated by the viewers of Indian cinema. And many films make it big in the box office because the music becomes a hit before the actual release. In fact, the first sound movie in India, Alam Ara had 7 songs. It also introduced the first playback singer in India, Wazir Mohammed Khan. At that time the stories were told with elaborate songs. Shirin Farhad that released in 1931 had an unbelievable 18 number of songs. Indra Sabha released in 1932 and had 69 songs and hence with its unique kind of storytelling with songs and dance, Indian cinema captured the essence of the land by roping together tunes of this Earth with words and rhythm.
Western influence was quite evident in the Indian music industry. Live orchestras had a beautiful mix of Indian and western styles. After partition, Bombay seemed to be a safe destination for many artists and while the sound
recording systems were breathing slowly due to the tremors of partition, it opened up a pool of talent with freelancers looking for opportunities to make a decent living. With ample talent on the brim, independent filmmakers with money came up with some great teams and hence producing iconic movies. In
1951, the songs of Albela became instant hits with songs like Shola Jo Bhadke and Main Hoon Albela with singers like Lata mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle and Kishore Kumar. The coming years witnessed the uprising of music composers such as Sachin Dev Burman whose catchy music played a big part in the success
of movies like Naujawan and Bahar.
Fusion music was at its best when composers like O.P Nayyar were blending folk music with Latin percussion instruments in songs such as Isharo Isharo Mein and Diwana Hua Badal. Talking about 60s, we must mention about the timeless melodies by Salil Chowdhary who amalgamated beats from folk, classical and
western music.
Next came the talented son of S.D Burman, the maverick who reshaped the music industry with his spark. R. D Burman went global and blended jazz, rock, and latino in his compositions. 70s and 80s was probably ruled by R. D’s experiments with music. He was the first amongst his contemporaries to use electronic instruments. Possibly, this is why his melodies are still popular. He inspired many in the generations to come: composers like Vishal-Bharadwaj and Shankar- Ehsaan-Loy.
With the turn of the century and further technical developments, many different kinds of experiments became possible. Musical Maestro A. R Rehman tried many unconventional blends and gave us hits like Chaiya Chaiya, Masakali, Yeh Jo Des Hai Mera and many more. His music for Slumdog Millionaire earned him Oscar
too.
The other composer who are continuing to produce some iconic melodies are Amit Trivedi, Vishal- Shekhar, Pritam and many more.
Courtesy : Artpickles