Sunday, May 11, 2008

B flat or C sharp!



It is said that when society undergoes a major cultural change, Music is the last frontier to be affected by that change.
But looking at the state of Music today, I shudder to think what it must be like in other aspects of culture!
Look at the picture alongside. It's so amazing that this picture manages very well to boil my blood. I perceive these ten figures here as BUFFOONS of the first order. It's a "musical" show. Or so they wish it could have been one. None of them are musicians or singers or have anything to do with music. Not even the judges. One of the judges is a film-director and the other one's profession is not yet clear to me. My guess is that she owns a laundry or something. And the joke is that the 8 participants "sing" and the judges judge them.
Music is in such BAD hands I tell you!
Where else would such a nasty thing be allowed to take place?
It's akin to asking Akshay Kumar to judge a Bharatnatyam performance! Or even worse asking Kishan Kumar ( I hope you remember him! ) to judge a theatre act!
What do the 2 judges on this above-mentioned reality show( Aaaaarrrgh. That's a topic for another day... ) have to do with music? Who gave them the right to be the judge at all!
It has become a joke. There are Musicians who have toiled for years and decades to understand and assimilate the nuances and secrets of music. They have practised their instruments every single day religiously...sometimes even till their fingers bled. Nobody asks them for a performance. I know musicians who are dying of hunger inspite of being A-grade musicians.
It's such a tragedy and even more so because it happens in India. We are the hosts of one of the greatest Classical music traditions in the world. Of course I am not saying that a bunch of idiots from reality shows pose a danger to the tradition of good music itself. But all I am hoping for is an aware audience who can discern between bull-shit and Music. Because only if WE as people refuse to have our ears stuffed with nonsense, will this atrocity stop.
Amen!!


3 comments:

Kribbeln im Kopf said...

Thats absolutely true what you have written here. Dont worry, such shows are shown everywhere in the world. They are short-lived. I think, people who have an ear for good music, are those very few blessed ones.
What surprises me is more, that all of us know biographies of poor artists, who died of hunger, but their stories remain tragidies to be again consumed by those who hear good as well as bad music. In short, their is enough material for klischee stories (about some musicians, who died of hunger), which are real.

Thank you for writing this.
Here is a shadja from me to you!

A.G.

m said...

Its all about TRPs dude. Nothing else. Am not a musician, but still I can empathise with what you feel

Alok said...

So true.

Have so much to say, but cant put it in words at this moment. May be a discussion for some other day.