Ask a Hindustani classical musician what he or she will perform at a concert and most likely, you’ll get a lot of humming and hawing or a non-commital dekhenge, kyaa mood bantaa hai…. or something equally ambivalent. Which is what leads me to wonder how and what is leading classical musicians featured in the Live Preview section of Time Out Mumbai to disclose, possibly weeks in advance, what exactly they will render in a forthcoming concert. At times, the column mentions that the featured artiste is “likely to present” ragas such as this, that and the other. But most vocalists seem to have no problems mentioning names of ragas they are likely to present or have already decided to present. And so I am led to wonder whether we are witnessing a new trend in which performers are actually planning what to sing in advance? Read the rest of this entry »
Archives for category: trends in music
We are in the midst of celebrating 60 years of independent India and since we always celebrate with fanfare, there have been the usual concerts, aka Azadi Express, with a turbaned actor-cum-truant-MP Govinda doing his characteristic dance moves, TV clips on almost every channel with a stylized version of the tricolour tacked on to one or the other part of the screen and, of course, cross-border debates and discussions leading nowhere, or more often than not ending in the perhaps-never-to-be-resolved issue of Kashmir. But there have been few, if any, discussions on colonial hangovers that we haven’t been able to rid ourselves of. Read the rest of this entry »