Shubha Mudgal

The Impact of Globalization on Performing Arts in India

Changing trends in the performing arts rarely manifest themselves with dramatic abruptness. More often than not, they creep up silently, diverting the flow of continuing traditions and practices stealthily but resolutely. As the relentless tidal wave of globalization swept across the world in the last...

On creative collaboration

I am a student of voice and I have been studying voice in the Hindustani classical tradition for over 30 years now. However, I remain curious about music and the use of voice in all systems and traditions, and in new trends too. And I...

Give us this day our daily (good) music

I have to confess You Tube can be quite addictive particularly when I manage to find something as wonderful as this track sung by the inimitable Shobha Gurtu : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkDV5VlO3bY What a voice and what an amazingly impassioned “pukaar” in the singing. Too bad we...

Whose archive is it anyway?

New trend on Live Preview?

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...

My land, my state

I meant to write about something else this fortnight but then you see, I got all busy and worked up trying to figure out these new immigration laws that us Indian, but non-Maharashtrian, musicians have to deal with sooner or later. I mean, now that...

Eeks! Look what I found!

I dubbed a film song composed by Adnan Sami some months ago, and heard in the passing that it was for a Vikram Bhatt film called “1920”. I presumed then that I was asked to dub possibly because I had started sounding like I was...

One challenge too many !

Please be warned that the contents of this column may prove to be distasteful for persons with strong olfactory responses and delicate constitutions. Any offence or distress caused is totally unintentional because my purpose in writing this piece is solely to draw attention to at...

Mata ke Bhentein

You’ll never ever realize the advantages of living close to a temple if you haven’t had first-hand experience. For years, I have lived (between commuting from city to city for concerts) in a small flat close to the Jhandewalan temple in Paharganj, New Delhi. For...

The Status of the Harmonium

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...

Author: Shubha Mudgal