I have been containing my thoughts to write this post for quite a long time, here I go, my first post regarding my interest towards music.
When I was very young, that is when I was a school going kid, I used to hate my mom's thing of loudly playing the tape-recorder set early in the morning. To elaborate on it, she used to get up at around five thirty - six range to start the household work. Probably because she came from a pretty orthodox South Indian family she had this great love for carnatic classical music, like many, M S Subbalakshmi was her favorite singer. Playing Sri Venketeshwara Suprabatha(1) sung by Subbalakshmi early in the morning was no doubt a divine pleasure to her but a torture to me. By the time I reached high school I knew 90% of the lyrics of that sacred chant. Being in her company for such a long time I must have listened to hundreds of songs composed by greats like Saint Purandara Dasa, Saint Tyagaraja and Muthuswami Deekshithar in the Carnatic classical space. My dad also used to like and still likes Carnatic classical but he has been more of a Hindustani classical lover. Mom didn't like Hindustani classical until one day when dad took her to one of Parveen Sultana's, apparently mind-blowing, concert. Dad has been a big fan of Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Pt. Jasraj, Pt. Hariprasad Chowrashia and many other Hindustani classical musicians. Back then, the tape recorder was clearly his possession when ever he got a new cassette containing tracks of his favorite musicians. He has been specifically fond of some raagas (2), as I recollect him telling me about Raaga Thodi and Malhar a few years back.
I neither liked Carnatic nor Hindustani classical. I used to wonder what was so great about these genres of music. I used to even make fun of these Hindustani classical singers when ever their performance was aired on the television. Besides the love for Indian classical music, my parents had interest in other kinds of music as well, which clearly had a direct influence on my sisters' and my own taste for music. Since Dad spent quite a lot of time in Bombay during his twenties, he was fairly attracted to Bollywood songs(from 60s and 70s). My sister and I grew up listening to melodies of Mukesh and Hemant Kumar as they were his favourite singers; we also had audio cassettes of movies like The Guide, Jewel thief, Sangam, Baiju Bawara, Navrang, Mera Nam Joker and many more. "Rangoli" and "Chitrahar" - some of the very successful Doordarshan (3) programs were based on the Bollywood songs, increased our database with respect to the old hindi songs. Mom has also been pretty fond of these Hindi songs but she would any day prefer songs based on our mother-tong, Kannada. When my mom was in her twenties and thirties, "Bhavageethe" (Kannada - songs about feelings) became very popular - all thanks to legendary singers and music composers like Mysore Ananthswamy, C Ashwath and BV Karanth. Dad had got several cassette tapes based on these genre, which I am sure would have been played umpteen number of times during my childhood days. These songs not only had great tunes but communicated strong emotions, moral values and many a times genuine human spirit.
The kind of music that I was totally attracted to during my childhood was the hard core Bollywood songs of the 90s. Our favorite television program during school days was "Super Hit Muqabla" - a Bollywood countdown show. The show aired latest songs from movies which were running at that time. Each song in that show came for hardly less than a minute but it fervently grabbed our attention. Unlike now, where we have access to youtube and other video sharing networks, back then we didn't have any medium to see videos apart from the broadcast medium, hence we would never be able to explain the present generation the feelings that we had for these shows. I still remember listening to songs from hindi movies Baazigar, Saajan, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Tezaab, Mohra, Main Khiladi Tu Anadi etc from the tapes, we knew complete lyrics of the songs from these and many other movies without even putting an ordinary effort to memorize. The greatest tune maker who totally ripped apart our souls was A R Rahman. His music created an altogether different sensation. Roja, Bombay, Kadalan, Rangeela and many more were his compositions which revolutionized the music industry during the 90s. Whether his songs were in Tamil, Telugu or Hindi it didn't matter.Well, he still remains my favourite musician of all time, even after the exposure to wide variety of music in my later years.
My taste for music didn't change much during my college days, except that I got acquainted to little bit of western music after attending a few rock shows during college fests and other gatherings. I didn't like rock music, in general western music much as I could hardly follow the lyrics or the rhythm when ever they sang - or rather when they 'shouted' - that's how I used to interpret rock music back then. Savage Garden, Enigma, Michael Learns To Rock (MLTR), Michael Jackson and Backstreet Boys were some English music titles that I remember to have liked during my college days and also during part of my school days.
After getting my admission done for a masters program, I started living in the hostel (which was inside the institute campus). It was the first time I left my parents and started living all by myself, though the hostel and my home were in the same city. I bought a super awesome laptop set from my savings from previous job, in which I loaded movies and songs from my friends collections. Subsequently I got a set of powerful speakers also called as woofers from my scholarship money. Unlike my childhood days when listening to music was limited due to unavailability of tapes, I had access to any damn stuff I wanted - thanks to the free internet connection in the campus. I could clearly make out the difference between living in the twentieth century and twenty first century. During my masters I met people coming from various parts of the country and people with various backgrounds. The institute was filled with intellectual minds who had varied tastes for movies, music and art in general. I happened to attend a few music programs as well. In one of these programs I heard songs which had an Indian classical music touch. I got goosebumps after listening to those. I knew that I had heard similar tunes from my parents collection of Indian classical music. After that I went on to explore Carnatic classical and Hindustani classical music from the internet and even indulged in various discussions about those genres of music with some of my campus mates. When ever I went home I played the cassettes of the classical music. I fell deeply in love with songs from "Shankara Baranam", "Hamsageethe" and "Sandhya raaga", which has some amazing compositions sung by great vocalist like Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Dr. Balamurali Krishna and others. Though I didn't understand the intricate details involved in these Indian classical music, I could some how appreciate the beauty in it. The Pancharatna Kritis(4) composed by Saint Tyagaraja sung by Maharaja puram Santanam, which use to disturb my early morning sleep, became some of my all time favorite collection - I still listen to it when ever I travel long distance. Though I haven't yet got the real feel for Hindustani classical music I listen to it quite often.
For a brief period of time I had joined Latin American dance classes in the institute campus because of which I came across some dance numbers like "Lemon tree" by fools garden, "Hips dont lie" by Shakira etc., as they were played by the instructor during the practice sessions. Since I totally sucked at dancing, I forced myself to discontinue from the classes. By that I again missed a chance to develop a taste for western music, however couple of years back, I badly wanted to like western music as I had a crush on this girl, who mostly loved western music and also played it. In order to impress her I started listening to various tracks in western music, I even shared those on various social networking site and also as my gtalk status, though I didn't like it as much as the stuff that I had developed a real taste. My close pal, Somesh who had this big collection of western music gave me all his favorite tracks. I did like the kind of songs he shared with me, mostly because I heard those from his sexy car stereo when ever we went out for long drives along with our other pals - those were super awesome tracks if you ask me now. What by far created this real interest in western music was this American TV series called "Scrubs". Though it was more of a comedy drama, the program is intertwined with some amazing tracks in the background. I heard "how to save a life" by the band "The Fray" in one of the very well made episode during the show, after which I searched for the song on the internet to became an instant fan of the track and the band. With time, I started liking songs from REM, Perl Jam, Pink Floyd, Imogen Heap, Coldplay, Infected mushrooms, The Beatles, Nirvana (acoustic) etc, some of which sounded like absolute noise a few years back. If I wish to make this write up any more cliched I would say that I finally fell in love with those English numbers which I never thought I would, however the flip side of the story is that I failed to impress that girl 'cause of whom I started listening to the western music in the first place - damn! it never works!!
I am pretty convinced that no genre of music sounds nice until we develop a taste for it, though some takes a lot of time to get the feel - in my opinion, its an awesome thing to pursue, no mater what the reason be. So, tell me, what song are you listening to right now?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Sri Venketeshwara Suprabatha - is a collection of hymns or verses recited early morning to awaken the deity in Hinduism
(2) Raaga - is one of the melodic modes used in Indian classical music.
(3)Dordarshan - a government Television channel which most the Indians have access to.
(4)Pancharatna Kritis - is one of a set of five kritis (songs) in Carnatic classical music, compossed by the 19th century Indian composer, Saint Tyagaraja. Four of the five pancharatna kritis are composed in Telugu language, and one in Sanskrit.
When I was very young, that is when I was a school going kid, I used to hate my mom's thing of loudly playing the tape-recorder set early in the morning. To elaborate on it, she used to get up at around five thirty - six range to start the household work. Probably because she came from a pretty orthodox South Indian family she had this great love for carnatic classical music, like many, M S Subbalakshmi was her favorite singer. Playing Sri Venketeshwara Suprabatha(1) sung by Subbalakshmi early in the morning was no doubt a divine pleasure to her but a torture to me. By the time I reached high school I knew 90% of the lyrics of that sacred chant. Being in her company for such a long time I must have listened to hundreds of songs composed by greats like Saint Purandara Dasa, Saint Tyagaraja and Muthuswami Deekshithar in the Carnatic classical space. My dad also used to like and still likes Carnatic classical but he has been more of a Hindustani classical lover. Mom didn't like Hindustani classical until one day when dad took her to one of Parveen Sultana's, apparently mind-blowing, concert. Dad has been a big fan of Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Pt. Jasraj, Pt. Hariprasad Chowrashia and many other Hindustani classical musicians. Back then, the tape recorder was clearly his possession when ever he got a new cassette containing tracks of his favorite musicians. He has been specifically fond of some raagas (2), as I recollect him telling me about Raaga Thodi and Malhar a few years back.
I neither liked Carnatic nor Hindustani classical. I used to wonder what was so great about these genres of music. I used to even make fun of these Hindustani classical singers when ever their performance was aired on the television. Besides the love for Indian classical music, my parents had interest in other kinds of music as well, which clearly had a direct influence on my sisters' and my own taste for music. Since Dad spent quite a lot of time in Bombay during his twenties, he was fairly attracted to Bollywood songs(from 60s and 70s). My sister and I grew up listening to melodies of Mukesh and Hemant Kumar as they were his favourite singers; we also had audio cassettes of movies like The Guide, Jewel thief, Sangam, Baiju Bawara, Navrang, Mera Nam Joker and many more. "Rangoli" and "Chitrahar" - some of the very successful Doordarshan (3) programs were based on the Bollywood songs, increased our database with respect to the old hindi songs. Mom has also been pretty fond of these Hindi songs but she would any day prefer songs based on our mother-tong, Kannada. When my mom was in her twenties and thirties, "Bhavageethe" (Kannada - songs about feelings) became very popular - all thanks to legendary singers and music composers like Mysore Ananthswamy, C Ashwath and BV Karanth. Dad had got several cassette tapes based on these genre, which I am sure would have been played umpteen number of times during my childhood days. These songs not only had great tunes but communicated strong emotions, moral values and many a times genuine human spirit.
The kind of music that I was totally attracted to during my childhood was the hard core Bollywood songs of the 90s. Our favorite television program during school days was "Super Hit Muqabla" - a Bollywood countdown show. The show aired latest songs from movies which were running at that time. Each song in that show came for hardly less than a minute but it fervently grabbed our attention. Unlike now, where we have access to youtube and other video sharing networks, back then we didn't have any medium to see videos apart from the broadcast medium, hence we would never be able to explain the present generation the feelings that we had for these shows. I still remember listening to songs from hindi movies Baazigar, Saajan, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Tezaab, Mohra, Main Khiladi Tu Anadi etc from the tapes, we knew complete lyrics of the songs from these and many other movies without even putting an ordinary effort to memorize. The greatest tune maker who totally ripped apart our souls was A R Rahman. His music created an altogether different sensation. Roja, Bombay, Kadalan, Rangeela and many more were his compositions which revolutionized the music industry during the 90s. Whether his songs were in Tamil, Telugu or Hindi it didn't matter.Well, he still remains my favourite musician of all time, even after the exposure to wide variety of music in my later years.
My taste for music didn't change much during my college days, except that I got acquainted to little bit of western music after attending a few rock shows during college fests and other gatherings. I didn't like rock music, in general western music much as I could hardly follow the lyrics or the rhythm when ever they sang - or rather when they 'shouted' - that's how I used to interpret rock music back then. Savage Garden, Enigma, Michael Learns To Rock (MLTR), Michael Jackson and Backstreet Boys were some English music titles that I remember to have liked during my college days and also during part of my school days.
After getting my admission done for a masters program, I started living in the hostel (which was inside the institute campus). It was the first time I left my parents and started living all by myself, though the hostel and my home were in the same city. I bought a super awesome laptop set from my savings from previous job, in which I loaded movies and songs from my friends collections. Subsequently I got a set of powerful speakers also called as woofers from my scholarship money. Unlike my childhood days when listening to music was limited due to unavailability of tapes, I had access to any damn stuff I wanted - thanks to the free internet connection in the campus. I could clearly make out the difference between living in the twentieth century and twenty first century. During my masters I met people coming from various parts of the country and people with various backgrounds. The institute was filled with intellectual minds who had varied tastes for movies, music and art in general. I happened to attend a few music programs as well. In one of these programs I heard songs which had an Indian classical music touch. I got goosebumps after listening to those. I knew that I had heard similar tunes from my parents collection of Indian classical music. After that I went on to explore Carnatic classical and Hindustani classical music from the internet and even indulged in various discussions about those genres of music with some of my campus mates. When ever I went home I played the cassettes of the classical music. I fell deeply in love with songs from "Shankara Baranam", "Hamsageethe" and "Sandhya raaga", which has some amazing compositions sung by great vocalist like Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Dr. Balamurali Krishna and others. Though I didn't understand the intricate details involved in these Indian classical music, I could some how appreciate the beauty in it. The Pancharatna Kritis(4) composed by Saint Tyagaraja sung by Maharaja puram Santanam, which use to disturb my early morning sleep, became some of my all time favorite collection - I still listen to it when ever I travel long distance. Though I haven't yet got the real feel for Hindustani classical music I listen to it quite often.
For a brief period of time I had joined Latin American dance classes in the institute campus because of which I came across some dance numbers like "Lemon tree" by fools garden, "Hips dont lie" by Shakira etc., as they were played by the instructor during the practice sessions. Since I totally sucked at dancing, I forced myself to discontinue from the classes. By that I again missed a chance to develop a taste for western music, however couple of years back, I badly wanted to like western music as I had a crush on this girl, who mostly loved western music and also played it. In order to impress her I started listening to various tracks in western music, I even shared those on various social networking site and also as my gtalk status, though I didn't like it as much as the stuff that I had developed a real taste. My close pal, Somesh who had this big collection of western music gave me all his favorite tracks. I did like the kind of songs he shared with me, mostly because I heard those from his sexy car stereo when ever we went out for long drives along with our other pals - those were super awesome tracks if you ask me now. What by far created this real interest in western music was this American TV series called "Scrubs". Though it was more of a comedy drama, the program is intertwined with some amazing tracks in the background. I heard "how to save a life" by the band "The Fray" in one of the very well made episode during the show, after which I searched for the song on the internet to became an instant fan of the track and the band. With time, I started liking songs from REM, Perl Jam, Pink Floyd, Imogen Heap, Coldplay, Infected mushrooms, The Beatles, Nirvana (acoustic) etc, some of which sounded like absolute noise a few years back. If I wish to make this write up any more cliched I would say that I finally fell in love with those English numbers which I never thought I would, however the flip side of the story is that I failed to impress that girl 'cause of whom I started listening to the western music in the first place - damn! it never works!!
I am pretty convinced that no genre of music sounds nice until we develop a taste for it, though some takes a lot of time to get the feel - in my opinion, its an awesome thing to pursue, no mater what the reason be. So, tell me, what song are you listening to right now?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Sri Venketeshwara Suprabatha - is a collection of hymns or verses recited early morning to awaken the deity in Hinduism
(2) Raaga - is one of the melodic modes used in Indian classical music.
(3)Dordarshan - a government Television channel which most the Indians have access to.
(4)Pancharatna Kritis - is one of a set of five kritis (songs) in Carnatic classical music, compossed by the 19th century Indian composer, Saint Tyagaraja. Four of the five pancharatna kritis are composed in Telugu language, and one in Sanskrit.
10 comments:
Awesome blog post :)
Appreciate your honesty and clarity...
Thanks a lot Nadir! :)
I'm glad you read this post...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQl-Ck1LeGk
apart from ur expression what amazes and impress me no end (and makes me envious! ;oD ) is ur memory. Plz plz plz write a book naa!
Thanks Mario! I am glad you read the post. Plz plz plz become a publisher naa! ;)
"no genre of music sounds nice until we develop a taste for it, though some takes a lot of time to get the feel"...This tells my side of story. I could never go beyond Hindi movies song just because my parents had been hearing that throughout. They have pretty good voice as well so listening from them also couldn't dilute my taste for hindi songs. Now my wife is continuing this legacy and I love her voice as well. That is so that we need to pursue things for long enough before you start loving or hating it. Good post Ganesh!
Thanks Sumit! I would like to listen to this track from you and Swati someday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8IVa-7-2_w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKmkOIlHbok
Listen to some Doors man.
And for heaven's sake, get rid of the image verification thing. No bot is going to spam your blog :P
Yo man! thanks - nice song!
I have no idea on how to disable this image verification thing :)
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