Music And Movies

The link to all parts of this series is given here: Series Links When Lata entered the Hindi music field, Anil Biswas was already a well-known music director. 'Kismet', the movie for which he had scored music, is still considered to be one of the biggest hit movies in Hindi Film history. Anil Biswas is credited with bringing in a full orchestra for composing film music. He was the mentor of C.Ramachandra and influenced other music directors like Roshan and Madanmohan. He was also a guide for many singers, including Mukesh and Talat Mohammed. Lata said in one of her interviews that Anilda, as he was lovingly called, taught her a lot of things about singing for films in her early days. He taught her how to hold her breath, at which point in the song, and how to move away from the microphone when taking a breath. He seemed to have taught her a lot about voice modulation as well. His songs, even in the 40s, are quite sophisticated and modern. They demand that the singer modulate hi

The link to all parts of this series is given here: Series Links In the last episode , we had a look at the milieu of the 1940s Hindi film music and got an idea of who were the major singers of those times. We also got a good idea of the singing style of the 40s. In this part, we look at some of Lata's songs in the 1940s and the partnerships she started building with music directors. In the last part, we saw that Lata got her major breakthrough in Hindi film music in the film 'Majboor'. Ghulam Haider was the music director. This film was released in 1948. Other music directors also started showing interest in her singing that same year. In 1948 and 1949, Lata managed to sing some memorable songs and started a partnership with some legendary music directors. We saw that Kemchand Prakash's 'ayega ayega' from 'Mahal' was Lata's breakthrough song. The song that launched her stardom. This is in the year 1949. In the year, 1948 itself, Kemchand Prakash ma

The link to all parts of this series is given here: Series Links This series only looks at Lata's Music. We will not be going too much in Lata's biography. (There are enough resources available for that.) To understand what Lata was up against when she entered the industry, it is necessary to have some idea of the Music of those times. Lata's first breakthrough song with Ghulam Haider was in 1948. So let us look first at the female singers of those days and try to get a sense of how they sounded during those times.  The most famous names of those times were Noorjahan, Kushid Bano, Shamshad Begum, Zohrabai Ambalewali, Amirbai Karnataki, and Rajkumar. Noorjahan was a reigning queen. Noorjahan and Kurshid Bano went to Pakistan after the partition. The others remained in India.  All the above voices were seen as 'strong' voices. Voices with a high volume, some of them had a lot of bass in their voice. The singing was open-throated and, by modern standards, a bit loud. V

   Lata Mangeshkar, whose voice was heard in every household across India, died a few months back. I wanted to start writing a tribute series to her immediately, but due to various reasons - including professional work and general laziness - I couldn't do so. Well, I am starting the series now, and it will be a stuttering series because I am not sure how regularly I will write. I  promise to complete the series, though. In this part, please indulge me by allowing me to ramble a bit. Lata's body of work is so huge that I don't know how to approach her work. When I wrote my tribute to MSV and SPB, I closely followed their work chronologically. Going by the feedback, that strategy seemed to have worked. But, in the case of Lata, following a single thread may be tough. So I might branch away once in a while into her collaborations with music directors like Madanmohan, Anilda, Salilda, Roshan, and others. I guess the first step in any long-distance trek is critical. I am hoping