Introduction I have spent 20 years in the music industry.
People often envy me thinking that I am lucky to have my hobby as my
profession. In comparison, the field of Chartered Accountancy appears
rather bland. Hence,I was pleasantly surprised when the editor of the
BCA Journal asked me to write about Ethics in my profession. Chartered
Accountancy is a highly regulated profession with challenging entrance
tests and a grueling curriculum. In music, the classical art-forms
(dance & music) are very demanding with hours of training and riyaz
required to get perfection. However, entry into film-music is open to
any and every person who has basic music skills. Due to the explosion of
the electronic media, anything related to films has glamour attached to
it. Untrained wannabes come to Mumbai to try their luck in the music
world equipped with just a dream in their eyes. The stakes are high and
musicmaking is big business. There are often compromises with ethical
standards.The only regulator is one’s conscience and moral values. The
number of people who stand up for ethics is a minority. Being an
‘entertainment professional’, here’s my attempt to analyse the ethical
scenario prevailing in the field of Hindi film-music.
Hindi Film Music
The
Hindi mainstream film music industry has come of age over the last 70
years. It is now a professional set up. My mother tells me that in her
times, singing for films was looked down upon. Today, we have
enthusiastic parents sending their children to train in music as well as
to compete on television. Music training schools are today big
business. There are institutes training students in every field,vocal,
instrumental, Hindustani classical, Carnatic, Westernmusic, staff
notations, sound recording, playback recording techniques etc.
Technology has undergone a transformation and with the commercial stakes
very high, the pressures to succeed at any cost often lead to ethical
compromises. From Naushad to Rehman and Rafi to Sonu the parameters of
excellence have remained high. However the audience’s thoughtless
acceptance of anything that the media promotes, often results in ethical
compromises and a deterioration of standards.
There was Naushad
sahab who tirelessly advocated Indian classical music and would insist
on purity. Today, plagiarism is rampant. One finds popular foreign songs
being copied brazenly note to note. It is often the producers who force
the composers to do this. Certain highly successful music directors
have been exposed on the internet with the list of songs they have
copied along with their source.
Many talented singers these days
approach commercially successful composers with their demo songs. These
are often their own compositions. The singer is forced to release the
song under the composer’s credits.
An inspiring exception is A.
K. Rehman who has taken Hindi music to a world platform completely on
his terms and merit. Rehman is known to keep music rights with himself.
He makes sure his music is not misused by producers. If Rehman
collaborates with say Sukhwinder, the latter is given due credit. Other
talented composers like Shankar Mahadevan strive to make soulful songs.
Creation of monopolies and monopolistic situations
In
the yesteryears, one has heard stories of attempts by established
singers to monopolise the singing scene. Today, the market has opened up
with several singers aggressively marketing their skills. However there
are still instances of producers getting songs dubbed by established
singers even though they have been competently sung by lesser known
artistes.
Awareness of rights
In the era gone by,
artistes, and particularly singers were not aware of their rights. They
performed for the love of art, and were seldom concerned with commercial
aspects of their profession. The term intellectual property rights, was
unknown to them. Today, there is much awareness about royalties and
copyrights with artistes, composers, lyricists actively campaigning for
their rights, and zealously protecting them. Associations like the
Indian performing rights society regulate the use of their songs in
public places, radio, TV channels, live shows etc.
Falling standards in quality of lyrics
In
the 50s and 60s film music saw the poetic quality of lyrics scaling
great heights. There was Saahir who wrote sensitive, philosophical songs
like ‘yeh mehlon yeh takhton yeh taajon ki duniya’, ‘allah tero naam’,
‘aye meri zohrajabeen tu abhi tak hai haseen” and ‘laga chunri mein
daag’. Pt Narendra Sharma wrote chaste Hindi songs like ‘jyoti kalash
zhalke’, ‘satyam shivam sundaram’. Bharat Vyas wrote Nature poetry like
‘yeh koun chitrakar hai’ and kuhukuhu bole koyaliya. Kavi Pradeep penned
patriotic poetry like ‘aao bachhon tumhe sikhaye’,’aye mere vatan ke
logon’. Gulzar wrote aesthetic, songs with high literary value like ‘iss
mode se jaate hain’, ‘humko manki shakti dena’,’tujhse naraz nahin
zindagi’.
The new millennium saw the nation gyrating to
nonsensical lyrics and those with sexual innuendos. One could cite
several such examples but the content is so offensive that I would
rather not smudge the pages of a professional journal with such trash.
The point is that it is the ethical responsibility of producers and
lyricists not to stoop to such levels for commercial success.
People
believe that double meaning lyrics in the garb of ‘folk’, sex object
portrayal of women, and puerile nursery rhyme like songs fetch instant
success. So ethics and values are trashed. Once I was asked to sing a
‘laavni’ with double entendre. I fired the hell out of the guy and made
him change the lyrics.
I think lyrics are the fabric of any
song. They reflect an ideology and thought process. An ethical lyricist
is one who would uphold secular, humanist, socialist and feminist
values. I notice that earlier most films had atleast one spiritual song.
Now it is the norm to have atleast one ‘item’ song.
Commitment to quality and standing by what one believes in
As
far as I am concerned, I come from a classical music grooming and a
literary background at home. I am committed to singing meaningful lyrics
and intellectually stimulating melodies. In my live shows I select
songs that have meaningful poetry and raag based tunes that have scope
for gaayki.
I find that in mainstream songs, the requirement for
gaayki has waned. Tunes and lyrics are often juvenile. I feel committed
to writing and composing deeper, meaningful stuff. This too is a form
of ethics I feel.
I have composed about 50 tracks for the
YouTube devotional channel Rajshrisoul. Each composition displays a
commitment to the music I believe in. Hence both in my recordings and
live shows I standby what I believe is quality.
In my live shows
I am often under pressure to sing “fast”, “dancing numbers”. I do not
encourage this. As I believe I am not a DJ. Unless I stand up for my
beliefs, I will be made to dance to any tune.
Short and quick is not necessarily good / Technology cannot replace the original
Over the years, the ‘mehfil’ culture has eroded. Attention span of listeners has shortened. For the youth music is equal to something you dance to. Lyrics, gaayki, melody has no significance. This has led to monotonous tunes, repetitive lyrics, and same interlude music pieces. Today music is in the pubs and less in mehfils. The ‘gaayki’ in film music has been muted and the requirement for trained vocals is redundant. ‘Anyone’ including actors themselves sing songs. Added to this technical innovations enable voices to be tuned. The earlier face of film music had intricate gaayki, every stanza different tune etc. In my recordings I make it a point to retake my lines if not in perfect sur. I discourage enthusiastic recordists who say ’we will tune the notes using the Antares software’. I feel it is unethical to let technology modulate your performance. Your audiences pay to hear you perform and your rendition and not the skill of the software programmer or technician. I must give my best and not leave it to a machine.
Women and Their Exploitation In live music shows, you often see background dancer girls. Unless it is a pure classical dance form, women are portrayed as subordinate,exploitative. Attention is to the body and not the soul. I find such actions totally unethical. Hence I am particular that the role of women in whatever I produce represents talent, soul expression rather than body.
I have faced situations where I have refused to sing in live shows with loud noisy orchestration and where organisers are interested in suggesting what outfit I should wear.
I have often lost out on recordings due to the patriarchal equation. Even to this day most music directors are male. Being single and fairly attractive I often encountered men pursuing me for all the wrong reasons. The fixation with males is immense. Recently, while recording an aarti there was a line “baanjhan ko putra deyt nirdhan ko chhaya “. I insisted on changing it to the earlier version, ”bannjhan ko garbh deyt” as I believe that it perpetuates the Indian patriarchial mentality that insists on the male child and kills the girl child. Once I gave a successful composer my demo audio. He kept calling me up asking to meet over a ‘cup of coffee’ for almost a month. When I finally did meet him, I was shocked to see that he had simply not listened to my recording even once. I was just a pretty woman for him. Ever since then I politely refuse ‘coffee invites” for ethical reasons. Things have changed for the better now with singers having personal managers and talent management agencies to represent them. These shield mischief makers from the artist.
But these experiences got me thinking and I stumbled upon Meerabai.
When I started translating Meera, it dawned on me that she’s a big star! Her songs are sung a good 500 years after her time. We remember Meera like a fragrant flower. Not as a sexy body. I realised that every woman needs to assert her soul identity. If every woman who steps out for a career, especially in the glamour industry, sends out strong signals of “My talent is my sole identity’, this power game will become redundant. I yearn for the day women would be able to express themselves uninhibitedly and not be guilty for it.
Respect The Performers and give Them Their Due
The music industry all over the world has been plagued by piracy. Today music is available free on the internet. The days of cd sales are declining as cds can be instantly copied. Hardly any non-film music albums are made. Only film music (backed by massive publicity budgets) sells in the form of caller ringtones, number of hits and ads on YouTube.
I do know of some highly ethical people who will only buy original DVDsand recordingsoftware. But by and large people buy pirated Windows, Nuendo/Cubase/Protools recording software. Most rip music from youtube.
Let Children be Children, Do Not Corrupt Them With The ways of The Commercial World.
Television talent shows are the in thing today. TV channels rake in the big bucks by aggressive marketing techniques. Amongst these are sob stories, dramatic behind the scene stories, emotional appeals and children. Channels woo viewers with little champs, junior idols etc. I am the first ever winner of a talent show in the history of Indian TV, to have got a film playback break. I won the Hindi Saregama in 1995. I remember there was an immensely talented 7 year old Pushparani from Assam who sang Lata songs to perfection. She vanished. There was ten year old Prashant too. I remember Prashant’s mother doing the rounds of music directors for the big break. It never came. Prashant works in a bank in Mira Road today, bitter about fading into oblivion. Once someone introduced me to a flamboyantly dressed little boy from Marathi saregama. He was most offended because I did not know of him. I vividly remember children crying on camera when they lost out to competition. Viewers cried too. Channels sold their emotions and made money. Often there is manipulation in who is to win. Is this really what children should go through? Children are superb mimics. Hence they copy and replicate what they hear. That is what the channels cash in on. Two years down the line public memory fades and no one remembers these children and their two month fame. They go through the pain of rejection and dejection. The channels make further money through live shows with these children.
I feel children competing on TV must be stopped on ethical grounds as it amounts to child labour. Why don’t we have child nurses, doctors, CAs engineers? If they can sing, they can practice too. It is unethical to make children work. Children should take training in classical music, polish their skills, enjoy childhood and then get professional as adults.
Conclusion
I am aware that the above close circuit view of ethics in my profession can have counter views. Every person’s experience differs and nothing is black and white. Where one sets the ethical bar is one’s own choice. I would set it at just within practical reach though aiming to pitch higher.
