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‘I wish all films wouldn’t need item songs to sell’

Shalmali Kholgade discusses winning the Filmfare Award for her song ‘Pareshaan’, and what annoys her about Bollywood, among other things.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

Shalmali Kholgade sang the wonderful ‘Pareshaan’ from Ishaqzaade last year. Her heady voice, combined with the song’s beautiful lyrics, took the composition straight to the nominations lists of several film awards this year, and culminated in a Filmfare trophy for the 23-year-old. And ‘Pareshaan’ was her debut song in Bollywood!

In an interview with The Metrognome, Shalmali speaks about her win, what her pet peeve about the Hindi film industry is, why she doesn’t drink milk a day before a song recording, how she began singing, and why she looks for that ‘one’ moment of total harmony when she sings.

First of all, congratulations on winning the Filmfare award for ‘Pareshaan’. What was it like to hear your name announced as the winner?

When my category was announced, my heart was racing. But I have this cool ability to mask everything happening inside. But when my name was announced, my heart stopped beating for a second – or so I thought. I remember trying to look calm and composed, but I can’t say if I did that well enough. I walked up to the stage, and everything after that goes blank in my head. All I can say right now is that it must’ve been too intensely powerful a feeling to account for in retrospect.

You looked gorgeous on awards night. What did it feel like, getting all dressed up for the awards?

Thank you very much. All credit goes to the immensely creative, innovative and gorgeous Sonaakshi Raaj who was my stylist and designer for the Filmfare Awards. Feel free to add all the superlatives you can think of to Sonaakshi Raaj – she is extremely deserving of them all. The white jumpsuit that she designed for me hit that balance between red carpet ‘elegant’ and a musician ‘casual’ perfectly. Getting dressed up for the awards was like a scene from Cinderella! I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Can you describe the creative process that went into creating ‘Pareshaan’?

The selection process for ‘Pareshaan’ included me singing the chorus of the song twice and then Amit Trivedi (Ishaqzaade’s music director) saying, “Are you free tomorrow to record the song?” And just like that I was recording ‘Pareshaan’ the next day. We recorded over two days, as there were lyrical changes. Habib Faisal and Kausar Munir spent a lot of time explaining every word and every line of the song to me. All three of them – Amit Trivedi, Kausar Munir and Habib Faisal – were extremely supportive of me and showed a lot of belief in me. That was a huge plus. The pronunciation of the words was the other thing that needed attention on my part. I wasn’t used to singing Urdu words. But Habib sir and Kausar ma’am got it out of me.

Who are your favourite music composers? And who is a bygone era composer you would have loved to work with?

My favorite music composers are Nitin Sawhney, AR Rehman, Amit Trivedi and Vishal Bharadwaj. I would’ve loved to work with OP Nayyar.

If you hadn’t sung ‘Pareshaan’, which singer would have done as much justice to the song as you did?

It would have to be Sunidhi Chauhan.

Tell us about your childhood. How did you take up music?

My mother (singer Uma Kholgade) taught Indian classical music at home. She is the reason I sing at all. Till my mother was eight months pregnant with me, she went for music lessons at her teacher, Shruti Sadolikar’s. She believes that it affected my musical leaning in some way. My mother made it compulsory for me to sit for music class twice a week for an hour each, and though I reluctantly sat for it, I owe so much to those classes.

My brother, on the other hand, who is eight years older than me, listened mostly to English rock and pop bands like Queen, Aerosmith, Michael Jackson, Phil Collins and Dave Matthews Band. His music, for some reason, was more inviting for me. I listened as he played his guitar and sang sometimes. I picked up the guitar watching him play. He has been my encyclopedia for English music.

How has the support from home impacted your career?

My father is a pharmaceutical consultant by profession, but is a lover of the Arts. He writes plays, short stories and poetry in Marathi and English in his free time. My mother, brother and I are always the proud first listeners of his writings. He also sings with the kind of confidence I have never seen, even though he isn’t trained in singing. My mother has taught Indian classical music at home till I was 16 years old. She is a fantastic teacher, who never taught music for the sake of making money. Her students love her and beg her to start taking classes again even today. I am so grateful to have parents who are so incredibly talented, supportive and encouraging. There’s no way I would’ve been here today if it weren’t for my parents.

Overall, what has been your musical journey been like? Have you sung for regional cinema as well?

My journey has been an utter joyride, with some incredibly diverse experiences of being able to listen to and sing with musicians from all over the world. (She is a vocalist with Mikey Mcleary’s popular act The Bar Tender and has performed as a soloist with a Latvian troupe in a cabaret named ‘Bombaloo’ which toured Moscow, Russia and Yerevan, Armenia).

I have had the chance to sing in regional cinema and that is something I thoroughly enjoy doing. I have a strong affinity for languages, diction and the tonal quality of every language. My first Tamil song ‘Raja Raja’ with music director GV Prakash released a month ago. My first Marathi song ‘Jag Saare Badale’ also released this month. I have recorded a Bengali track with the great Indradip Dasgupta, and also a Telegu song with Sachin Jigar. Both these songs release by the middle of this year.

What has been the most special moment in your musical journey so far?

When I was in college, I had a life-changing experience that convinced me that music was what I wanted to pursue. It was the final round of Western solo singing at St Xavier’s Malhar. As I sang ‘Desperado’ by the Eagles, with just a guitar accompaniment, I held the last note of the song till I ran out of breath. I felt like I wanted to hold on to that moment for as long as I could, because I knew it wouldn’t come again for a long time. That is the reason I am pursuing music today. I want to find that moment of complete harmony of voice, accompaniment and calm. It is indescribable.

What is the one thing you don’t like about the Hindi film industry? A lot of artistes complain about the lack of respect for time, for instance. What is your pet peeve?

Time would be number one on my list, too. But when it comes to music, there’s too much run-of-the-mill stuff, with little experimentation. I wish that would change. I wish all films wouldn’t need item songs to sell. I wish women in films would have better roles than just ordinary lovers to play. I agree that it is changing with films like Kahaani and Heroine. But my issue is with a majority of films having female actors that are used as marketing tools.

There are so many young singers today, each with their own USP. How is it possible to survive in this competition and bring your best to a performance every time?

I personally don’t think of anyone as competition. This does not mean I am unaware of all the talent around me. But I see it as people to learn from and skills to add to my kitty. It is all inspirational in one way or the other.

How do you train your voice on a daily basis?

I start my day with just humming any tunes. Slowly as my voice warms up, I do scales on lip rolls, humming, and plenty of other warm up exercises. I sing along with songs that play on my computer all day. I never count the number of hours I sing. I sing for as long as I feel tired singing. If I have a recording or a show on a particular day, I stop drinking milk a day before. That’s the only precaution I take. I am of the opinion that a positive mind always helps deliver well. When I think I am not singing to my full potential, I just sit over it and polish the song, a melody, a run up till it comes out effortlessly. This takes days, sometimes months.

Which projects are you working on currently?

I am doing a lot of shows, especially so in colleges all over India and that is something I am enjoying a lot. The youth is so full of life and love that it is always a pleasure singing to them. One of my songs from the film Mere Dad Ki Maruti will release this week. A handful more releases are due in the next couple of months and I look forward to them.

How has life changed for you post the Filmfare Award?

Winning the Filmfare award and the shower of wishes and expectations that followed have changed quite a lot in my life suddenly. From wanting to pursue music, to singing ‘Pareshaan’, to becoming a playback singer, to winning a Filmfare Award, all of it has in quick succession. I feel more responsible and I want to live up to the expectations of people, and more, over the expectations I have from myself.

What is a tip you would give aspiring playback singers?

Everyone is unique, with a different voice quality, a different range and a different personality. Use it to your advantage. Compete only with yourself. If you stop looking inwards and start indulging too much in the lives and feats of your contemporaries, you’ll lose yourself.

That is all that’s important. All the technicalities of singing in a studio and live can be learnt only through experience. I am also learning. I just keep looking forward!

(Pictures courtesy Shalmali Kholgade and karamnook.com) 

 

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Surabhi Saraf live in Mumbai

The San Francisco-based musician performed for the first time in India on Thursday, at Mumbai’s Max Mueller Bhavan, Kala Ghoda.

Surabhi Saraf performed at Mumbai, and India, for the first time ever. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago MFA degree holder played two tracks from her debut album, Illuminen EP, in which, in her own words, she “layers the sound of my voice over the droning percussions of aged fans that are augmented by lights and live video, creating an immersive soundscape.”

She played Illuminen, which she exhorted the audience to listen to with their eyes closed. This was an attempt by the artist to “draw the focus inward, negotiating ideas of entertainment, experience, sensation and sensationalism with the conviction that it is actually the numbing of certain sensory realities that generates crucial moments in socio-cultural transformation.” Watch the clip of the track below:

Her other performance, Spinning Four, was about “a visually rich immersive sonic experience that stimulates external senses. From my memories of Indian classical music to the multiplicity of sounds emerging from old mechanical fans, this performance deals with the phenomena on which we all depend, wind and breath. I layer the sound of my voice over the droning percussion of the rotating blades of aged fans powered by electric motors. Once on the air, these sound waves become electrical impulses and data that are manipulated through my laptop in real-time.”

(Picture courtesy surabhisaraf.net)

 

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Turn up the (copied) music

Pritam Chakraborty
Music directors are coming full circle – after copying global tunes for years, they’re now copying from old Hindi films!
by M | M@themetrognome.in

‘Copy cat, copy cat, tell your mother to make you fat.’ This line didn’t make any sense to me till I began to listen to songs from Hindi films. This line is just like the songs in our films these days – they don’t make any sense, but we’ve heard them before.

A song from Dabangg 2, ‘Pandeyjee Seeti Bajaye’ has the refrain from ‘Chalat Musafir’ from the Raj Kapoor starrer Teesri Kasam used all through the song. The original track was composed by Shankar-Jaikishen, but Sajid-Wajid, who say they created the music for Dabangg 2 in just two hours (a claim that’s easy to believe once you’ve heard the songs), argue that the tune in their song is a folk tune, and hence their song is not a copy.

Another recent release, Khiladi 786 has gone global in its copying – ‘Hookah Bar’ is copied from Chris Brown’s ‘Turn up the music’, whereas ‘Balma’s beats are lifted from ‘I’m sexy and I know It’. Himeshbhai, I sincerely hope you get pulled up by your nose for this.

We were finally out of the remixes era, when a dearth of original music forced composers to pick a popular track from yesteryear films and add some upbeat, dhinchak notes to create a song. We now have a new issue at hand – forget remixes, we are now facing a weird homecoming of sorts, with music directors simply copying tunes from earlier Bollywood films.

It is highly unfair that only Pritamda gets singled out as the biggest copycat of the industry. Sure, most of his tracks are good copy-and-paste jobs; his last, most evident copied track was ‘Subha hone na de’ from DesiBoyz, where the opening strains were lifted straight from Pitbull and Ne-Yo’s ‘Give me everything tonight’. But Pritam is not the only one.

The art of copying has been refined to suit individual needs. For example, some don’t believe in copying subtly. A renowned music director works like this: he likes an international track, he chops and dices the tunes, adds a few jhankar beats for Indian sensibilities and serves it straight up. But the way he sells his tunes is interesting: he sets up a bazaar kind of atmosphere in his office, where the buyers (who are two teams comprising producers and directors) sit in different rooms and the music director lets them sample his offerings one at a time – the idea is, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. So if team A doesn’t like the tune, he takes it to the next room to team B. And this goes on till both the teams have something in their shopping cart.

Copying music is not limited only to music directors. A singer, famous for his folksy voice, is known to invite gypsies from North India, who are masters of folk music, to stay with him (sometimes for weeks). He practices singing with them, and has been known to confess that he hates living with them, because they are not used to closed spaces and make a mess out of his home. However, he picks up the nuances of folk singing from them, and doesn’t give them any credit.

This same singer occasionally composes music as well, and the folk tunes imparted to him come in handy there. The singer sits on a big, fat bank balance. The gypsies, naturally, get nothing.

Some musicians go even further and buy tunes from struggling composers at dirt cheap rates. They re-package these tunes under their brand and sell them to film producers at phenomenal costs. The slightly smarter ones have created academies, and are currently playing Dronacharya to several willing Eklavyas – they claim that they nurture budding artists, but they freely use their work in their films. No wonder then, that nobody actually knows who the real composer is.

There are very few musicians, and I can only think of one at the moment, who compose original music today – Mithoon, who composed the soulful ‘Maula mere’ from Anwar. The industry recognises him as a very spiritual and gifted person, but unfortunately for him, he is often slotted as “Arre, who ek hi type ka music banata hai, masala nahin hai usmein”.

Thus, after importing masala from the West, and sometimes South-east Asia, we are now borrowing it from the North of our own country.

Sharp as a tack and sitting on more hot scoops than she knows what to do with, M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment.  

(Picture courtesy india-forums.com)

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A cracker of a song

We wish you a Happy Diwali and present to you 9XM’s firecracker jugalbandi song – and how it was created.
by Prashant Shankarnarayan | prashant@themetrognome.in

Artists have used their voices, daily items and even trash to create music, but have you ever heard of creating music by bursting firecrackers? This Diwali, 9XM came out with an innovative classical jugalbandi – one between Konnakol and firecrackers. The music channel’s in-house team came up with the concept of juxtaposing bursting fireworks with vocal percussions in the Carnatic style, called ‘Konnakol’. The music video’s plot revolves around a strict TamBrahm music teacher forcefully teaching his disinterested students on Diwali, even as people burst firecrackers outside their homes.

Jugalbandi, also referred to as ‘Sawaal-Jawaab’ in Indian classical music, is when two or more musicians challenge each other to a musical duel by singing or playing instruments. While embarking on this project, the team did face three major challenges – to find clean sound samples of fire crackers, to interpret the sounds musically, and lastly shoot it within city limits.

 

To tackle the first challenge, the team decided to record real firecrackers for the project as clear sound samples  of crackers were not available easily. So, armed with a stash of rassi bombs, lavangis, Red Forts, laars, anars, sparklers, whistling rockets, etc. the team headed for an isolated bungalow in Khandala where they burst crackers till their palms turned silver. Every cracker was recorded in mono, stereo and with a lapel as well as a boom mike.

Then came the next challenge, of musically interpreting these crackers and creating a music piece out of it. A responsibility that was handled with utter ease by a Mumbai-based percussion band named ‘Dipesh Verma’s Indian Beaters’. The artists created rhythmic patters with the firecracker sounds in sync with their Konnakol, and later added percussion instruments to the track. Says Dipesh Verma, whose band composed the track, “Initially when we got the brief from 9XM, we were a bit skeptical. But when we started mixing the firecracker sounds to create music, we realised that we were onto something utterly fresh, wild and fantastic.”

As for the music video, the programming team converted the Saraswati Vidyalaya in Chembur into a housing colony. There were many safety concerns raised as the plot involved children and firecrackers, and was being shot in a residential area. But timely police permissions, crowd control and apt handling of the fireworks saved the day. The team considers itself plain lucky to pack up the shoot without any complaints from nearby residents.

Says Sunder Venketraman, Content Head, 9XM, “Other than interpreting noisy crackers musically for the first time, the music video also highlights the idea of going back to our roots and celebrating festivals with our near and dear ones, something that seems like a lost trait in our times.”  The music video went on air on November 7 and is already being shared as a viral on the Internet.

Prashant Shankarnarayan was a part of the creative team at 9XM that conceptualised and created this music video.

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A half-done Chutney

Do you like unfunny jokes and stereotypical ‘humour’ in your songs? You will love Vir Das and the Alien Chutney.
by M | M@themetrognome.in

How do you know if people have been to the NH7 weekender? They will tell you that they watched Vir Das and the Alien Chutney perform on Sunday, not an act they’d be able to see in the normal course of their lives.

Vir Das and the Alien Chutney is India’s first comedy rock band with a punch line that says ‘Romedy Cocks!’ (I am not making this up) The band has been active for over a year now, performing live at various gigs across the country, and seemingly specialises in sleaze, lacing all its songs with sexual innuendo for extra pleasure.

At NH7, they opened their act with the words, “We don’t care about the critic reviews, we are here for your entertainment”. As if music critics over the country were rushing to review a ‘Romedy Cock’ band. Thankfully, the performance itself was brief, full as it was of songs insulting Delhi girls, Punjabi men, and parodies on heavy metal bands, Gangman Style, Himeshbhai and Harry Potter. I appreciate Vir Das and the Chutney for attempting to create original music, but their lyrics are difficult to follow. The words seem forced on the tunes, and would better suit a stand-up comedy act.

One of the songs was called Village Man. The build-up to the song was a pop poll on how many girls had slept with Haryanvi men. The song itself was about – you guessed it – a Haryanvi man’s attempt at sexual intercourse and how he breaks the girl’s arm because he gets distracted by a squirrel and tries to grab the squirrel instead of the girl.

Next was Punjabi Men and their Man Boobs and a ballad on Delhi Girls, who are supposedly gold diggers. Both these songs’ lyrics were examples of blatant stereotyping of North Indian men and women. We’ve all heard the material several times over already, across several different platforms, and I can’t believe people are still making songs on man boobs.

The parody on heavy metal music was seasoned with names of actual metal like iron, zinc, copper and many more from the periodic table, along with jolts of double bass. Just when we were beginning to think the lame sex jokes were over, BANG! Out came lame jokes on other issues. The parody on Harry Potter was very offensive, and again, we didn’t get the joke – the chorus went: ‘Harry Potter is a Randi, Hermoine is a Randi, Dumble, Riddle, et al is a Randi…’ and so on.

The only parody remotely close to funny was the Gangnam Style one. The lyrics were actually laugh-inducing and contextual to the original song. In a gist, it was about how we don’t understand a single word of the song and throughout the song eagerly await the chorus just to watch a chubby Korean dance funnily. Of course, it had enough profanity to make PSY very angry.

I think the band doesn’t live up to the genre it claims to create. It takes much more than just mocking famous personalities and insulting communities to make people laugh. We are not asking for all-clean, sans profanity songs (after all, we are not the Censor Board), but at least give us a good joke.

If this is Vir Das’s attempt at matching the musical parodies on Saturday Night Live or the famed troupe ‘The Lonely Island’, then he needs to work much harder. The standards set by artists of the comedic music genre are very high already, and plain mockery and insults won’t help. Sexual innuendos are fine, but too much is too much. Agreed, breaking new grounds is tough, and full marks to the band for attempting that, but I strongly feel there is no need to take this on a live platform.

Next time I’m not going to stand in the middle of the day to watch Vir Das and the Alien Chutney rant about Himesh Reshamiya’s nasal hair, a joke done to death. I’d sooner watch them online, with the comfort of having the option to ‘close window’.

 

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