Film music is going through a dark phase: Ghazal maestro Pankaj Udhas

In January last year Ghazal singer Pankaj Udhas completed 40 long years of his career With more than 50 albums under his belt and some evergreen film songs including Chitthi Aayee Hai and Jeeye To Jeeye Kaise the singer was all set for a grand celebration 40 concerts across the country However he could do only one at the Nehru Stadium in Mumbai in January Things changed completely after Covid struck Nobody could imagine laments this Padma Shri recipientFor someone who has always preferred live concerts jumping the digital bandwagon like many other singers was not really an option You just cannot create the right atmospherics in a virtual concert There is no intimacy no immediate feedback and no interaction with the audience said UdhasFeeling that in current times the whole narrative has been around Covid and many other diseases which also require urgent attention were being ignored Udhas who is also the President of Parents Association Thalassemic Unit Trust PATUT decided to do a fundraiser called The Ghazal Symphony which was streamed on Hungama Platforms last year on November 21I had performed 11 of my most popular Ghazals with violinist Deepak Pandit in a Symphony setup that involved 40 musicians While Ghazal as a genre is spontaneous like Jazz in this the music was arranged Also it was captured on a fivecamera set up and recorded on a multitrack We had a good opportunity to do postproduction work properly The concert therefore had topclass sound and great visuals Considering we did not want to charge for a virtual concert a call for funds was raised through KettoOptimistic about the future and popularity of Ghazals among the young the veteran singer said that one just has to take a look at social media to see how the genre is faring among the young Be it Facebook Twitter or Instagram dont we see a lot of couplets being thrown around by young kids I agree they may not be in the major groove of Urdu literature but they are still using lines by Mirza Ghalib to current generation poets like Bashir Badr and are therefore aware of the poetic aspectAlso back in 1998 I made some changes in terms of the musical approach to my Ghazals I intentionally created some numbers which were sung keeping in mind the young They were accompanied by videos that would appeal to the younger generation Take for example the nazm Aur Is Tarah Kijiye Batein I get tagged by youngsters singing it on InstagramBelieving that the digital medium can be instrumental in making Ghazals more popular Udhas plans a series of activities on his YouTube channel that will involve young listeners once the pandemic is overThe singer who has seen the music industry shift from albums to singles calls the development a tragedy Albums were in demand when we sold music physically While selling CDs and records one needed a certain playing time like 44 minutes on a CD To accomplish that six to eight numbers were requiredIts sad that today as far as audio labels are concerned they show zero per cent physical sales Now even DVDs are more or less gone So the point is when physical sales are gone how do you monetize eight numbers In order to create eight songs one needs money to pay the poet studio and musicians Thats why everyone has got into singles because with that you are investing a limited amount of finances he further addedAlso Read Birthday special Did you know Pankaj Udhas wanted to be a doctorWhen asked about his absence from the movie music scene Udhas said that film music is going through a dark phase and has not really made any headway in quite some timeIn the 80s when Nadeem Shravan came up with Aashiqui it became the music of the nation crossing all barriers Or take the music of Maine Pyar Kiya which spellbound everyone We havent had any major success like that lately Cinema music will take a while to recover because they have got into a groove they need to break out of that and try to create something differentThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever