Coach Bojana and Coach Harsha sat down for a podcast discussing Bollywood music and Indian (Hindustani) Classical Singing in lieu of the TVS Bollywood singing workshop which commences on the 24th of October.

Below are some of the questions which were discussed and answered:

1. What is special about Bollywood music?

Bollywood music is a blanket term for Indian music but truly only refers to Hindi music made for Bollywood movies. This means that the songs are made for different situations within the storyline, and they often convey different emotions - love, separation, happiness and celebration, anger/disappointment etc etc. Indian film music starting by having its roots from Indian Classical music in which the progressions are categorised by emotion - these are called Raga’s or Raag’s. This helped in the conceptualisation of songs for situations. Especially back in the day when women (and men) could not directly express their love for one another - they sang about it while hiding around trees coyly (this explains why non-Indians often associate Hindi films with running/dancing around trees 😂).

2. How is it different from other genres of music or from pop western music? In terms of maybe melody, rhythm?

Harsha: If you watch the podcast i have demonstrated ornamentations that make the Indian Gayiki (singing) what it is. I sang the song “All of me” the way it is supposed to be, and then I added an indian emotion to it - by using various ornamentations (which were appropriate to add in) such as a meed (meaning: glide) and a murki (meaning: at least 2 fast deviations from the main note ie an inverted mordent) deviations from the simple melody are called harkatein (meaning: movements). There are many more like gamak, andolan, khatka. These will be explored in the Bollywood workshop because these make Indian singing unique.

3. Who are some famous/your favourite artists from this genre?

Harsha: Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Mohd. Rafi and Kishore Kumar would be some of my favourites from the older gen. I grew up loving songs sung by Sunidhi Chauhan, Sonu Nigam and among the contemporaries I keep my tabs on the voices of - Jonita Gandhi, Arijit Singh, Javed Ali.

4. Lastly, what can students expect to learn out of this workshop?

Harsha: Students will firstly learn the basics of singing which includes breathing and technicalities of producing our voice. The singing exercises will be on the SARGAM (Hindustani Solfège). Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa is the equivalent of Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Doh. We will then begin with the gayiki (singing) - learning the different ornamentations and applying them in an example/our final song. I will will also teach the students how to produce these sounds and cater to each student to help us all reach at least one successful attempt. Ornamentations take years to learn and to be used as second nature but it is always great to expose and challenge yourself to sing in a way you never thought you could. To move your voice differently, and see what could be.

For those who are interested to read up more about ornamentation in Indian music, you can also visit https://raag-hindustani.com/Embellishment.html to learn more!