LPs, Cassettes and other recording formats (contd.)

Compact Disk for commercially introduced to public by Sony and Philips in 1982. Within a few years, CDs started outselling LPs and cassettes in US. But, in India CD was late to come and even now sells far less than cassettes. The prices have been the major stumbling block. While in US, the prices of CDs and Cassettes is comparable (CDs costing about 50 to 100% higher), in India CDs could cost almost 10 times higher. Till recently the CD players have been expensive for most of the middle class. Thus, only the affluent buy CDs, while the middle class mostly buy cassettes. Only when the CDs come below 100 Rs can they take off like the cassettes did in the 80's. Reason for CDs being costly is that they are still mostly pressed in US or Europe and imported to India. With the increasing popularity of video CDs in India, it is possible the economy of production of CDs will bring down the prices of music CDs too in the coming years.

Innovations in microphone, electrical amplification and loudspeakers culminated in the invention of first public address system in 1921 by Bell Labs. But the common use of public address systems came to India only in the 40's. The use of electrical amplification during concerts has had a marked effect on voice production, and, since the voice no longer needs to project over distances, many modern singers now sing with a relaxed throat and produce a more mellow tone. Also, musicians do not need to develop powerful voices. Ustad Amir Khan or Dr M Balamurali Krishna could have never become important concert artists without microphones.

In practical terms too it made a big difference. Lot more people could attend a concert. Also, because of the rapid expansion of railways, artists could also give more concerts. This meant that top artists could live comfortably purely based on concert income. They were supplemented by the income from sale of records. So, for the first time we had artists who didn't relay on anything but indirect patronage of large number of listeners. They didn't have to live on the patronage of one or two aristocrats. Even now, most artists live on income got from concerts, sale of records and tuition fees from students they teach.

A large number of organizations sprang up with the sole intention of organizing concerts. They organize concerts either during particular festivals or seasons (like RamNavami and Ganesh Chathurthi in various places) or regularly, once a week or month. Some of them are free too, to the listening public.

With the end of royal patronage, artists could no longer teach a large number of students who would live with them in the age old guru-shishya system. So, students started learning from artists on a part time basis, living in their own houses with parents. They would pay the Gurus a monthly tuition fee. Artists, especially the ones not very successful on the concert circuit, found this to be a good, steady source of income. There were also many formal music schools and colleges teaching music on a full time basis. All these contributed to the end of Guru Shishya Paddhathi.

Many people think of this as moving in the wrong direction. Students would not imbibe enough knowledge, nor would they practice sufficiently to become true masters, they opine. Also the students would be exposed to so many other sources early on that their music would get corrupted. All this has resulted in efforts to re-establish the Guru-Shishya parampara, with the help of some corporate sponsors (like ITC Sangeet Research Academy ) and some successful and well to do artists.

Sarangi was a folk instrument in North India. It was introduced into the classical realm only after the advent of Khayal. Since it is a versatile instrument which can imitate every note and nuance of vocal music, it was an ideal accompaniment to classical vocal music, esp. to Khayal, with its soothing mesmerizing timbre. By turn of 19th century it was the preferred accompanying instrument to Khayal and also other light classical forms like Thumri and Dadra. It was also the main accompaniment instrument for the courtesans, giving the sarangi player a low social status. Infact, most of the great vocal musicians of that period like Abdul Karim Khan were first Sarangiyas themselves, only to disassociate from it because of the low social status of its players. But in the 20th century Sarangi gradually faded away and there are very exponents of Sarngi now, mainly because of acceptance of Harmonium as a substitute.

There are several reasons for the decline of Sarangi and raise of Harmonium in its place. Sarangi is an unwieldy complexity instrument, difficult to tune. It is very difficult to learn and could take years to get simple control of the instrument. Before independence sarangi players were part of the ensembles of singing and dancing girls. They could not come out of the social stigma attached to that association. With independence, aristocrats who used to patronize the courtesans, were devoid of their means of large income, which precipitated the end of courtesans as high culture. With that, the main income for the Sarangi players ended with the result that none in the newer generation wanted to put in the hard years of effort needed to master the instrument.

The harmonium belongs to the wind family of instruments. It was imported from the west, where harmoniums with both foot and hand operated bellows were to be found. Since most Indian musicians sit cross legged on the floor while performing, harmonium with the hand operated bellows became more popular. Though its tempered tones are categorically out of tune for Indian music, it started appearing as the accompaniment to light music by the turn of 20th century. It became very popular in film music. Slowly it was accepted even in the serious classical music of Khayal too, as harmonium, was a more economical substitute.

One important, unintended effect of harmonium as the accompaniment is the slow disappearance of many Gamakas(meends) that were earlier used in Hindustani music.