Listen: Seven film songs composed by tabla maestro Alla Rakha
Some may believe that if Hindustani musicians are trained as instrumentalists, this grounding will hold sway over the songs they compose in other genres. While certain elements of their training do have an influence on their film songs, for instance, this does not necessarily happen.
We saw this in film songs composed by sitar maestro Ravi Shankar
In his case, we do not hear an excessive use of tabla or intricate rhythmic variations that would have otherwise come to him naturally. Perhaps his early training as a vocalist in addition to the long years that he spent training as a tabla player afforded him the opportunity to perceive music in a more comprehensive manner than in a strictly compartmentalised way, thus not allowing rhythm to take precedence over melody.
In the third episode of our series on Hindustani musicians working as composers in Hindi cinema, we listen to the songs he composed under his screen name AR Qureshi.
He composed music for several Hindi and Punjabi films.
We begin this episode with a duet composed by him for the film Maa Baap (1944). Significantly, this song features the composer as...
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