Monopoly of S.P. Balasubrahmanyam
Rahi Prakash Potturi
[stuff deleted]
<Whether we like it or not, there isn't a lot of talent in AP. Don't compare
Stop right there!! Did you mean what you just said?! There is'nt a lot of
talent in AP?!! You must be kidding! Talent abounds and is overflowing my
dear sir in the state of AP. You just have to go to the different musical
and cultural festivals that take place in Hyd. regularly, to know the
amount and variety of talent that is available.
The declaration that "there is'nt a lot of talent in AP" is both factually
incorrect and highly insulting at once.
Say that there is not enough tapping of talent in AP, then you are right.
Not just in music, but in every field the statement remains valid.
(Take Cricket for example. A visit to the Parade grounds on a sunday during
the leagues season will be enough to convince one of the abundance of
cricketing talent available in Hyd. alone.But how many of them are able to
make it big, to the state and national teams?!
Poverty, politics, bhukthi, jeevanOpaaDhi, the conservatism in our society
that breeds stereotypes and obliterates latent talents - all of these hinder
the blossoming of talent, be it in cricket or music. A sad commentary. To an
outsider it might appear that the state/country has not much talent to offer.
But having grown up there we know that it is not true and also know how and
why it appears so. )
<Telugu playback industry with the Hindi one. In Hindi, you can get singers from
<various parts of India. Kishore Kumar, Hemant Kumar and Manna Dey are from
<Bengal. Rafi, I think, is from Punjab. South Indians like SPB, Jesudas also
<sang quite successfully in Hindi. Bhupen Hazarika is from Assam. List goes on.
<
<When you can get good singers from various regions in India (which is the case
<with the Hindi playback industry), you can have a lot of greta singers, who are totally different from each other. In Telugu, we have very little choice. There's
<no point in blaming someone for it .......
While it is true that Hindi film industry has a better chance of getting a
better variety of singers, it is not alltogether THE reason to stop telugu
film industry from getting a bit of variety itself. SPB is versatile, sells
and he is cheap too, so why would the film businessman have to search and
hire another singer atall?! Add to this the film politics and the little
or no encouragement atall that budding artists get in our society. And what
you have is the present scenario.
<PVR
Rahi Prakash Potturi
(pot...@cs.uh.edu)
Nageswara G. Prasad
>[stuff deleted]
>While it is true that Hindi film industry has a better chance of getting a
>better variety of singers, it is not alltogether THE reason to stop telugu
>film industry from getting a bit of variety itself. SPB is versatile, sells
>and he is cheap too, so why would the film businessman have to search and
>hire another singer atall?! Add to this the film politics and the little
>or no encouragement atall that budding artists get in our society. And what
>you have is the present scenario.
Added to the reasons that you have already mentioned(quite correctly)
there is also another important factor which is also essential in
rewarding SPB the present position(according to me,he very well
deserves it...all his +ves already mentioned I don't want to repeat
them) that of his usefulness to the music-director. The top MDs in
the industry have a lot of assignments at any time. I don't think
they would spend a lot of reharsals for any song(they cannot afford
to),SPB stands good here. SPB versitility means that they don't
have to go search for the right singer for a particular type of
song (particularly since a film has atleast five songs and
generally different moods/types). In the Hindi film world different
singers are known for different types of songs ,hence it is not
uncommon to hear three or four singers singing for the
same hero(in their own voices/distinctly different). In fact
it is rare now-a-days to see a Hindi film which has all its
songs sung by a single singer. In the days of Kishore Kumar and
Rufi, the MDs had others occasionally sing some songs when
these guys were singing for that film,for other reasons
and not as a necessity. Given a chance any singer would
volanteer to sing any song but the MD would prefer the
song's popularity for his own popularity. SPB can sing
any song with such a perfection that I often wondered whether
it could be made any better. His melodious voice makes any
cranky song or lyric to sound sweet. He adapts to the tune
and mantains the tempo and can change the moods so amazingly. He
is any MD's dream come true. If SPB couldn't make a particular
tune I wonder the MD might go home thinking that its probably
no good.
I haven't heard much of the politics in telugu music
world but I read that SPB had once quipped that his voice was
a gift from god. This I thought showed his humility.
-prasad
BTW: I know that SPB is from JNTU. Was he a drop-out?
I am from JNTU too.(no comparisions intended...just
clarifying)
PVR Narasimha Rao
|> (Take Cricket for example. A visit to the Parade grounds on a sunday during
|> the leagues season will be enough to convince one of the abundance of
|> cricketing talent available in Hyd. alone.But how many of them are able to
|> make it big, to the state and national teams?!
Hyderabad is not a bad team. It is in fact one of the top-class teams in India.
There is talent, not only raw talent at the lowest levels, but talent even at
the highest levels, in Hyderabad. And, Hyderabad usually has a decent
representation in the Indian team (atleast 1-2 players in the Indian XI) and
the south zone team.
If you want all the youngsters who impressed you in the Parade grounds to make
it to the Indian XI, that's too much. They might've impressed you, you might
think they are very talented, but there is a lot of difference between raw
talent at very low levels and talent at the highest level. It is not difficult
to impress with raw talent (simply because raw talent abounds in the society as
it is natural), but when you are talking about higher levels, things become very
tough. The transition from one level to the next is an extremely difficult
one. Though poor tapping of talent and other issues that you talked about (that
hinder the development of natural talent) are reasons, there are several other
factors.
|> Poverty, politics, bhukthi, jeevanOpaaDhi, the conservatism in our society
|> that breeds stereotypes and obliterates latent talents - all of these hinder
|> the blossoming of talent, be it in cricket or music. A sad commentary. To an
|> outsider it might appear that the state/country has not much talent to offer.
|> But having grown up there we know that it is not true and also know how and
|> why it appears so. )
I agree with you when you say that the problem is that the talent is not tapped,
but there is a lot of talent. However that is the same as saying there isn't
enough talent at higher levels. You said,"you just have to go to the different
musical and cultural festivals that take place in Hyd". But thinking that "talent
abounds and is overflowing my dear sir in the state of AP" is somewhat a
self-delusion. May be you are right, may be you are not.
It is easy to get impressed in a cultural festival or a practice session at the
Parade grounds. But, it doesn't mean AP is "overflowing" with talent. Such raw
talent is present everywhere! The standards are simply very much different at
higher levels. However, I agree with you in spirit. When I said there wasn't
much talent in AP, I wasn't referring to raw talent. Also, I don't want to try
why there is little talent at the highest levels. There are just too amny
factors than you think there are.
PVR