HOLLYWOOD THERE’S A DEMAND TO MAKE ‘HIT’ SONGS: EHSAAN NOORANI
Continued from P1 Ehsaan: Cities such as Bengaluru, Kolkata or Delhi have many more shops as compared to Mumbai. It is really surprising. There’s a much better music scene in all these cities. Mumbai is the entertainment capital of India, and it doesn’t have enough music for whatever reasons. Even in a place like Guwahati, Assam, they have got a couple of big shops. Loy: Culturally, that zone (east) has a stronger sense of music. Everyone loves music. But when it comes to music instruments, maybe in terms of the guitar, the northeast has a stronger affinity towards the instrument. Shankar: The attitude towards art and culture needs to change in India. We should start respecting art and culture. Music, for example, should not be a medium just for entertainment. Music plays a very important role in anybody’s life. That is something that people should understand. Ehsaan: If you go to a guitar store in America, you can just go there and play the instruments. You don’t have to buy them. They encourage that. Here [In India] if you do that, the shopkeeper treats it as if you are eating their food and making it jootha (used). That’s stupid. I’ve seen this happening in many shops. Shankar: There are a lot of teaching academies, but they all need support. They are all struggling to keep it afloat. They are doing it because of their passion. But with some support, they will get due recognition because quality is not the issue. Loy: There is some sort of support required from the government of each state. I feel a sense of divide. I’ve heard stuff like, ‘Oh, this is not Indian so we are not going to support it’. I think that’s wrong. Mobile technology is not Indian either, but you’re still using it. You can’t be myopic and be insecure about these things. Any form of art makes you a better human being. It heals you, and gives you strength to face the difficult situations in life. Ehsaan: We prefer working on a project completely. When it comes to making music for films, there’s a demand to deliver hit songs. It’s not necessary that the song has got anything to do with the film. Serious film-makers don’t choose multiple composers. They want a single set of music composers, who can maintain that thread though each song. Shankar: You can’t think of your film as [one that runs on] Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Then that automatically puts you in a different category. The big production houses are also following this mentality now. It depends on whether you want to make films for business or you want to be proud of them. You can become a sensation overnight. Fair enough. But the popularity of a singer has nothing to do with being good. But if you are good and popular, you’ve got a long way ahead. Ehsaan: They are very good for music companies, but not good for artistes, particularly composers. Music companies have YouTube channels with millions of subscribers. They bring in ad revenue that is good for them, but it doesn’t benefit the composers. Loy: The model is bizarre actually, because earlier it was like saying, ‘I’m going to buy you a box of 12 chocolates. You buy the box and you pay x amount for it’. Now, it’s like saying, ‘You buy the x number of chocolates and I’ll charge very little for it”. It’s the other way round. Ehsaan: [Late] Prince [American singer-songwriter] once said that with the Internet, would come the downfall of music. Sure enough, you see interviews with big producers who say that there is no music industry anymore. It’s not an industry where one is looking for talent. It’s become exactly like Bollywood; you make a song to make sure that people go and watch your movie.