LEVERAGING DIGITAL MUSIC
Music means entertainment, and there are various types of music known as genre. Genre of music has changed a lot since the last few decades. During the 40’s when Lata Mangeshkar started her career as a playback singer, the Bollywood’s music industry was mostly dominated by classical music. At that time the audio recording was directly done on photographic films, and the whole song needs to be recorded at one take only. However, as time passed, the taste of the music industry has changed to rock, pop, hip-hop and electronic music. The first change was done by R.D. Burman during the 60s, when he introduced electronic rock and jazz music in Indian films. Then came A.R. Rehman, and he introduced electronic fusion and world music during the 90s. This has happened because of the emergence of digital technology in the field of music production. Earlier, there were no electronic instruments like musical synthesizer or electric piano, but after the availability of such digital instruments, music production has changed. After the introduction of various digital DJ controllers and mixers in the market, the making of remixes and hip-hop songs have become easier. This has facilitated many artists like Yo Yo Honey Singh and Badshah to introduce rap (a version of hip-hop) songs in India.
Nevertheless, singing without the help of any technology will always be considered to be indigenous. Apache Indian, a reggae artist of UK origin, became popular with his rap style songs like “Chok There”, during the 90s. At that time reggae was popular and later evolved to hip-hop. However, Baba Sehgal was considered to be the first artist to introduce rap singing in India, and his song “Thanda Thanda Pani” was popular during the 90s.
As technology changes, the music production method and genre will also keep on changing. After the innovation of various computer technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), the world has changed a lot. Nowadays, with the help of AI we can do many things starting from social networking to online gaming. And it’s also starting to change the method of music production. Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist, also known as AIVA, is a virtual music composer and can compose music with the help of AI technology. It is the world’s first virtual music composer to be recognized by SACEM – a French professional association collecting payments of artists’ rights and distributing the rights to the original songwriters, composers, and music publishers. It was created in February 2016, AIVA specializes in classical and symphonic music composition. AIVA is a published composer, and its first studio album “Genesis’ ‘ was released in November 2016, and the second album “Among the Stars” in 2018.
Apart from automated music composition, making a computer to sing has also become possible. Researchers at the Microsoft Technology Center Asia are developing a singing bot called XiaoiceSing, which can sing on any given musical score. Apart from this, the Yamaha Corporation is developing a Vocaloid (a software that can sing), with the help of AI, which is capable of singing with a voice of legendary Japanese vocalist Hibari Misora.
Such technologies will gradually change the concept of music production, and it will be a piece of cake rather than an uphill battle. However, it can’t beat any legendary singers like Lata Mangeshkar because a God gifted voice will always be overwhelming.
Lata Mangeshkar was compelled to work for the film industry because her father died at an early age, and she had to support her family by earning money. If her father wouldn’t have died so early, she wouldn’t have become a legend. Also the biggest game changer – the Bombay talkies played an important role in her career. She is no more, but she will always be remembered by her evergreen melodious songs.