TODAY’S GENERATION IS MORE RELIANTON TECHNOLOGY

In the good old days, singers were given wholesome topics to create their songs, but today with the emergence of an umpteen number of radio channels, any person can become a singer overnight and have his or her songs played any number of times on private

Lalithakala Visharada Manoj Peiris who is the most popular music director today, said the young generation especially were too dependent on technology resulting in their limited shelf life.

Manoj Peiris who is also a director of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation said, most of the veteran singers today were products of the then Radio Ceylon which followed a set of guidelines before airing songs.

“There was a grading system and most songs were done by the Radio Ceylon itself. A grade singers were given priority, then came the B grade singers. C grade singers were taken only for chorus singing. The situation in the country has drastically changed today. But I must say that the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation still maintains those age-old, time-tested traditions. I am grateful to SLBC Chairman Hudson Samarasinghe for taking great pains to instil quality in SLBC work and creations,” said Manoj.

“In the good old days, singers were given wholesome topics to create their songs, but today with the emergence of an umpteen number of radio channels, any person can become a singer overnight and have his or her songs played any number of times on private channels – thanks to today’s advanced technology. If one is unable to sing to the right pitch, even that can be fixed using the novel technology. Another downfall is the number of visuals that are being telecast on television channels. They are being forced on the people so much so that people wonder if songs are really made for listening pleasure or for mere viewing,” he said.

“Though the young generation follow different music styles like rap, reggae or hip-hop they don’t realise that such music styles originate from our folk music styles like manthara, sokari, seepada etc. The singer, lyricist and musician have to work in harmony to create a good song, but today the singer doesn’t even meet the musician or lyricist when he records the song. Technology might have its positive aspects, but it creates more negative impacts due to the attitude of people who use them or abuse them,” said Manoj.