Music transcends all barriers

CHANDIGARH, Aug 30: quot;Rules are a part of the tradition and the gharana, but music transcends all these rules and barriers. Music is ...

CHANDIGARH, Aug 30: quot;Rules are a part of the tradition and the gharana, but music transcends all these rules and barriers. Music is made out of one8217;s creative compulsion and should not be bridled by any set pattern.quot; Only a musician or a singer as versatile and experimental in nature as Shubha Mudgal could comment like this.

When she delivered the special lecture on Beyond Boundaries: Gharana to Fusion8217; at the English auditorium in the Panjab University this evening, she actually extended the philosophy behind her music. quot;The idea behind any particular kind of music is to convey your life8217;s experiences to your listeners with great strength and conviction.quot; We have heard that in all her songs, whether in the rigid format of Hindustani classical music or in the free flow of her pop.

Shubha has never been conventional and she stressed that it was a myth that Indian classical music has not changed. quot;Indian classical music is a living tradition which is susceptible to change and from the time of Dhrupad to the present crisp concerts, it has undergone many changes.quot; But her motto is, what should be every singer8217;s, as she saysquot; quot;In the act of rendering the music, a learned response becomes an intuitive response. So you have to feel the element in the raag you are rendering. Nobody can force you to produce that effect.quot;

According to Shubha, gharana stands for a particular ideology but even before this fusion, which is a process wherein Indian musicians engage in a dialogue with other streams of music, came in, inter-gharanal fusion had already existed. And some of the stalwarts of yore did not have any qualms in being influenced by other great artists. quot;Kumar Gandharwa had allowed seven musicians influence his rendering. Yet his singing was his own.quot; And Shubha had a candid advice for the puritans when she said: quot;I do not look at any type of music with condescension as each form of music gives me aesthetic satisfaction.quot;

Finally, as was expected, there was a demand from the audience and Shubha let the Ab ke Saawan flow first in pure classical way and then as the soaring number that has become an anthem in her fans8217; houses.

Shubha, whose talent has reached out to background score too what with award-winning compositions in many feature and non-feature films, could explain her forays into other forms in a striking way: 8220;The need to work in various disciplines is based on a desire to find out my own voice, to communicate with my voice. And it has been enriched by these forays.8221;