The title is my thesis for this blog post.  Trends are emerging in my research and this is one of them that is pretty major: how Bollywood effects the music education of children in Mumbai, especially the music education of underprivileged children.  (A couple of months from now, I will post the video and audio interviews of the people who talk about this subject.)

(A side note: I asked if the songs were performed and recorded by an orchestra for the movies and I was told that it was done up until a few years ago.)

We can talk about style and content of the songs as being part of the negative effect it has on children but I am not going to go down that road for now.  As I have said before, this research is not to qualify anything.  I am just reporting the facts.

The general consensus from the the people I have interviewed is that Bollywood music is:

1.  Excessively loud (volume)

2.  (The singers are) auto tuned.

3.  The actors are dubbed with people who can actually sing, or somewhat sing.  (I was disappointed to learn that Audrey Hepburn was dubbed in “My Fair Lady”.)

4.  The students will sing loud and have nasal tones in the choir.  This is for two reasons.  One is that the audience in the back can not hear them.  (Could it be that they have lost their hearing from the Bollywood films?)  Two, Indian Classical music and most Bollywood songs have a nasal tone.  I have noticed the “Bollywood Effect” as I will not call it when I observed this in a children’s choir where the director was taking giant leaps to combat these issues.  It is difficult to fight mainstream media and these kids were well to-do.

7.  It must be noted that

6.  No, I must not talk about the content of the songs.  You will hear that in the interviews once I am permitted to post the videos.

As a researcher, one must not take things on face or word value.  Last night, I attended a Bollywood film that was in Hindi with not English subtitles called: “The Shaukeens.”  It was a rowdy comedy with a lot of overacting and does not have a good rating from the critics.  However, the general Indian public likes it and gives it high ratings.  We chose this film for another reason as well.  When watching a film in a language with no subtitles where you only know three words of that language, you should watch a comedy or something with a lot of overacting in it.  It makes things easy to understand.

Well, I was blasted by the sound by the commercials before the film.  I thought that they were the commercials and like You Tube, will blast you away and the regular content will be of normal volume.

Here is the real surprise of the night for me: the national anthem of India was played.  I wish I would have recorded it and the people’s responses.  I may get a chance to this.  The theater was crowded.  A screen that said: “Please stand for the national anthem” displayed itself after a commercial.  I stood up and so did 300 of my closest friends.  The audience’s face few somber as we watched many different Indian women on the screen each sing a verse of the national anthem.  Their tones were nasal but had a beauty that could be appreciated by a classical musician.  (I do like Indian Classical music.)

I enjoyed it but could see where the people I was researching were coming from.  This is the national anthem.  If you were a child that was never exposed to western classical music, you would think that this is what singing is like in all cultures.  This is where I will steer from their opinion that there is only one way to sing and that is the western classical way.  However, trying to get a student to sing in a way that they are not used to and do not get much exposure to is very difficult.  Just think of the people the US children are exposed to that cannot sing to save their lives and the music teachers have to work extra hard to train their ears to western classical singing. I do not even know what to call that singing now, especially when the technology does the singing for most artists.   Surely, it is not the classical singing of America.  Well, Bombay children get a double dose: exposure to Indian classical music (some, not all) and the Bollywood singing (most children of all economic statuses are exposed to this.)  It is a double whammy if you will if you are trying to teach a child in Bombay how to sing in a western classical manner.

The movie is shown and I see what my interviewees were talking about.  The dialogue is loud but when the music comes on, it literally rattles your bowels!  The seats shake.  I walk out of bars and restaurants and clothing stores in NYC when the music is loud.  I cursed myself for not taking my custom ear plus which would have reduced the sound to 25 decibels.  There were a lot of people and carpeting to absorb the sound and I still had my insides rattling during intermission (yes, they have intermission because Bollywood movies are very long) where I went to the bathroom.

On my way back, I noticed that they movie started.  I took my phone out and recorded the sound coming from the open door.  It was loud and clear and the lobby was crowded with people talking.  I walked in and recorded the sound during a music scene.  This will be posted soon.  You can hear what I am talking about if you have never experienced it.  It is a very short clip.

Based on my experience, I can confirm the claims from my interviewees that Bollywood has a negative effect on children learning western classical music.  What is missing is whether or not Bollywood is affordable to underprivileged children. (I NEED TO ADD THIS).  The underprivileged children do have free access to festivals with the same loud music as in the films though.  And, I was told that the youngest of children could recite every last lyric.

So yes, the US and Bombay have a lot in common in terms of fighting pop culture in favor of classical music education in classroom.

In my opinion, I think there is room to appreciate all types of music.  I like rap, country, hip hop, Christian, classical, world musics, etc.  The challenge is to educate the children about all kinds of music and how they relate to one another and where the genesis of the genres that they listen to on their own time comes from.  I am a little liberal.  Feel free to disagree.

I stepped back from writing this post and let my mind wander.  I wonder when I teach the teachers and students this week how to play a recorder if they will play loud and have a nasal tone or will be able to copy my performance on the recorder right away….

One last thought…instead of telling the students that such and such style is incorrect, tell them that you are teaching them a new style.  It is more inviting to the student and they think that they are learning another method.  Unfortunately, the pop culture style can be emulated and can be done “correctly” and “Incorrectly.”  Singing classical music should be another tool in their box, not saying to the kid that singing in a pop culture style is wrong.

I say this because if you tell a child of Indian decent that singing loud and in a nasal voice is wrong because it is done in Indian classical music, than what is the child going to think?  Only western classical music is acceptable?

Food for though.