MUSIC OR MEDIOCRITY?

The decline in the standard of performance in all forms of music, most glaringly in classical music, is owing to the lack of sustained practice (sadhanaa) under a Guru with no eye towards gaining a quick footing in the commercial world whereby cheap fame and easy money may be earned. This is fundamentally the problem of the age. In this world of advertisement and commerce people are increasingly getting allured by money and cheap popularity and do not quite have the patience or the foresight to practice music to perfection before assuming the stage of performance. The result is but obvious --- shallow performance with no grip on the mood of the raga nor sufficient voice control. Add to this the frivolity of the age and you get the classical performer dishing out cheap popular music masquerading as raga music. Greater attention is paid to public relations work than to sadhanaa and an equal amount of energy goes into dressing up gaudily as in the case of an eminent sarod player who, long past his prime, now vainly tries to hold on to public imagination through good looks and better apparel than through striking the right notes to one's satisfaction. If this is the example that is being set before the aspiring artistes then one may never safely ask youngsters to emulate the great ones for risk of picking up the wrong elements. Anyhow the scene is pretty bad today and it will need the emergence of another Allauddin Khan to rescue classical music from its mire. Till then it seems we are doomed to hearing mediocre nonsense as pristine raga music and must shower accolades on those that have no clue to raga-roop (the mood or the form of the raga) and merely send forth myriads of combination of notes which neither carry the import of the raga nor do they impress the soul of the audience for such performance is geared to the ear of the listener, not to his soul. Who will save us from this predicament? One way could be to include classical music in our school curriculum right from the primary level under expert trainers. Later at a higher level, sifting of talent may be done to separate the grain from the chaff. These selected ones will then have to be put under proper music Gurus for attainment of musical heights. Music schools, colleges and universities must be opened entirely for this purpose along with the general musical training in general schools and here admission ought to be reserved only for talented individuals to maintain the standard of the training imparted. Perhaps, these are wild ideas difficult to execute in the current scenario but they are worth the try. Else, dark days are ahead of us in the world of Hindustani classical music for we are soon going to forget what it was to be a classical artiste worth the salt. With fond hopes I look forward to some new talent emerging from the melee of mediocrity who will take the stream of Hindustani classical music towards its source whence it had sprung as the supreme path towards God-realisation. Jai Ma Saraswati!