THE FUNERAL OF MUSIC ... 8 ... UNFINISHED

It is a pity that one has to endure the music of maestros that totally misses the mark when it comes to touching the core of notes. Skimming the surface of the octave without penetration of the notes and revealing the depth hidden therein serves not the maestro well and is the exercise in inadequacy of the novice. But many so-called masters of Hindustani classical music spend a lifetime dazzling the lay public with musical gymnastics while the profound depths of music remain unexplored. This is possible especially in this age of proliferating popular culture where the discerning audience is rare and mediocrity is hailed as excellence.

Hindustani classical music is not every child's plaything and mastery of it requires talent, training and prolonged perseverance in perfected practice before a semblance of the real thing surfaces what may be termed the soul of music. Mere practice even under an expert teacher is not enough. The pupil must be endowed with genuine talent that has no bearing to lineage as such and must have highly refined artistic sensibility. The aesthetic sense must be so exquisitely set in the psyche of the musician that the slightest aberration of melody will sound repulsive to the ear and will require its eschewing from future performance. In this way a system of refined self-appraisal, self-criticism and self-rectification leads to increasingly improved performance and raises the bar of what may be considered music. For this, of course, the prime requisites are the musical ear and the musical brain, attributes which help hone the talent of a musician along the right channel and lead him on to becoming an artiste of excellence.

Unfortunately, most of those who perform on the big stage are musicians not sufficiently well-endowed with the basics for musical excellence. Neither do they have the finely tuned musical ear nor are they endowed with adequate aesthetic sense. Theirs is merely the hard grind that churns out mediocre musicians by the mass. This is alright so long as the music indulged in is popular in nature but it complicates things when it is classical music that is the recipient of such mediocrity.

Hindustani classical music is a highly evolved musical form and only supremely talented artistes can do justice to it. This is no realm for the rogue performer who revels in gimmicks nor is it the field for familial display of melodic futility basing its aspirations on heritage and history. Music simply has not to be in the blood for it to be. It must be in the soul for it rise to ethereal heights. But, then, who cares for such scaling of spiritual heights? After all it is big money and big fame that is at stake, especially if one hails from a family with a rich musical tradition. Then it is the sheer deal with music that is involved and not the divinity within calling. Music is now business and is foregone for money. The catastrophic consequence is the demise of music.