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Soothing tunes, warning words

Music is an industry like any other. Classical artistes too should be prepared to face its realities, santoor exponent Satish Vyas tells ANJANA RAJAN

Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

A CONTEMPORARY APPROACH Satish Vyas in New Delhi

`Over the last 20 years, classical music or dance is not just a performance. It has become an industry. So all the elements come in - some competition, some peer pressure,' says Pandit Satish Vyas, well-known santoor exponent. Among musicians, perhaps Vyas is best equipped to use such terms. An MBA, he worked for several years in the corporate sector before switching to a full-time performing career. The Mumbai-based Vyas, who was in New Delhi the other day to perform at the Gunidas Sangeet Sammelan, is the son of the celebrated vocalist, the late Pandit C.R. Vyas and specialised in the santoor under maestro Shiv Kumar Sharma.

Vyas is at home with the idea that success in the music world today is "all about projection." However, he emphasises, classical music never was a medium of mass appeal, and people should not attempt to make it so. A developed taste is bound to be somewhat exclusive.

But in the era of mass communication, mass production and mass media, it does seem the popularity of classical music is shrinking. "It has a lot to do with lifestyle," he concedes. "Right from morning to evening, people are running. So whatever time is left, they want to dabble in entertainment. The desire for serious music is not there."

A change

But even patrons of classical music have changed with the times, and performers have to keep pace. Take the length of a concert. Vyas recalls how in the past, a musician might sing a single raga for over two hours at a stretch. A solo concert would last easily for five hours. "There was a calmness in the mind then, so people would sit through such long concerts. Today that is not there. See how even at home, people flip channels on television! Within five minutes they may change 50 channels."

Then again, there is a huge spectrum of indigenous music between the classical forms and the commonly known popular ones (read filmy, remix, Indi-pop). Folk music by definition is a popular form. Where are the opportunities for ordinary folks to hear its infinite varieties?

"For that, I say very bluntly, the fault lies with the media, especially the electronic media," he declares.

The power of the media can be felt in the reach of the televised `talent hunts'. "These reality shows are ruining the country," he declares.

Vyas recounts how he saw a huge crowd on a Mumbai pavement one day and realised it was a queue of young aspirants and their parents, waiting for hours for a chance to audition for one such show. "You might make a boy into a crorepati overnight. But hundreds and millions of others are spoiling their education, their careers, in that hope."

He is also appalled at how TV `popularises' serious music by bandying about technical terms. "They have entirely messed up the sanctity of words like gurukul, gharana."

While he does not feel we should expect the Government to contribute any more funds than it already does to the cause of preserving culture, what it should do is ensure classical music education in schools. Also, he suggests, it should be compulsory for every channel to have a minimum amount of traditional art-based programmes.

"And not at 12 midnight," he quips, in an oblique reference to the concepts that govern prime time programming.

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