Sulakpa Dhar, Kolkata: Music composition is the process of creating or making music with the help of the musical notes. In Indian classical music there are seven musical notes. There are three octaves in Indian classical music. They are: (i) Lower Octave (Mandra Saptak) (ii) Middle Octave (Madhya Saptak) (iii) Higher Octave (Taar Saptak). Any set of 12 consecutive black and white keys on a piano or harmonium denotes a saptak. There are no steadfast rules for composition. Music can create bonding, belongingness and friendship among people.
Music helps people to express a lot of complex feelings and situations easily and beautifully. It can create themes resembling real life emotions. In the Mughal emperor Akhbar’s court the great musician Tansen was present who, it is said, could bring rain or light fire through the renditions of his compositions. He was believed to be the greatest musician of all time.
Is there any school for teaching music composition? I have heard that there is no such institution and I don’t think we have any music composition classes. Everyone, one who has the knowledge of music, doesn’t become a music composer. Many has suggested that one’s ear is the best music teacher for that one has to feed in one’s ears with right tal and sur from the childhood days. Training of one’s ears is the best thing to do if someone wants to sing or play musical instruments. We have to listen to all forms of music such as Indian classical, jazz, pop, western classical so on and so forth.
The knowledge of classical music helps a lot while composing. When a song is composed based on some raga from the Indian classical music it usually turns out to be a beautiful one. Indian mainstream music is mostly based on melody.
Dudley Buck was an American composer he had mastered the keyboard. Ludwig Van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart started the classical age in the Western countries. They were the two greatest composers of all times. Science is directly related to music. All the musical instruments are made very scientifically. The piano has come from the harp. Ludwig Van Beethoven used to play piano for composing music. Ludwig Van Beethoven is known as the William Shakespeare of western music. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart said ‘Melody is the essence of music’.
A good composition can evoke several feelings in the listener’s mind. A composition which cannot create any emotion or feeling in a mind is not a good composition. In the theory of Western music, a mode is a type of musical scale coupled with a set of characteristic melodic and harmonic behaviours. Musical modes have been a part of western music since the middle ages, and were inspired by the theory of the ancient Greek music. The name ‘mode’ derives from the Latin word modus meaning measure, standard, manner, way, size, limit of quantity, method. The types of mode are: (i) Dorian Mode (ii) Phrygian Mode (iii) Lydian Mode (iv) Mixolydian Mode (v) Hypolydian Mode (vi) Hypophrygian Mode (vii) Hypodorian Mode and (viii) Hypomixolydian Mode. The music which was played based on these modes was called modal music. These modes are like our Indian classical music. There ascending and descending are fixed. The notes which were not mentioned in the modes were not used in the orchestration. This continued upto 600 years. Harmony was born on the 16th Century. Harmony is not present everywhere in the western music. Violin was made in Italy. Violin had arrived in the last phase of the 18th century. Before violin there was another instrument which was called viol. Viol looked like violin. It’s sized between a chello and a violin but slightly larger than viola. Viol was used for orchestration. Viol existed till the 19th century then it became extinct.
Composers like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Dudley Buck and many others are in a way the teachers of music composition. They played an inspiring role for music composers of generations after them.
I have heard that earlier there used to be Long Playing (LP), Extended Play (EP), and usual records of 78 speed for gramophones. People used to buy records and keep them in their collection and time to time they used to play and listen to those.
Music composers have huge stock of records stacked in their collection. When music directors feel for creating a new composition some tune starts reverberating in their mind, at times akin to some compositions they heard before. Then they often scan thoroughly in their music library and with their experience they try to bring out some gems out of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven or Salil Choudhury and many others. If we study Salil Choudhury, Sachin Dev Barman, Rahul Dev Barman and such other composers very well we can acquire the art of music composition, of course one should have a knack and zeal for it.
Especially, Salil Choudhury is regarded as a genius in the world of Indian music. He had such a huge knowledge regarding Western music and Indian music compared to any other music composer. I have heard a few interviews of him where I felt that he had so much knowledge of music which is incomparable. He was a music composer per excellence. As I am an avid listener of music and have a natural inclination towards singing I believe Salil Choudhury had lot more musical gems stored in him. It may be that he was not exposed with ample opportunity to come out with more unique creations. It is very unfortunate and the saddest part for us music listeners, singers and music creators. He was a versatile person in the realm of art, literature and poetry. He even used to write very good quality screenplay. He has done a lot of background music for Bollywood films. He has in his credit a huge volume of work. He has composed music in a lot of Hindi films, Bengali films, Telegu films, Malayalam films, Marathi films etc. He was considered the master of chords.
Famous Urdu poet and lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri was very close with Jatin Pandit and Lalit Pandit, the famous music director duo.
Majrooh Sultanpuri used to share many anecdotes with Jatin Pandit. Music directors like Naushad, O.P.Nayyar, Kalyanji-Anandji, Shankar-Jaikishan, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Jatin Lalit, Annu Malik, Shantanu Moitra and many others has often brought back the melody in Indian music. Melody is an irremovable part of Indian music. Majrooh Sultanpuri had worked in a lot of films with Salil Choudhury.
Once Salil Choudhury had made Majrooh Sultanpuri listen to a composition created by him. Majrooh Sultanpuri was so overjoyed listing to it that he requested Salil Choudhury to create similar tune for his lyrics too. Then Salil Choudhury said that he had already created that music for a Bengali song and it was popular as a sad song.
But, Majrooh Sultanpuri’s theme was on a romantic situation. Majrooh Sultanpuri said to Salil Choudhury that once he creates the same tune for his lyric he would change some parts of the lyrics so that it will subsequently turn out to be romantic song. It will surely be remembered as one of the best legendary compositions by him.
This eventually turned out to be a legendary one. In this song none of the chords seems externally or forcefully implanted in it. The chord progression was very natural here. The song was ‘Tasveer Teri Dil Meh’. This song became very popular. A notable compliment for Salil Choudhury is that, Sachin Dev Barman himself once asked Rahul Dev Barman to follow Salil Choudhry instead of following him.
There is a lovely song beautifully composed by Salil Choudhury ‘O Sajana Barkha Bahar Aaye’. Songs like these create everlasting impressions in one’s mind and they are evergreen. People will be inspired and gain lots and lots of knowledge from these timeless music composers. Jatin Pandit said Salil Choudhury is no less than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Ludwig van Beethoven.
I think Salil Choudhury was one of the finest composers India was honoured to have. We can always listen and appreciate the compositions made by our music composers but we should never distort them. It is a vast topic and I have written not even a drop of it. I would like to conclude by saying my take on composers that they are great creators.