gaspersWorld

:::a scene from Black:::

Talented youngsters were taught to play the violin, the mandolin, the vihuela (forerunner of the modern guitar), the harp and the organ. These instruments were then used to accompany singers at stage shows and street plays.

The Jesuits, Dominicans and Augustinians, among the several religious orders who came to undertake evangelical work and higher education in Goa, conducted advanced music classes as did the Royal Convent of St. Monica for girls.

However, there was a transitional period in Goan history when playing Goan music itself was deemed not respectable for scholars or the learned, and the girl students had to hide their instruments, afraid of being regarded as female entertainers.

Goan music experienced a renaissance when the country (Goa, Daman & Diu was a country till 1961) acquired its own musicians who communicated poetic and political messages in a popular tradition during peak Portuguese regime. The songs and dances were accompanied by a variety of string instruments like the veena, sarangi and tanpura, woodwinds like the dholak, ghumot, madlem, kasallem, bansari and zanj (cymbals). The programs were performed in every village usually in a sacred spot called devastan or in a mand (circle.)

Music in Goa spans a very broad range of music, from Goan and foreign-inspired music to more modern trends with mixtures of genres, ethnic elements and electric instruments. In recent years, a wide range of skilled ensembles have helped to raise the profile of Goan traditional music both nationally and internationally.

Music of various kinds continued to have a life of its own. There also emerged folk songs and dances like the mando, dulpod and dekhnni through a blending of intrinsically native melodies with western, mainly Italian harmonic devices.

'From the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Goan musicians were recruited to play for military bands at different Portuguese colonies and for the British. Soon, Goans were inducted in into the orchestras playing classical and light classical music, dance bands in elite ballrooms, hotels, gymkhanas and clubs all over India and abroad. During the days of the silent movies, Goans became the chief providers of background music played in theatres, and when the movies became talkies, they became the mainstay of the orchestras in the film recording studios not only as sidemen and soloists, but as arrangers, composers and conductors, albeit under famous Indian music directors.'

'Musicians manning the leading big bands and the several nightclub combos in Bombay alone during the late sixties were almost exclusively Goans.'

By then, however, jazz music had begun to evolve new forms like progressive jazz, bebop and free forms using complex polyrhythms, dissonant harmonies, jagged and atonal melodic structures.

It became an esoteric music for appreciation by other musicians. Though Goan jazzmen quickly got into the groove, the music itself had lost its large young audiences to newly emergent rock and roll, pop and reggae, which marked a return to simpler rhythm. The new 'beat' consisted of three or more electrified guitars, with keyboards, drums and a host of 'techno' electronic gadgetry, attachments and devices like synthesisers with a multi- toned palette, auto-rhythms, auto-vamp, drum machines, strobe lights, etc.

Goa’s popular music tradition continued into the twentieth century. Just a generation or two back, the Western music scene was dominated by classical, semi-classical and dance music like the tango, rumba, waltz and polka seen mostly at marriage receptions and other parties.

Many Goan groups reigned supreme in the 60’s and 70’s playing violins and a range of other non-electronic instruments like alto-sax, clarinets, etc. There has been a rapid transformation in music with 12 string guitars, frame drums, percussions, etc, which swinged into bebop and rock and roll that has swept everything in its path.

A lot of the old, traditional Goan musicians could not make the transition and fell along the path way forgotten. Their scores were not needed anymore with brass and horns replaced with electronically charged gadgets.

But the music played now, is from people of a tradition or culture foreign to our own mainstream. It's the measure of distance between ‘here and now’ and ‘there and then.’ Some of the traditional folk music is hardly played nowadays, maybe because it seems not in harmony with the modern generation.

The value, of course, is that in hearing a tune outside of ourselves -- a music from another time or place, a song outside of our own skin -- we discover our connections to a wider realm of humanity. BUT, by appreciating music ‘from somewhere else’ we do not understand our own place in the world.

Even dramas and tiatros in recent years -- which are partly intended to raise historical consciousness among Goans -- almost always use Western style background music. Very few dramas have attracted my attention in this regard.

A number of musicians have emerged in recent years from music schools like the Kala Academy, Goa College of Music, Pilar Music School, Solfa Music School (Mapusa), Maestro Fr. Camilo Xavier School of Music,and other music schools existing in Goa forming top most ensembles such as Lynx, Sky High, Forefront, Seby and the Wings, Black Slades, Purple Rain, Archies, Status4, Cascades, Syndicate, Big City Band, `India', etc.

Linear and melodic music of Goan bands was well received till in recent years with some bands exposing a new era of electronic noise and lip-sync. Music enthusiasts fear the real art is being played only on sequenced beats.

Between ‘then’ and ‘now’, the once popular traditional, original Goan music is now on a brink of total extinct. A new series of music is seen appearing on the horizon: a contrast of sound and noise, art and reality, beauty and ugliness, sanity and insanity, originality and banality, sound and silence, abstract and concrete, communicative and solipsistic, normative and eccentric.

There’s still a tremendous underground swell of musicians who have no interest in who or what the latest pop sensation is.

What is the speech in our music and what is the music in speech? What is the difference between ugly music and music that expresses ugliness? How can we identify musical kitsch and how does it differ from the banal and clichéd?

Looking at the new musicians fresh from schools, it appears that the next generation of musicians will comprise mainly vocalists, guitarists and pianists. ‘In other words, it looks like we are producing the material for beat-groups only.’

'The prospects of having the requisite musicians from the next generation to stage a full ensemble band of four saxophones, two trumpets, a trombone with piano, bass and drums is bleak and the chances of putting together even modest philharmonic or symphony orchestra for classical music is very remote.'

Like all crazes, however, it is just a matter of time before the trend in the evolution of music will pass.

We all have our sense of musical taste, of course. No one is asking that we enjoy everything that enters our eardrums. And thankfully there are no laws that tell us how to categorize our personal preferences. So feel free to define ‘music’ the way you want. Well, open minds hear better music. The next tune that you hear in a movie – for a particular soundtrack or while the dialogues are on will definitely make you listen with the inner sense. The music that makes you weep or shout or dance with joy might come from an unexpected place. Contemplate on the tune. It might just be an African drummer, a Taiwan flute specialist, a Maharastrian tabla player - or maybe even a one-man band.

More detail on the main characters in the film and their role will be presented in these pages to keep readers engaged and fully in tune running down to the release. For more on T-Bush International films log on to http://www.t-bush.com

:::The above article appeared in Kuwait’s Arab Times dated June 24, 2007:::