KOLKATA, India -- Music and dance have been a part of Indian culture since ancient times. There is a song for every occasion, for every season and for every time of the day. Thus it was only natural that as India’s film music industry took firm root, our music also found its rightful place in it. With the eclipse of the Kotha culture and nascent beginnings of the film studios, vocalists and instrumentalists began to gravitate from the former to the latter in ever growing numbers and by the 1940s, a thriving film music industry had come into being.

With the discovery of play-back singing in 1935, a new member joined the singer and composer in the industry. He was the film lyricist. Great poets like Shakeel Badayuni, Sahir Ludhianvi and Shailendra joined great composers like SD Burman, Naushad and Salil Chaudhury to combine the most melodious music and the most elegant poetry to create a genre of Hindi film music that has no parallel in any other culture anywhere in the world.

Soon inseparable bonds began forming between actor and singer which were later extended to music composer and lyricist. The bond between Raj Kapoor and Mukesh was soon joined by Shankar-Jaikishan and Hasrat Jaipuri. Similar bonds were cast between Dilip Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, Naushad and Shakeel Badayuni as were those between Dev Anand, Kishore Kumar, SD Burman and Majrooh Sultanpuri. Their creations gave birth to a Golden Age of Hindi film music that regaled the people of India from the middle to the end of the twentieth century.

Vijay Singha describes in detail the evolution of the Hindi film orchestra from its earliest days of the 1940s to the present day. How each film music composer built on his respective sub-genre, like SD Burman’s limitless variety in Dev Anand’s films, Naushad’s grand compositions for films like ‘Mughal-e-Azam’ and the genius of Salil Chaudhury’s haunting music for Bimal Roy’s classics like “Madhumati.”

The book covers the music of the twelve top music directors, describing each of their best work in detail from the points of view of its composition and orchestration. Vijay Singha gives the opening lyrics of each song, names of its singers, music composer, lyricist and name of the film and year of its release. The serious lover of the music of Hindi films can relive the magic of those timeless songs by listening to them at his leisure.

Book : The Magic of the Music of Hindi Films

Author : Vijay Singha

ISBN : 978-93-83271-80-1

Price : Rs.150.00

Website: www.magicofmusicofhindifilms.com

Publishing Date: November 2013

Publisher: Power Publishers

Language: English