Evaluating a composer

So cut the hype. And shut off the gripe. Shelve your emotional resonance with a style or a choronological frame. Heed not the printed word and draw your own conclusions about the greatest music director(s) of the millennium and ignore all those (manipulated or otherwise) awards. Never mind if your fave composer does not make the grade - and don’t feel upset or inferior. Music is something to which you spontaneously react. At the same time, some kind of barometer is needed to assess the true worth of a composer. So here goes:

Parameter 1: The range
Says Javed Akhtar, “A film lyricist should ideally be an all-rounder.” Even more so the film composer. Akhtar adds that the bulk of our songs move within less than ten situations or genres. See who passes this test with flying colours. The rough classifications are happy and sad love songs, philosophic songs, cabarets and their Indian equivalents - the nautankis and the mujras, seduction numbers, festival songs, ghazals, bhajans and devotionals, qawwalis, comic songs, climax songs, title or theme or background songs, children’s songs, patriotic songs, Westernised numbers of the respective eras, village-based/folk-based numbers and classical/semi-classical numbers.

Obviously, the true calibre of a music director lies in giving infinite variety within the commonest of these genres and situations, and also comfortably giving standard songs in all the categories here which bridge the gap between creativity, innovation and popular appeal.

Parameter 2: The prolificity
If you have the capacity and speed, quality need not be compromised all that much by quantity. More decisively, don’t make the fatal error of thinking that a music director who does less films or works longer at a song, necessarily produces better work. As Anand Bakshi points out, “If I take 20 minutes to bathe and another man takes five, it does not necessarily mean that I have bathed better!” As a rule, prolific composers are prolific because they are more gifted, more industrious and certainly more resourceful. Again originality has nothing to with the amount of work you take up. The actual rate at which Anu Malik is plagiarizing (that is the percentage of unoriginality) may actually be less in him than in a music director who has seemingly done ‘less borrowing’ because he has done even fewer films!

Parameter 3: The willingness to experiment and general resilience
This is a vital parameter by any standards. Enduring composers have either been way ahead of their times (in other words, either trendsetters or otherwise individualistic) or demonstrated chameleonic resilience in the face of major trends. The battle with a trend they cannot adapt to is fought with tenacity by swimming with the current, and then grabbing the first opportunity to swiftly turn the tide their way, so that their chief rivals have to follow them or turn turtle and quit! And if a trend is here to stay, the resiliency has to be permanent.
The also know how to change without really compromising either their principle or their art. Rather they try ingenious innovation and slip in art in their ‘commerce’.

Parameter 4: Working without favourities
Now this is a parameter which only a few composes have fulfilled. Most of the hyped names in the industry down the decades fail this vital test and stand exposed for their true worth vis-a-vis the genuine talents - recognised or underestimated. Remove the top one or two male and the top one or two female singers of a composer. Then assess his remaining repetoire on the previous criteria and of course popular appeal. The results will surprise you with their illuminating rays that penetrate all the masks and nullify the ‘certificates’ given by ‘authorities’ of all kinds.

Go then to the lyricists. Remove the most successful associate/associates. Again see that remains. Assess the calibre, mass-appeal and enduring power of the composer’s songs with other writers. Especially focus on their work with the less-successful ones and with those who have formed teams with rival composers. For example, assess S.D. Burman with Hasrat Jaipuri and Shailendra, who were basically S-J’s fixtures.
Finally remove all the filmmakers with whom they formed successful teams and evaluate the balance. The results will shock you!

Parameter 5: The competitive urge
This exposes the fighting spirit and dynamism of the composer and indirectly exhibits his self-confidence in his worth. Very often a big banner or director sign two or three different composers for films launched simultaneously. See who won, and do consider the director and the overall calibre of the film. A classic case was when LP, RD and Rajesh Roshan were simultaneously signed by Navketan in 1975 for Jaaneman, Bullet and Des Pardes. Also, what happens when a banner or filmmaker breaks a long-term association with a composer. What the composer achieves here is very illuminating.

Parameter 6: Their nature
This is the final ‘tie-breaker’ point. The genuine talent is confident even of his own self-confidence! This finds expression in genuine humility, accessibility, a congenial nature even when the odds are stacked against him (Roshan, Chitragupta, KA, RD, LP and Rajesh Roshan all passed this test with flying colours - and there are some others too!), rarely or never running down colleagues or juniors who have superceded them, and not cultivating media coverage or hype through sycophants. They simply don’t need to needlessly prove anything to anyone. They may complain (genuinely) about falling standards of music, but they will not lay the blame on a specific colleague who have bagged their banners!

Parameter 7: They should fulfill most of the parameters
So let our composers appear for this test and sift the grain from the chaff once the results are out! You will be more informed and less misguided music buffs from then on!

Rajiv Vijayakar