Music – Is it dying?

People keep saying that music is dying and the current era of music is no match to the golden era of 60s & 70s. While there is truth to an extent to this, importantly, for me music will never die. Let me state, before I write further, I am no expert in music and these are purely personal opinion based on my experience and what I have seen & heard.

Earlier, music used to be played only at certain locations (concerts/cinemas/radios) and hence, viewers could get to listen only in parts and that too infrequently when they get chance. Now, public has plenty of choices, they can store the same music in their mobile/Ipods/laptops/pen drives/CDs and can hear it any number of times in a single day. From personal experience, I have the same song in my mobile, laptop & pen drive, and play it as per convenience. If viewers could hear a song once a week earlier (50 times a year), now they can play the song in loop and hear it 50 times in a single day.

Because of infrequent hearing, the longevity of a song was longer earlier and it has definitely shrunk now. Also, the purity of music now is not the same as earlier, lot of copying (imbibing as some would say), mixing n matching music without bothering whether it improves the quality or not are also having negative impact.

These points apply to films also. Earlier films used to run for 175+ days (golden jubilee/diamond jubilee etc), but if a film runs for 25 days now, it is declared hit. Again this is due to frequent viewing, large scale release etc., which are the same with music too.

Having said that, good music will live long. People who look for purity, quality and lovers of karnatic music still throng the December music festival. So much that, there is demand for passes and good singers/musicians are booked in advance (some time the previous year itself).

Music is like the river – It will keep flowing and will take the shape & colour through which it passes. If it was all about classical music earlier, it is all about westernization, imbibing the rock & pop culture now. If we heard only classical music earlier, now we get to hear and enjoy wide range of music.

As they say, we Indians need music in some form for every occasion – be it birth or marriage or death and this will not change for years/decades to come.