INDIAN MUSICAL and VISUAL GRAND SPECTACLE NEVER SEEN BEFORE, or SINCE... 'Tohfa' or 'Storm' 'New Wave' Hindi film of 1982 was of the family drama and romantic 'weather-extreme'! The song 'Gori Tere Ang Ang Main'/ 'Your Fair Beauty Makes Me Get Love Pangs'. If we try to define 'New Wave' in Hindi Cinema of the 1980s we may come up with a complex expression of changing politics and reaction to increasing Globalisation in a previously insular and 'closed market' India. On one hand we have Musical Maestro Bappi Lahiri's fascination with Western Pop Music and his measured but radical experiments with Eletronic Sequencers [a computer driver which MIDI musical information is keyed in at slow speed then played back reapeatedly or unhumanly rapidly] and this was complimented with colourful but quite Western Orchestration that demanded some new and highly virtuosic musicianship, particularly from drummers and violinists.
Hindu Scholars criticised New Wave Orchestration as 'Subversive' due to VIOLIN upward scale runs as, "aural symbolism of orgasm"...
ORCHESTRATION
Let us Analyse this 'Indian' Western Pop Song FORM [sections over time]...
INTRO
The INTRO is in FOUR SECTIONS which are a VARIATION and PREVIEW of the CHORUS material.
A huge orchestral TUTTI [all instruments play same rhythm or melody] on tuned and untuned PERCUSSION [instruments you hit] including TABLA [Indian tuned floor hand drums] and small dishes of water tuned to the scale. VIOLINS bow a strong repeated note on the start of each repetition. Other traditional strings like SAROD and SITAR [Indian Lutes] and MANDOLIN [Italian Lute] plus keyboard bass note. This first section of the INTRO plays the scale of the song rather like CHINESE FIVE NOTE/PENTATONIC steps.
The second section keeps now a single note on four beats of the bar with FLUTE scale runs and FEMALE CHOIR singing IMITATION [copying] what the VIOLINS did in the first section with interacton from the FLUTES.
The third section is the speeding up of the PERCUSSION to high speed quaver half notes and hard-bowed 'snaking' upward VIOLIN scale run energetically leaps up two octaves. The DRUMS rest but all other instruments repeat the first section melody on a new rhythm with repeated notes and syncopation but an ocatave higher in pitch to give a sense of having 'moved' up somewhere. The secion CADENCES [musical full stops] down.
The final section of the INTRO starts the TABLA drum beat and a final VARIATION on the first section melody material is sung on the Indian note names by the FEMALE CHOIR: "Sa Sa Sa Sa, Ma Ma Ma Ma, Ga Ga Ga Ga, Re Re Re Re". The VIOLINS interject with ANTIPHONAL [question and answer] CADENCE parts leading to a direct one octave upward energising VIOLIN scale-run to launch female singer to an ALAAP [mood setting vocal vowel] answered by the male ALAAP in ANTIPHONY. The PERCUSSION and ORCHESTRA give three TUTTI strikes with ZITHER scale run down CADENCES before the CHORUS begins.
CHORUS
Male PLAYBACK SINGER [professional CINE singers who record backing tapes for actors with average voices to mime to in film songs] KISHORE KUMAR sings unaccompanied [to give listeners a rest from melodic instruments] in rhythmic single phrases with ANTIPHONAL CADENCIAL drum beats at the end of each line. After four phrases KISHORE hold a long note, and cleverly, the 'movement' moves to the DRUM fill-in starting. Lines are repeated and lyrics and rhymes are simple over a standard TABLA rhythm.
The LAYERED [not Western Harmony but melodic notes played behind sung melody repeats] VIOLINS are curious. They alternate between a sort of UNISION [playing what singer is performing] and 'independent' backing line for contrast?
Repeats of CHORUS later have VIOLINS in IMITATION of INTRO sudden notes after phrases as CADENCES but at a higher octave for variety and sense of 'hightened excitement'developing in the song. By the third repeat the VIOLINS lower the register and make two note trilling CADENCES for more thrill and VARIETY.
BRIDGES
BRIDGE 01 is a VARIATION on the INTRO with the TUTTI melodic figure in a new rhythm with the CHOIR 'Sa Sa Sa' ANTIPHONAL with VIOLIN CADENCES then development of the CHOIR phrase. The SHEHNAI [Traditional Oboe] brings a new VARIATION of the CHORUS in a new TIMBRE. VIOLINS 'skate' around on middle register until CADENCING to VERSE in high stabs.
BRIDGE 02 offers PERCUSSION TUTTI to contrast busy texture with something thin. A high FLUTE offers a new sound followed by FEMALE CHOIR and swirling upward VIOLIN cadences.
VERSE
Typically the VERSE is MODULATED [change scale] up to the area of the FIFTH NOTE - 'Pa'/ 'Soh'. ASHA BHONSLE the female PLAYBACK SINGER starts the ANTIPHONAL longer phrases with KISHORE KUMAR for variety. ASHA'S voice, like the VIOLINS, is heavily REVERBED [electronic echo] making for a piercing sharp thrill. KISHORE's voice is more mellow to counter the sharp SOPRANO sounds of ASHA and VIOLINS.
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