Alfie

Sometimes the problem with music, in fact often the problem with lack of musical knowledge, is lack of exposure.

Where in Delhi would one get to hear and experience Swing or Bebop? Forget Stride! Even good classical music? We do have an annual mediocre-ly performed opera by the neemrana foundation, but its often appropriated and Indianised.

Where then, my non existent readers, does one experience different forms of music, and get the opportunity to decide whether they like it or not?

After years of observing the music "scene" in Delhi from various perspectives, this is the epiphany I had, over a burger at the Hard Rock Cafe (as I told a new friend and musician who had a terrible time dealing with a recent rejection from an audition, I've had all my better epiphanies eating good burgers)

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Exposure defines the course of culture. It does. Its the music, the movies, the dance, the culture thats bombarded over every form of digital and performing media that infects the masses. Infects here is a good word. Every form of art has its merits, but its unfair to judge an art form one doesnt have much exposure too, or classify it as being an elitist form or as jazz is often referred to in India... "Elevator music" (as it is often found playing softly in 5 star hotel lobbies and elevators, which is strange because often the same people who call it elevator music call it an elitist form of music)

Do remember that Jazz was originally the poor mans music. It was pop. It was looked down upon by the blue blooded gentry even.

I'd like to try a social experiment. Adopt a small village in some remote corner of India, spend a few years teaching them English (possibly by letting loose a herd of Christian missionaries... umm... school of? pack of?) And then slowly replace all the local bollywood media with European Classical (none of that American contemporary John Adams crap) and early jazz and blues. Im talking Bach, (my favorite) Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Strauss, Mozart, Verdi, Scarlatti, Bizet to Scott Joplin, James P Johnson, (my other favorite) Art Tatum, Fats Waller....

Also the movies... I'd select the musically rich Astaires and Kellys, that I feel are amongst those that provided the initial inspiration and structure of the still song and dance rich Bollywood movies.

I wonder how that town would look after a few months, how people would talk, how they would interact. Would this affect the general aggressive North Indian male behavior? Would it produce a breed of locals that would identify that tune im humming as A kiss to build a dream on rather than Paheli from Parineeta (As it was in a Thermodynamics class in college by the guy sitting next to me)?

And imagine the kids growing up in that environment, the fashion, the food choices even!

You get where im going with this, right?

Im not a snob. I listen to everything. And enjoy it. But is it my fault that I prefer the sublime melodic compositions of Chopin over those of some crass, in your face Bollywood number, written for the express intent of drawing an easily titillated public into a theatre?

Sigh

Just a little bit of a snob then.

Oh... I almost forgot. I called this post Alfie, because I came across a gorgeous arrangement of the piece by Preston Keys in an old Journal style piano magazine called The Piano Stylist, that im sure my adopted village would have loved.

Coming soon: What does one mean by an arrangement of a song and more about The Piano Stylist

Say what?