<p class="bodytext">I got addicted to film music as a child, long before the advent of the digital age. I grew up watching my dad play instruments with his amateur orchestra during performances for the local community. My addiction turned me into an amateur instrumentalist of sorts through college and my adult life, now into retirement.</p>.<p class="bodytext">During college days, in the early seventies, practising to play a song was an ordeal. Music was available only in the form of vinyl discs in select shops at prices that would drain the limited budget that was available to our team. We had to select very specific songs that were popular and, more importantly, those that could be performed with the limited instruments at our disposal. Remember, there were no electronic keyboards to reproduce any and all sounds. Amplifiers and speakers, apart from weighing a ton, were barely affordable. </p>.<p class="bodytext">There were no tape recorders or other devices to (re)play tracks at any speed to figure out the notes and tune. Almost all learning had to be done by repeatedly listening to the song and focusing on the pieces you needed to play. During any live performance, it was no mean task to position a 15-piece orchestra correctly on the stage, make sure all the instruments could be heard (many of them had no built-in amplification) and carefully eliminate feedback from various microphones. </p>.<p class="bodytext">Over the next decades, music went through the phases of tape recorders, CDs and Walkmans that enabled listening to, learning and playing songs at will. The explosion of the Internet had a telling effect, with online streaming becoming a way of life. Applications like YouTube revolutionised the way video and audio were recorded and distributed. Amateurs and professionals alike were not only putting out their performances online but also freely analysing and highlighting scales, notes, chords and a host of other information regarding each song. </p>.<p class="bodytext">Digital innovation gave birth to the wonderful, all-in-one instrument, the keyboard. It is truly a one-person army, making it possible to play every aspect of a film song, produced by geniuses like M S Viswanathan and RD Burman with the help of a hundred-member orchestra, on one instrument measuring something like 4 feet by 2 feet! Coupled with its ability to pre-programme different sounds and instruments, it is not uncommon to see a band of just two on stage – the singer and keyboardist!</p>.<p class="bodytext">As the saying goes, too much of even nectar could become poisonous. As technology races forward, with the likes of AI (artificial intelligence) taking over all aspects of life, music has also become a victim. Features like pitch correction and blending and mixing have eliminated the need for singers to be on pitch or various instruments of an orchestra to have to play together in harmony. Worse, music is being ‘produced’ on computer keyboards through machine intelligence – a takeover from the musical keyboard and other instruments. Many times, I wonder if the art form called music, as we, or at least I, knew it, is extinct.</p>
<p class="bodytext">I got addicted to film music as a child, long before the advent of the digital age. I grew up watching my dad play instruments with his amateur orchestra during performances for the local community. My addiction turned me into an amateur instrumentalist of sorts through college and my adult life, now into retirement.</p>.<p class="bodytext">During college days, in the early seventies, practising to play a song was an ordeal. Music was available only in the form of vinyl discs in select shops at prices that would drain the limited budget that was available to our team. We had to select very specific songs that were popular and, more importantly, those that could be performed with the limited instruments at our disposal. Remember, there were no electronic keyboards to reproduce any and all sounds. Amplifiers and speakers, apart from weighing a ton, were barely affordable. </p>.<p class="bodytext">There were no tape recorders or other devices to (re)play tracks at any speed to figure out the notes and tune. Almost all learning had to be done by repeatedly listening to the song and focusing on the pieces you needed to play. During any live performance, it was no mean task to position a 15-piece orchestra correctly on the stage, make sure all the instruments could be heard (many of them had no built-in amplification) and carefully eliminate feedback from various microphones. </p>.<p class="bodytext">Over the next decades, music went through the phases of tape recorders, CDs and Walkmans that enabled listening to, learning and playing songs at will. The explosion of the Internet had a telling effect, with online streaming becoming a way of life. Applications like YouTube revolutionised the way video and audio were recorded and distributed. Amateurs and professionals alike were not only putting out their performances online but also freely analysing and highlighting scales, notes, chords and a host of other information regarding each song. </p>.<p class="bodytext">Digital innovation gave birth to the wonderful, all-in-one instrument, the keyboard. It is truly a one-person army, making it possible to play every aspect of a film song, produced by geniuses like M S Viswanathan and RD Burman with the help of a hundred-member orchestra, on one instrument measuring something like 4 feet by 2 feet! Coupled with its ability to pre-programme different sounds and instruments, it is not uncommon to see a band of just two on stage – the singer and keyboardist!</p>.<p class="bodytext">As the saying goes, too much of even nectar could become poisonous. As technology races forward, with the likes of AI (artificial intelligence) taking over all aspects of life, music has also become a victim. Features like pitch correction and blending and mixing have eliminated the need for singers to be on pitch or various instruments of an orchestra to have to play together in harmony. Worse, music is being ‘produced’ on computer keyboards through machine intelligence – a takeover from the musical keyboard and other instruments. Many times, I wonder if the art form called music, as we, or at least I, knew it, is extinct.</p>
