It isn’t uncommon, especially in Indian Cinema, to see other forms of art, like music, modified to supplement film. When initially dance performances, short plays, and boxing matches were added in between to make films more attractive, these turned into modern dance numbers and fight sequences incorporated into the story as films evolved. Traditional art forms were altered with changing media and the advent of new forms of media in the early 20th century, first with silent films and later with talkies. Performance mediums like music and dance now had the opportunity to be displayed to a larger audience, and films had the chance to use existing art forms to aid their storytelling. Taking music and film’s evolution together, they formed a new genre of film songs and later opened up playback singing, which involves recording audio tracks of one person singing and substituting it for the actor’s voice, as a new profession.
Sound first came to Tamil cinema as the four-reeler(the length of a film was indicated by the number of reels long it was), which consisted of sequences of semi-classical songs and dances. With sound came music, and Papanasam Sivan is said to be the maestro who made film music popular in South India in the 1930s.
Working Still from the Film Naveena Sarangadhara Featuring S.D.Subbulakshmi
Naveena Sarngadhara was directed by K.Subramaniam had the songs composed by Papanasam Sivan
PC: From the archives of TCRC
The songs in most of the early talkies were songs adapted from drama companies for film, which brought singers to the cinema rather than actors who couldn’t sing. Since early film musicians were drawn from the stage, stage performers clearly brought an influence, but most classical compositions had to adapt for the screen. To make films socially acceptable to the upper classes, they looked for a change through the use of Carnatic music to make it a more “respectable” medium. Since the advent of talkies, the world of cinema was seen as vulgar to the extent that barely anyone wanted to be associated with the industry. Sambur Vadagarai Subbaiah Bhagavathar was the first from the classical music scene to enter cinema along with Mahajapuram Viswanatha Iyer in Nandanur in the 30s. However, the film didn’t do well despite having two Carnatic music personalities when the negative caught fire and the filmmakers were accused by an insurer of sabotage. The star-singing era stretched from the 1930s into the 40s, when actors had to be able to sing as well as act, and the songs were recorded with an overhead mic while orchestras played behind the mic; at the same time, the ‘Tamizh Isai’ movement was born which contended that musicians from Tamil Nadu were only to sing in Tamil and not Telugu. The movement had ties to the Dravidian Self-Respect movement as well.
Working Still from the Film KAMBAR (also called KALVIYIN VETTRI)
A film that S. V. S. Bhagavathar acted and sung in
PC: From the archives of TCRC
During the 1940s, cinema-centred music culture was created from the emergence of film songs. The songs were shorter and had influences from multiple music genres, and only the features of a raga that made it identifiable as such were maintained. For a while, since Tamil talkies were made in studios in Calcutta, the influence of Western music that had seeped into Calcutta started affecting Tamil and Telugu films as well. The resulting South Indian film songs were a blend of traditional Carnatic and Hindustani music, Folk music, and Western pop. With music being mass-produced in South India for films and making it more accessible, the new genre of film music threatened traditional hierarchies. It marginalised the standing of Carnatic music and musical drama that had so far maintained a position at the top of the “hierarchy” of music in society.
Working Still from the Film Nandhakumar,
Featuring T.P. RAJALAKSHMI and T.R.Mahalingam from the magazine Cine Art Review 1937
A.V. Meyyappan, who was accredited to introducing playback singing, has also been attributed to bringing about dubbing in different languages and shooting on-location. Playback singing in South India started with Meyyappan’s decision to replace the voice of the actress who played Devaki voice in Nanda Kumar, which he found lacking, with Lalitha Venkataraman’s voice. By the end of the 1940s, playback singing had become common. Playback singers have been given considerable importance and recognition in Indian Films considering the contrasting amount of discourse in Hollywood from the fact that Christopher Plummer’s original vocals were cut from ‘The Sound of Music’ to more recently (in the 21st Century) when Zac Efron’s vocals in ‘High School Musical’ were replaced. Indian Playback singing has widely been given its due, and playback singers are openly credited for their work. With new technology in music production, some producers are using tech instead of the “traditional” method of recording and producing music and though this has received some backlash, as change usually does, it opened up film music to incorporate new genres and attract new audiences. Despite this use of technology, traditional methods are still an irreplaceable part of South Indian film music seeing that they are still used in conjunction by highly-regarded Music Directors like A.R. Rahman, Ilayaraja, and Santhosh Narayanan. To this day, playback continues to be prevalent in South Indian Film Industries, with singers like K.S. Chithra, K.J. Yesudas, S.P. Balasubramanyam, S. Janaki, and countless others, the sheer number of which should indicate the importance of this profession in South Indian Cinema. However, there has been a new trend of actors doing their vocals more recently with actors like Dhanush, Kamal Haasan, Shruti Haasan, and Nithya Menen.
About the Author: Sarayu Sankriti Kaushik:
Sarayu is an undergraduate student currently interning at TCRC. Having always been interested in all forms of art, she is currently pursuing a B.A. degree in Literature and Arts.
The Cinema Resource Centre (TCRC) 