Thread by @ksinamdar

I don’t think this is a problem with just individuals. Urban life and lifestyle has been a major culprit in this. We have been able to increase our standard of living but not the standard of life. Let me compare this to a phenomenon that I observed in Indian film music. -1

https://twitter.com/granny_1857/status/1483001596275429379

Till early 80s composers and arrangers worked mostly with acoustic instruments. Emphasis was on the ‘composition’ and not on the ‘sound’. ‘Sound’ was an ornament not the soul of the song. With the advent of the synthesiser, things started changing. -2

Here was an instrument that cloned many instruments and offered a million ‘sounds’. Suddenly, it now became imperative for songs to have a new ‘sound’. This changed something very fundamental in the production of Indian film music. ‘Sound’ became the soul of a song -3

and composition became incidental. More and more keyboardists became music composers. They started experimenting with sounds and so they started treating singers in the same manner as well. More and more singers sang less and less. Everybody wanted a change of sound even if -4

the composition remained dreary. As a result, songs began to sound more and more technically polished but less and less hummable. ‘Different sound’ replaced ‘good composition’ as the mainstay of a song. Now my take is that the same thing happened with our standard of life. -5

We became interested in more and more materialistic things. We started ignoring the basic ‘composition’ and became interested in the superficial world of ‘sounds’. More you interact with technology, the less you interact with actual people. Then you lose the connection with -6

them. I have seen couples who focus more on the ‘composition’ than on the ‘sound’ do much better with each other. Relationships change. In the city life, they change faster. The secret is to keep reinventing them. Do the simple things in life. Talk. Take walks. Cook together. -7

Read aloud, sing together, attend music concerts, art exhibitions, stay connected with each other’s dreams. Look at the world together and not just at each other. Accept change. Focus on the composition, the sound will follow. -8. /End.