Published in 1993-4?
Jameer Khan has been blowing his trumpet for various bands for over 14 years now, and he is not smiling about it. Not that life has been fun lately Unlike most other itinerant musicians of his ilk who return to agricultural pursuits during the off season, he must eke out living in Delhi itself and his current vocation is painting walls, furniture, or anything else people will pay him for.
"Music has always been in my family's blood," he declares proudly sitting on a rickety chair by a begrutten wall during a breather, but he would rather that his son grew up into a carpenter or some such thing rather than ever become a trumpeter. Why, I ask and he rejoins with a litany, "The playing season seldom lasts beyond four months, salaries are poor and uncertain, upward mobility, social or professional, is unheard of and there are niggardly compensations to look forward to ... and boy the music nowadays! Carpenters at least never need to sit idle or lay bricks!" he retorts.
He is not alone in this unrewarding profession. Delhi is teeming with brass bands that are virtually mandatory on social occasions. Most musicians hail from poor families with a tradition of professional playing. They invariably come from outside Delhi hoping to make that extra exiguous buck during the peak marriage season or Ramlila when there is an unlimited demand for anybody who can blow a horn or beat a drum.
Ramlila is the big moment when all the musicians and bands look to make the mark that will set the tone for the seguing season. Amidst the festivities, bands from all over Delhi vie to out do each other as the reputations established here are irrefragable determinants of a band's demand and prices. "This is the only time we truly rehearse," Jameer Khan blurts, and some of the sessions stretch for really long periods - sometimes a new tune may take a week to master though "experts" manage in a few hours. Then there are the old favorites that have to be reprised. A good band must be prepared to satisfy all sorts of requests.
Once the season commences life lapses into a familiar pattern. “We want our band to create the right impression," says Madan Lal, the proprietor of Anand Band, "We provide the outfits and the instruments and strive to arrange for the transport. There are a set of musicians on contract, but the number that actually goes out to play varies with the client's requirement and demand."
The musicians themselves know the routine by heart. "A lot of us would make excellent postmen," jokes Mahammad Rajan, a clarinet player with the Popular Band. The work begins with sniffing out the right address and this can be rather cumbersome. In unknown localities when several marriages are being organized in close vicinity, bands preening away at wrong addresses before being displaced by rightful rivals is hardly unknown.
The playing itself is distressingly monotonous. Songs like Aaj mere yaar ki shadi hai and Babul ki duyaen leti ja are the meat and potatoes of every marriage and after a bow to them, the bands launch into the current standards - these nowadays being headed by the ubiquitious Amma dekh and numbers from recent movies like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Chand Ka Tukda. Occasionally a request is made that certain band members are unfamiliar with, but this is rarely a deterrent as chords are struck and impromptu improvisations made.
"We are prepared to play anything as out salaries are peripheral really”, elaborates Mohammed Rajan. "What we are always looking forward to are the tips we get. Our proprietors do not seek shares here and the total tips work out larger then the pay itself. That is why sometimes musicians are prepared to play for a pittance... foot is rarely served to us but sometimes liquor bottles are provided after the show and I suppose a tipple is alright after a hard night's blowing.”
The flexible repertoire and the ability to instantly draw on a variety of styles is a major draw of these bands. The same set of people happily play movie songs, bhajans, Punjabi songs and a lot else, sometimes all on the same night. Competence levels may be pretty average and more often than not most notes sound alarmingly alike even if played in dissonance, but their efforts seldom fail to enthuse Indian revelers who are generally too inebriated to appreciate nuances of any sort.
The idea is really to have some lights and a beat to wiggle at. The bands seldom believe in displays of virtuosity or setting the tempo, they just adjust to the mood, especially now with trolleys having been banned by Delhi Administration on account of noise and traffic problems and the concomitant loss of vocalists who could communicate with the listeners.
Marriages constitute the single largest chunk of a band's engagements but the calendar includes several other events. A man's association with a band lasts a life time, quips Mohammed Rajan's cohort, "we play at the birth, the thread ceremony, marriage, even death. The world is incomplete without us." Now of course with the emphasis on ostentation mounting, bands have become omniscient, playing at jagrans, processions, even birth day parties, playing the same old rhythms with their numbers being symbolic of the client's status.
Loud music on public occasions has definitely been a constant in Indian culture and with time, rather than emphasizing on quality, decibel levels have gone up. One reason that the brass bands supplanted the pipe players of the yore was probably their ability to really spank the ear-drums. The new orchestras that are coming in routinely use microphones and amplifiers to make quire a din, and with their vocalist they have the advantage of putting up real shows. Does that make any difference to the way the traditional bands conduct their business?
Chander Prakash at Anand Band sees some of the better musicians migrating to the more lucrative orchestras but this is hardly a significant phenomenon. "None of us depend solely on music for our livelihood and our skills are not extraordinary either. But we are willing to walk and our music envelops our listeners who believe we play just for them as we stand in little circles around anybody who wants to move to our music . We offer immediacy and we are an inalienable part of the Indian tradition. As long as traditions live we will be too," he says.
Despite the penury, there is pride in the playing. "Some of us have our problems with breathing, but our breath brightens other people's lives," says Jammer Khan. Poverty may ultimately force his kids out of the hereditary profession but die-hards like Mohammed Rajan say that all in all it’s not such a bad life. "Sleep in the day, blow for a few hours at night and sometimes somebody calls you 'master saab'. Its not too great but its okay."
Jameer Khan has been blowing his trumpet for various bands for over 14 years now, and he is not smiling about it. Not that life has been fun lately Unlike most other itinerant musicians of his ilk who return to agricultural pursuits during the off season, he must eke out living in Delhi itself and his current vocation is painting walls, furniture, or anything else people will pay him for.
"Music has always been in my family's blood," he declares proudly sitting on a rickety chair by a begrutten wall during a breather, but he would rather that his son grew up into a carpenter or some such thing rather than ever become a trumpeter. Why, I ask and he rejoins with a litany, "The playing season seldom lasts beyond four months, salaries are poor and uncertain, upward mobility, social or professional, is unheard of and there are niggardly compensations to look forward to ... and boy the music nowadays! Carpenters at least never need to sit idle or lay bricks!" he retorts.
He is not alone in this unrewarding profession. Delhi is teeming with brass bands that are virtually mandatory on social occasions. Most musicians hail from poor families with a tradition of professional playing. They invariably come from outside Delhi hoping to make that extra exiguous buck during the peak marriage season or Ramlila when there is an unlimited demand for anybody who can blow a horn or beat a drum.
Ramlila is the big moment when all the musicians and bands look to make the mark that will set the tone for the seguing season. Amidst the festivities, bands from all over Delhi vie to out do each other as the reputations established here are irrefragable determinants of a band's demand and prices. "This is the only time we truly rehearse," Jameer Khan blurts, and some of the sessions stretch for really long periods - sometimes a new tune may take a week to master though "experts" manage in a few hours. Then there are the old favorites that have to be reprised. A good band must be prepared to satisfy all sorts of requests.
Once the season commences life lapses into a familiar pattern. “We want our band to create the right impression," says Madan Lal, the proprietor of Anand Band, "We provide the outfits and the instruments and strive to arrange for the transport. There are a set of musicians on contract, but the number that actually goes out to play varies with the client's requirement and demand."
The musicians themselves know the routine by heart. "A lot of us would make excellent postmen," jokes Mahammad Rajan, a clarinet player with the Popular Band. The work begins with sniffing out the right address and this can be rather cumbersome. In unknown localities when several marriages are being organized in close vicinity, bands preening away at wrong addresses before being displaced by rightful rivals is hardly unknown.
The playing itself is distressingly monotonous. Songs like Aaj mere yaar ki shadi hai and Babul ki duyaen leti ja are the meat and potatoes of every marriage and after a bow to them, the bands launch into the current standards - these nowadays being headed by the ubiquitious Amma dekh and numbers from recent movies like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Chand Ka Tukda. Occasionally a request is made that certain band members are unfamiliar with, but this is rarely a deterrent as chords are struck and impromptu improvisations made.
"We are prepared to play anything as out salaries are peripheral really”, elaborates Mohammed Rajan. "What we are always looking forward to are the tips we get. Our proprietors do not seek shares here and the total tips work out larger then the pay itself. That is why sometimes musicians are prepared to play for a pittance... foot is rarely served to us but sometimes liquor bottles are provided after the show and I suppose a tipple is alright after a hard night's blowing.”
The flexible repertoire and the ability to instantly draw on a variety of styles is a major draw of these bands. The same set of people happily play movie songs, bhajans, Punjabi songs and a lot else, sometimes all on the same night. Competence levels may be pretty average and more often than not most notes sound alarmingly alike even if played in dissonance, but their efforts seldom fail to enthuse Indian revelers who are generally too inebriated to appreciate nuances of any sort.
The idea is really to have some lights and a beat to wiggle at. The bands seldom believe in displays of virtuosity or setting the tempo, they just adjust to the mood, especially now with trolleys having been banned by Delhi Administration on account of noise and traffic problems and the concomitant loss of vocalists who could communicate with the listeners.
Marriages constitute the single largest chunk of a band's engagements but the calendar includes several other events. A man's association with a band lasts a life time, quips Mohammed Rajan's cohort, "we play at the birth, the thread ceremony, marriage, even death. The world is incomplete without us." Now of course with the emphasis on ostentation mounting, bands have become omniscient, playing at jagrans, processions, even birth day parties, playing the same old rhythms with their numbers being symbolic of the client's status.
Loud music on public occasions has definitely been a constant in Indian culture and with time, rather than emphasizing on quality, decibel levels have gone up. One reason that the brass bands supplanted the pipe players of the yore was probably their ability to really spank the ear-drums. The new orchestras that are coming in routinely use microphones and amplifiers to make quire a din, and with their vocalist they have the advantage of putting up real shows. Does that make any difference to the way the traditional bands conduct their business?
Chander Prakash at Anand Band sees some of the better musicians migrating to the more lucrative orchestras but this is hardly a significant phenomenon. "None of us depend solely on music for our livelihood and our skills are not extraordinary either. But we are willing to walk and our music envelops our listeners who believe we play just for them as we stand in little circles around anybody who wants to move to our music . We offer immediacy and we are an inalienable part of the Indian tradition. As long as traditions live we will be too," he says.
Despite the penury, there is pride in the playing. "Some of us have our problems with breathing, but our breath brightens other people's lives," says Jammer Khan. Poverty may ultimately force his kids out of the hereditary profession but die-hards like Mohammed Rajan say that all in all it’s not such a bad life. "Sleep in the day, blow for a few hours at night and sometimes somebody calls you 'master saab'. Its not too great but its okay."
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