Bahut sundar message aapka. Particularly the following para of yours in the previous post is indeed LAUDABLE.

“Ek suggestion hai, jaise aap Rafi ke criticism nahi jhel sakte theek usi tarah kishore, saigal, ghantashala tatha anya gayakon ke fans bhi apne apne idols ke baare mein bekaar ki baatein nahi sun na pasand karte hai. Yeh sandesh apne mitron tak pahooncha dijiyega krupaya…

Aur yahan pe hum sabhi gayakon ko sanman deke hi baat kar rahe the. Agar apmaan kahi se shuru hua to woh bin bulaye kuchh Rafi fans se hi hua hai. ”

Let us leave apart these issues and continue with our discussions.

Paramjeet and Arghya ji,

Srivas ji had responded in divine voice with reference to kishore kumar’s talent in musical scores. It was a interesting post. Have you seen it ?

R V Murthy ji,

Vitthal ji is another music lover who enlightened us about ghantasala and I request you to please read the discussions between myself, Arghya, paramjeet, satyansh, srivas etc. with vitthal ji, in this thread and also in the divine voice thread wherein many interesting posts have been made.

I have read those arguments by others with great interest, and I am not of that view/opinion, as are my friends, who are also trained in Hindustani (and Carnatic) classical music. IMHO one does not have to have a minutest following of Kishore’s singing to realize that he was not cut out for that genre. To each his own.

Paramjeet, I am not sure what comments you are reading, or what sources you have, but I have never ever mixed religion with music anywhere. Have you mixed religion with music ?. Can you please clarify ?. I’d like it if you don’t ask me questions about topics I have not written about or come anywhere near.
Also in the future, I’d pefer it if you write in English, and if for any reason you are unable to, then I believe any interaction between us cannot go forward.

@Rafi fan: (regarding ji, sir, sahab, etc)
Its nice that you have put your opinion here. However, it has happened many times, both here and mohdrafi.com that sometimes we addressed somebody in singular, and later came to know that they were way too elder in age. It may not embrass you, but many of us do get embrassed after knowing that. Moreover, if you believe its “fake”, its harmless fake after all

In the same gesture, there is no way I can address Anil Cherian in singular. Of course, even he has ALWAYS reciprocrated kindly all the time not just towards me, but countless many others who are kind of junior than him. I will never ever forget the way he called a certain Parth on orkut as “Kidbro”. This has got nothing to do with Internet, its the way it should be with Indians and will never be forgotten. So even if I and Anil will argue endlessly over many things, the RESPECT will always be there for him.

Of course, many at mohdrafi.com are way too senior and elder for us to not address them with respect. Notwithstanding this respect we put our opinion clearly though

Btw, its really ironical that in this INTERNET ERA, you call yourself a fan of Rafi, when strictly speaking you should be fan of “BYTES” as you may have not really heard Rafi either on LP records or cassettes

Aapke message sundar dikhte hai.

Magar ek baat kehna chahata hoon aap se idhar, Rafi and kishore are the singers who stole hearts of many many people spanning generations, it is really sad to see people fighting here over both singers, really it is a sad development. It is really very difficult to get singers of that calibre for generations.

Aapkon ek baat mein badhayi dena chahata hoon ki, aapne aur arghya saab ne bade dil se southern music ke bare me acchi tara se baatchit ki hai, aap jaise sundar sangeet premiyon ko mera shubhkamnayein. Another man is satyansh saab, who too discusses greatly about singers, specially kishore kumar and saigal and whose posts have made really interesting to read.

Post 1712 - R V Murthy saab,

Ghantasala, What a range and voice. His modulations are superhuman. Classical songs which you have given the link - shiva shankari and rasika raja - he takes one to heavens that is all I can say. Never heard such great songs in films by any singer - true from my heart comes this comment.

Remaining songs are all lovely songs - the melodious duet is great, the solo romantic ragamayee rave - yes yes very very difficult to sing, but the singer sings quite easily.

The devotional dinakara subhakara- woh, I was literally carried away by the song and the taans he had executed easily.

Such magnificient singer as great as ghantasala is not known to punjabi people at all, even it is difficult to believe if such singer has ever existed.

SPB is famous among southern singers, as he has sung in hindi cinemas as well. By the way did ghantasala ji sing any hindi song murthy saab?

All the north people are mainly fans of rafi and kishore in majority and literally rafi and kishore are the only singers for the north people as they do not have much knowledge in southern music and its great singers. And it is not a exagerration to say that many people in the north will never believe that any singer can exist greater than rafi or kishore. But sure, ghantasala appears to be such a singer who can be called a “dhruva tara” in playback singing . It would be really interesting to know if he has sung any hindi song, and if so, the relevant links may please be shared here.

Assume that all the eleven players in a team are all-rounders. In that case there will be not much thrill as even after 5 wickets that team can comfortably chase down 8 runs per over for over 20-30 overs. Similarly, if all the pieces of chess were queens, there would be monotonicity. However, a detailed follower of the chess game never underestimates even the importance of a SIMPLE pawn even in favor of the powerful queen. This is how more or less everything is about music too. I really apologise for being preachy.

Let us ask ourself why should PBS or Mukesh be able to sing variety of songs? Range? Etc?

Back to PBS. To the best of what I know, PBS was more successful in Kannada than in telugu. I had two HMV cassettes of his and there was enough variation in that songs of different genres were there, and each was sung perfectly . Please give your opinion of this song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oARTj-15baA
For me, the emotions, expressions, etc are complete in this song. As I said some posts back, see this version of SPB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ocfGhVCPbQ Though the spb version is not bad, it does not come close with PBS version. Thus, my overall opinion is that though all-rounders are good, we require specialized players too

If there are still doubts, I would like to clarify them.

i’m perfectly tolerant of the criticism for rafi. so i don’t know what you mean when you say i can’t bear to hear the criticism of rafi that i may for others. there are songs of his that i’m not particularly fond of. a good example is yamma yamma yamma with asha. o i know that the scene required some cacophony for fun and rafi was acting it out (rather than singing) but i didn’t like it. big deal - you can’t always please everyone. i’m fully aware, that rafi, like any other singer, had his shortcomings. i have no problem accepting the truth or the reality. but he was still the greatest i don’t have much criticism for the other singers. they were great. it’s just that rafi was the greatest

arghya,

i don’t think i was being edgy but i’ll take your word. rafi’s classical limitation is something that some kishore fans just love to beat to death and use it as their premise. they keep repeatng it ad nauseum and speaking as if this is some novel discovery that was not mentioned before but more importantly they speak of it without regard for its limited relevance (limited indeed, despite the fundamental nature of rudimentary classical training which rafi was qualified for).

RV Murthy,

i had heard all those songs you posted. yes, my post was subjective as a lot of music is. ghantasala has a very deep voice to the point that it overshadows, for most of the time, whatever sweetness or velvet smooth quality he has in his voice. i know this is subjective and hard to interpret (and bear for a big fan of any singer) so i don’t blame you. i think of kishore in “mere samne wali khidkhi mein”. his voice here is velvet smooth and sweet. that outstanding song posted by arghya, “ami chini go chini” - his voice & expressions are out of the world. these songs were from 1968 and 1964 respectively. than kishore, when he is older (to be fair to him), in the 80s, sings those songs again. by then, his voice isn’t as it was but more so it has become very deep. the deep voice just overshadows the original sweetness & velvet that a younger kishore kumar had. a 60s kishore kumar, like rafi, had a voice that was the perfect balance of a voice not too deep but not too light either. of course, ghantasala’s deep voice had its unique advantages (so he loses in some but wins in cases like this). i listen to those ghantasala songs and they just don’t have the same natural nuances and richness of voice that rafi’s fun songs have. purely my opinion. i’m happy with your music, i’m happy with mine. we’re both happy. ghantasala is versatile (as is rafi) but rafi is far superior in romantic and fun songs than ghantasala. ghantasala is superior when it comes to very technical songs (and his deep voice lets him enunciate).

suhana safar (1970)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbhK0uOtcGY

kishore’s ami chini go chini

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyAUJ_RE_4Y

i love this yesudas, fun, romantic song from salil choudhury’s choti si baat. this is what i have in mind when i sing rafi’s praise for a velvet, sweet voice that is fun and with natural nuances.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o6bD5EutOQ&feature=related

I think Mr. Vitthal is correct in one way. P B Srinivas is good, but I have never seen PBS singing any songs in the extreme high pitches and octaves, which ghantasala comfortably takes.
See no offence - my point is the range of voice of PBS was such that it cannot go to a wider range. His voice was built like that. Naturally, high pitch/octave songs cannot be effectively rendered in such voice. Similarly, (i am talking of his telugu songs only - not kannada, as I have not heard them) the expression wise, for e.g. tragic or comedy or sentimental, the degree of expressions certainly are to a lesser degree. For e.g. if you take yeh nimishaaniki of ghantasala from lava kusa (an emotional rendering with beautiful expressions) or even SPB rendering Sankara song (with good roudra devotion expressions) PBS range was certainly limited (in my view based upon telugu songs of PBS) and I am yet to hear PBS taking such emotional expression ranges. I request you to kindly enlighten us with respect to any songs of above ranges in the voice of PBS and it will be interesting to hear. Yes, PBS is one of the sweet voices in his own way among the southern singers and is nice to hear.

In Hindi rafi could sing high pitches nicely and as you referred again same case with mukesh, and in my view mukesh range was similar to PBS, and I am yet to hear any mukesh songs where he had taken good high pitches as that of mohd. rafi.

Mukesh, PBS etc. are nice, but if you consider above factors, the limited range statement appears correct in my view.

Jab aap khud maante hai ki Rafi classically professional nahi the aur unki gayaki ko ek film playback singer ke hisaab se hi lena chahiye to thoda aap ke colleagues jaise Anil, Myk, Rafibhakt ko bhi thoda yehi baat samjha dijiyega.

Aaap ka itna shor shoraba fuzool ka hai. Arghyaji kuchh aur bole aur aap kuchh alag track pe hi awaaz laga rahe hai.

Ek suggestion hai, jaise aap Rafi ke criticism nahi jhel sakte theek usi tarah kishore, saigal, ghantashala tatha anya gayakon ke fans bhi apne apne idols ke baare mein bekaar ki baatein nahi sun na pasand karte hai. Yeh sandesh apne mitron tak pahooncha dijiyega krupaya…

Aur yahan pe hum sabhi gayakon ko sanman deke hi baat kar rahe the. Agar apmaan kahi se shuru hua to woh bin bulaye kuchh Rafi fans se hi hua hai.

Dhani Ram sahab research mein lag gaye lagta hai saigal ke upar?

Myk pehle yeh to bataao aap ne kaise music ke saath religion mix kiya tha aur kyun?

Largely subjective post, on one side you admit ghantasala’s superiority and versatality, and another side you put the rafi wagon again - completely not clear.

I wholly disagree with you when you say ghantasala’s voice was not velvet. I am sure you have not heard his melodious songs which have a velvet melodious touch. (I request you to please visit ghantasala.info and hear the songs pasted there in, you will get what I have stated) You are correct, his voice had great depth, consistently very clear and his songs are very hard to sing and to replicate. This is because, his mastery over technique of his style of singing was altogether different and attractive (which he developed on his own). You just try to sing one ghantasala song and you will see how difficult it will be to replicate.

You were mentioning about fun songs. Please hear this fun song (Which Mr. Satyansh was referring here)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0uW8RGCkZc&feature=related

These melodious songs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLt8TQppsw0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEQHfH812fs&feature=related

Classical filmy exemplaries

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvg3dZ2r7Xg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Zi5Cxu4Gc&feature=related

Just try to sing this song, romantic solo how difficult it will be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th5Yh73c1Rc

Devotional (just see the command over music, modulation levels and comfort)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux49blEXTds&feature=related

Rafi fan ji, just hear the above and give your views. I admire your post and your regard for rafi as well.

thanks.