There is a lot that budding singers can learn by participating in reality-based singing competitions. Participating in such competitions teaches children and youngsters “responsibility towards the audience” and makes them “tough”.
These are the encouraging words of noted Carnatic vocalist P. Unnikrishnan, who was in the city recently.
Mr. Unnikrishnan was initiated into Carnatic music at the tender age of 12 and quite understandably he is most comfortable with Classical music though he has sung hundreds of songs for films in Tamil, Kannada and Telugu. He won a National Award for a song composed by A.R. Rahman.
He has sung over 400 songs in Telugu films including one for “O Manasa”, a film directed by Sahaja Rao which is yet to be released. He is one of the permanent judges in two reality-based shows on two TV channels. Mr. Unnikrishnan told The Hindu that participating in reality-based song competitions has both pros and cons.
One of the pros is that the participants, many of whom are children, get wide exposure and the guidance of celebrity hosts and judges. The participants get to learn a lot about how to face an audience and their skills get sharpened when they rise up to the expectations of the audience.
With each new television show the expectations of the audience are also growing. Another advantage of the competitions is they keep alive the good songs which are sung over and over in the shows. The shows are also very good for celebrated artists who sing in them because that helps them to be in the limelight and therefore remain in demand, he observed.
One of the disadvantages of these competitions is that they do not promote the performer to be creative.
Hundreds of singers, who can sing songs that have been already been composed, written and performed by somebody else will be developed by these shows, but to go to the next level the artists have to work very hard and have special talent, Mr. Unnikrishnan says. “Why does everybody want to listen only to M.S. Subbalakhsmi? That is because of her ability to transfer the ‘Bhaktirasa’ to the audience. The singer should be able to transfer the emotion he has to the listener,” he says.
Asked if the people were getting more interested in music Mr. Unnikrishna said, despite an increase in the number of music contests the interest in good music was not actually growing.
