BACKGROUND SCORES IN HINDI MOVIES
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BACKGROUND SCORES IN HINDI MOVIES
As hindi movies are full of songs, the music directors and film makers do not concentrate on background music. Hindi movies are not giving as much importance as foreign movies are giving. Somehow trends are changing. Now our technically confident directors and music directors take background score in consideration while planing the scenes.
In 80s and 90s there were some readymade tunes which filmmakers/music directors used to play for particular scene like comedy, chase, tragedy, love, action etc.
One of the frequently used tune was used in Ghayal for opening sequence in jail….
In early 90s directors straightly lifted background scores of Hollywood movies for ex. Mohra- When sunil shetty is fighting with other prisoners in jail…then background score is lifted from Terminator’s signature tune.
As we know sometimes background score plays more important role than dialogues. Background score can enhance effect of scene and overall movie. there are some background score or tunes which are constantly playing in my mind…
*Satya- “police sootron ke anusaar…. Yeh uski kahaani hai… Satya” and then immediately flute is played. Background score immediately sets the dark and serious mood of the film. When satya and bhikhu are running behind Gurun and the background theme truly represented brutual nature of underworld.
*Bombay- This theme travels you from beauty of south Indian village to sadness of Mumbai riots.
*Ashoka- whenever I felt tired, I am playing theme of Ashoka. It has some soothing effect by flute and guitaar.
*Sholay- The great movie superbly starts with R.D. Burman’s melodious tune with two persons moving on horses. When they arrive in Ramgadh, the music certainly changes from western to folk type tune.
*Chinagate- This has effect like 20th century fox’s title sequence.
*Karz- I think this is the most popular background or signature tune of hindi movies and the whole credit goes to Laxmikant Pyarelal. Subhash Ghai used to create beautiful signature tunes for all of his films like Meri Jung (piano), Hero (flute), Saudagar (whistle) etc.
*Agneepath- Amitabh Bachchan arrives in Mautritius and he is going to meet Danny and the background score… in one word -perfect!. May be it was inspired from some western song… but perfect for AB’s towering personality.
When Commissioner vikram gokhle’s son says “Who Gunda?” then effect of immediate background score (I think violins) hits heart of Vijay chauhan and audience.
Also the noisy background score in climax. Amitabh Bachcnan running through fires and bombs explosion. I loved it.
*Khakee- The background score matched pace of the movie.
*Kaante- I loved the title sequence. All the actors are coming from distance and slowly background score emerges as they are coming closer. Same tune was used in promos of Zinda.
*Don (old) – Aakhir Don kaun hai? the background signature tune suited the thrill of the movie. Also the fast paced background music (Kalyanji Anandji) when Zeenat Aman and other goons are transferring AB from Hospital to villains’s dan was marvelous.
*Anand- The movie had signature tune which was lately used in Mere Apne as full length song “Koi hota”. This tune is played immediately after Anand dies with voice of dr. Bhaskar “Anand mara nahin, anand marte nahin”.
*Ab Tak Chappan- slow paced but quite effective background score played throughout the movie which represented anger of Insp. Sadhu Agase.
*The blue umbrella- Vishal Bhardwaj’s beuatiful melodies suited the beauty of Himachal village. somehow i felt that he should have used folk based background scores (as songs “teshu” and “nili aasmani chhatri”) instead of using western instruments like piano. In one scene when Nandkishore khatri was dancing in baaraat and the sound of traditional indian instruments was awesome and truly represented the folk melody.
*Nayak- The noisy background score when Anil Kapoor raises his hand for election.
* Kabul Express- Salim suleman’s background score puts you on hills of Afganistan.
* Recently, in 1971, Amrit Sagar had used violin in climax scenes very well.
But most of current music directors are relying on western instruments like piano, sexophone etc. even if the story is based on village culture. They should try indian instruments like tabla, bansari, sitaaretc. whenever necessary. I think in Sarkar; music director beautifully used sitaar and bansuri in background to convey emotions. Also Vanraj Bhatiya gave beautiful background scores in lots of parallel kind of cinema.
Tags: 1971, agneepath, ashoka, background, Bombay, don, kabul express, karz, Music, Sarkar, satya, sholay, the blue umbrella, vanraj bhatiya
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
” In 80s and 90s there were some readymade tunes which filmmakers/music directors used to play for particular scene like comedy, chase, tragedy, love, action etc. ”
.. Actually..especially there was this typican action music played in every film… with “dhishum dhishum” sounds made from the mouth :-D..
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aamir has one of the best background scores… amit trivedi has a superb future.
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hi shailesh
I am very much amused how come such a wrongly researched article could appear on pfc.These observations about bgm(background music) in hindi cinema are all wrong.
The 70s and 80s had some of the most original background score wherein the music director took the reigns of even balancing his music with interspersed sound effects which took the scene or story further..Our music was more fusion with grand orchestra and indian instruments fused in.The kind of grandeur which is unmatchable and unthinkable in todays so called progressive cinema…
The examples you have given show how poor your knowledge of indian cinema is(dont take it offensively).
Please watch films like Alibaba aur 40 chor,kaalia,saagar,qurbani,kaala sona,arjun,satte pe satta actually a handfull of r.d.burman and kalyanji anandji films and you will understan what i mean….
Please dont downgrade 70s or 80s cinema just for the heck of it (people find pride in it).Karz tune is totally copied for ur information.If u need specific scenes and shots for bgm analysis let me know. If u notice the music in blue umbrella was location sound and kudos to vishal for using it..
Background music died in the late 80s what we hear now is just a desperate effort to match it…
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hi indian cinema, thanks for your comment. there is no intention to downgrade 70, 80s cinema. most of my favourites are from that time. if u have read article; i have mentioned karz, agneepath, anand, sholay…for good BGM and aren’t they from 70s/80s?
if u have seen; most of 80s and 90s movies’(not the movies u have mentioned) had some readymade tunes as bgm.
and PFC also meant to raise discussion on particular topic. if u have more knowledge about BGM then please share it. it will be beneficial to all of us.
thanks
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And what about Black Friday. To me it has one of the best. I have it in my playlist. The blast score, the chase , the training, the tiger memon house score. Indian Ocean have really done a masterful job. In fact you can just listen to a background score and then question why it was made this way. The chase score it a beautiful example of it.
Other recent movie which had good background score according to me are Being Cyrus, Anwar.
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RDB had a very good background score….specially in that sequence where they shoot the minister……awesome
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guys, hindi movies are eons behind tamil in BGM scene. Ofcourse, you havent even seen the hindi dubbing of Nayakan, Anjali etc, which were possibly opportunities to understand what background scoring is all about. And hey ram, forget it. It will take 10 years for bollywood to reach those standards.
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hmm…wat abt company guys…..i think it had awesome bgm..
sab ganda hai par dhanda hai yeh..suited the movie perfectly…
and even lagaan…the bgm was perfectly in sync with the movie……
some other movies with good bgm..
legend of bhagat singh…( remember the scene where ajay and sushant beat up the english boys after the movie show and run for cover…..)
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my theory …
these days only low budget films can ve gud back ground music…becoz they cant pay money to ve music all through the film so they save money nd use bgm only in few scenes.. big budget films ve money nd use bgm in excess… so no big budget films now can ve gud bgm…
ha ha ha …
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hi yeah,
tamil films bgm is ilaiyaraja, flute, violins check it out…come on dude hindi cinema bgm is miles ahead……come on lets not make thos topic hate discussion make it a healthy discussion …admins please delete offensive replies a request….
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hey, the background score of Kabul Express was not given by Salim-Sulaiman, but by Julias Packiam.
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One question..always wanted to ask…the b/g score of Beverly Hills Cop ( especially part 1 ) was extensively used in a Hindi film ( or Hindi film b/g or song-tune was used in BHC ) ?
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“..hi yeah,
tamil films bgm is ilaiyaraja, flute, violins check it out…come on dude hindi cinema bgm is miles ahead”
For this one statement, you deserve a ..well, I dont know what, but this is prize ignorance. What can i say?
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Guys…the music blending done by this Pancham fan is mindblowing…Hats off to RDB for such timeless classics of b/g music !!
http://www.pancham-debu.blogspot.com/
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hey , let me tell you a fact ,, all the background scores done by kalyani anandji , were dominated by kalyanji’s son viju shah( i am talking about the famous composer of gupt , mohra , aar ya paar , vishwatma and bade miyan chotey miyan , he was in his teens when the movie don released and he had assisted his father in the background composition of the movie) , and believe me or not he really gives his best when it comes to background scores..
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Viju Shah, and Kalyanji Anandji lifted many western tracks; (Mostly synthesizer based)
Fo rexample :
Tridev (intro) “Paap se Dharti fati…” – Original (‘One more Chance’ by Pet hop Boys)
Gupt (theme song) – Original :Deep Forest & Mike Oldfield
Vishvatma (Saat Samundar Song) – Original (‘Heart’ by Pet Shop Boys)
(Anyway these guys are amazing composers)
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Wow..
Viju Shah really trapped me with his copycat work. I don’t watch many bollywood movies, but I used to watch them a lot when I was little, with my parents, and from my childhood, I absolutely LOVE Gupt, Mohra and Vishwaatma. Half of the reason I absolutely adore these movies as my all time favorites is because all these 3 movie pack one hell of a background score. Now I found out all of them were done by Viju Shaha. No wonder, this guy has super talent, too bad he resorted to ripping off the Western tunes and couldn’t invent anything bu himself. :(
Still, even though he’s done a lot of copycatting, its been great. “Gupt Gupt” was awesome, perfect blend of Deep Forest – Deep Forest and Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells (Tubular Bells was also used in The Exorcist, by the way, the greatest horror movie of all time). Mohra’s theme is actually not directly a rip of T2’s theme, there’s some very slight modifications in it, specially the starting of the theme. But it fit Mohra very well.
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Sandeep Chowta was someone whom I held in high esteem and had very high expectations, after listening and paying deep attention to the scores of Satya, Kaun, Vaastav and Shool.
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Rajiv Rai was the king of background music, as I had mentioned somewhere earlier, Alfred Hitchcock had this thought which said at a certain pitch music can create a feverish eerieness and creepishness amongst people that leaves everything aside… all of rajiv rai movies are like that… background music keeps you so much on te edge that you wont try to pick up the shortcomings or nuances like we do with other movies but sit back and enjoy… my personal favorites from his movies,
MOHRA…. The track behind Naseerudin Shah creates that feel, the one for Akshay Kumar (dead sure copied) is awesome as well…
GUPT, TRIDEV ASAMBHAV had equally commendable background scores, that keeps you within the insanities of the movie…
other favorites… HUM, Arjun, DCH, lakshya, Bombay (not the Bombay Theme but the one which plays when the city is on fire), a few tamil movies Mouna Ragam (Same tune in a much lighter faster and jovial way for an actor who dies and the same tune for the other main hero of the movie but in sombre and low note..) Appu Raja, nayakan, dalapathi… they hit that feel into the scene (The flute tune in Judwaa, for Mukesh Rishi … That stayed in my head for a long time as well)
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agneepath background music was by more kante
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