Asha Bhosle, the golden voice of Indian music, turned 76 on September 8th. The melody queen celebrated in a quiet way albeit with release of an album of romantic songs.

A very well known Bollywood playback singer, she is as popular as her elder sister, who is also a renowned singer. Well, we are talking about Asha Bhosle, who has mesmerized the entire country with her amazing voice. She has dominated the Indian music industry for a period more than six decades. Even now, she is constantly enhancing her music collection and entertaining the people.

Asha Bhosle is a very versatile singer, who has put her heart and soul in modulating her voice to come up with something original and creative. Her voice is very adaptative. She is very well able to sing the songs for romantic situation. When naughtiness is required, she can change her voice and sing according to the situation. In this article, we will present you with the biography of Asha Bhosle.

Oscar-winning musician A R Rahman has pipped another great Ilayaraja to win the ‘Grassroot Grammy’ held in the US.
The ‘Mozart of Madras’ bagged the top prize for the soundtrack in the Tamil film Godfather in the ‘Best Indian album’ category at the ‘Just Plain Folks 2009 Music Awards’ held recently.

Bangla band ‘Krosswindz’ and Ilayaraja were among others nominated in the category.

With over 50,000 members worldwide, the ‘Just Plain Folks 2009 Music Awards’ is aimed at supporting grassroot songwriters and musicians through networking, education and promotional support.

Rahman also won the third place in the ‘Best Indian Song’ category for ‘Innisai’ (Radio Mix) from Godfather while his ‘Illamai’ was fifth in the same category.

Ilyaraja’s “Music Journey: Live in Italy” was third in the ‘Best Indian album’ category.

In ‘Indian Classical and Traditional Album’ category, Shweta Jhaveri’s “Avishkar” clinched the first position.

The awards received responses from over 163 countries

Kishore Kumar was a prolific vocalist and sang in many Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Malayalam and Oriya. Along with Mohammed Rafi , and Mukesh, he was one of the leading male Bollywood playback singers from the 1950s to the mid-1980s.

Kishore Kumar was born in a Bengali family in a small place known as Khandwa. This place is situated in the state of Madhya Pradesh. He was youngest among his siblings with two elder brothers and a sister (Sati Devi). Both of his elder brothers ventured into acting and established their names in a big way. The eldest one, Ashok Kumar is known for giving numerous hits. Right from his childhood, he was interested in becoming a playback singer. To follow his dreams, he too soon shifted to Mumbai and started living with his brothers.

Kishore Kumar had no formal training in music. Knowing that, it feels even more wonderful to see his repertoire. He was a great mimic and his favorite singer was K L Saigal. He always imitated Saigal with perfection. He took his own sweet time to develop his natural style of singing. He continued trying for work and also started to refine his voice. He is credited to give a style known as ‘Yodeling’ which was his signature style. Yodeling is basically an Austrian style which he perfected to the hilt and used it in his various hits. A complete natural, he kept on experimenting with new voices and often non-sensical terms in his songs.

Part 1

Jod Zala

In teh previous section we have discussed about Alap, which is basically Timing less(without Lay) and rhydham less(Without Taal).While this part “Jod Zala” which is played after Alap is with Timing(Lay) but without Beats(Taal).So what ever is played in Alap now will be combined with the Lay.Normally artists are using 4 Matra’s Lay.


After explaining the beauty of Rag in Alap , now in Jod Zala we introduced some strokes with in the Particular Lay.For Example in 4 bit we can give strokes like 3+3+2=8 or 3+3+3+3+4=16. Remember in this section also tabla(Taal Instrument) is not used like in Alap. So in whatever timings an artist is playing the Jod Zala,only he has to maintain that timings.Artist normally puts some nice combinations of the Tihai during this section.And artist will keep playing Taar Saptak Sa(Higher Octave C notation) for maintaining the Lay(Timing).


Now a days very few Gharana’s are playing long Alap and Jod Zala.Mahiyar Gharana is one of Them from which I belong to. But many artists are skipping because they are also playing Zala at tthe end of the performance.

As I said earlier Artist is having chance to show his Lay Sense combined with his Rag sense during this section.Many artist are also playing Laykari during this section.Now What is Laykari We will see in Later Chapters.

Jod Zala on Sitar By Sameep Kulkarni Raga Shyamkalyan



Purya danashri alap jod jhala -Jod Zala Will Start from 2:40 minuts

Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan

Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan (b. 14th October, 1945, Agra) is a famous Sitar player of Hindustani Classical Music from Agra India.

He is privileged with both belonging to an illustrious musical family, and for achieving success in not only preserving the tradition but in pushing its boundaries to even greater heights of aesthetic beauty. He belongs to the famous Etawah Gharana and belongs to the seventh generation of this musical lineage. His family has produced the most revered and influential figures in Hindusthani Classical Music including the likes of Ustad Sahabdad Khan, Ustad Imdad Khan (his great grandfather), Ustad Enayat Khan , Ustad Wahid Khan (his grandfather) and Ustad Vilayat Khan. The young Shahid Parvez was recognized as a child prodigy and had started performing in public by the time he was only eight years of age. Tremendous perseverance and hard work over the years have been rewarded with an outstanding technical prowess and a mastery over Layakari. One of the numerous achievements of Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan is to have mastered both Vocal Music and the Tantrakari Baaj and then fuse them in such a way as to bring this complex amalgam within the easy reach of all.

He is a Top Grade artist of All India Radio and a recipient of numerous national and international awards including the Sur Shringaar, the Kumar Gandharva Samman, the M.L. Koser Award , etc. He is also a recipient of the prestigious “Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. He has performed in all major musical festivals in India and abroad including the Festival of India held in the US, Europe, USSR, Canada, Africa, Middle-East and Australia, enthralling the audience everywhere. With numerous LP records, audio and video cassettes, CDs and DVDs, numerous awards and accolades, and a distinguished performance career in India and around the world, he is widely recognized as a very reputable sitar player.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Sahid Parvez”.