In Conversation with Singer Shalmali Kholgade | Her Early Success | Musical Cultural Differences - video Dailymotion

IANS INDIA

Mumbai: During an interview with well-known singer Shalmali, she talks about how she achieved recognition while still in college. Then she discussed the cultural differences she's noticed in the music industry, having sung in a variety of languages including Marathi, Bengali, Telugu, and Tamil.   #ShalmaliKholgade #Singer #Trending #2025 #BollywoodCountry #BollywoodNews #BollywoodGossips #BollywoodUpdates #BollywoodNews #Bollywood #Bollywoodcelebrity #BollywoodHindiNews #ians

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00:00When Pareshan released was my first encounter with what fan frenzy and craze you know looks

00:15like or feels like and up until then my musical upbringing yes I learned Indian classical from

00:22my mom but I spent five years in St. Xavier's College Mumbai where the band culture is huge

00:28so I was constantly singing in bands and like playing whatever small shows like there was a

00:34jazz by the bay where we used to do shows so I came from a band culture and I wasn't used to the

00:41singer getting so much importance or so many eyeballs on the singer so when Pareshan released

00:47there was this big chatter about yeh kya texture hai, yeh kaisi aawaz hai. It was very new for people to hear

00:54the kind of texture that I had on have on my Pareshan and I didn't understand what the big

01:02deal was and in all honesty I didn't know how to react or I didn't know how to face people when

01:10they came up to me and said you sang Pareshan that oh my god like what's going on and

01:17the YouTube views were increasing and every two hours my parents would be like

01:21aga aata itke lakh jale aani aata itke million jale all this was happening at home and I was

01:26like just shut it now I don't want to know you know I don't know what to do with it

01:30and there was a time when I got a little low because I felt like everyone was not getting

01:38appreciated for their effort on that song especially so the composer maybe he did but

01:46from where I was sitting I felt like Amit Trivedi is the man who made that music he should first be

01:53put on a pedestal and then be like haan the singer he chose for that song also adds some value to it

02:00and I felt like that harmonium solo the man who played the harmonium solo it's an epic part of the

02:05song right nobody talks about him so I had all these questions about how people consume music

02:13in Bollywood and what they remember and what they latch on to and it took me some time to

02:18adjust to that so I didn't take very well to all the attention in the beginning but as

02:23time went on I understood okay this is what is to be expected.

02:33I feel like the south languages that especially Tamil and Malayalam I'm not yet talking about

02:41Telugu and Kannada which is when we come a little more north but if you go all the way south

02:47most often I find the melodies are written for a very very high register for a woman like I find

02:53very few songs that were offered to me that were in a key that was comfortable to me so one is the

03:00key they prefer the female voice to be very high and dainty and delicate which I clearly don't have

03:08those kind of qualities in my style of singing. Another thing is they are very very attached to

03:17the way the emotion is felt in the singing performance so the smiles and the little

03:25nuances are very very dear to them for most of the stuff that I worked on I found that they were very

03:31particular about a certain murki or a certain main that came in our composition and it wasn't like

03:37you can do your flair or bring your flair into this composition so in the south I think they're

03:45very attached with those with those little intricacies but Telugu it kind of starts getting

03:52hip as far as like vocal delivery goes like there's this little relaxedness in the

04:03approach to which you can sing it with and that is also because of the kind of language it is and

04:09how it's phonetically you know it phonetically allows you to to do those things same with a

04:16Bengali. Now Bengali also when I sang with a composer Arundham he has some really really western

04:23like very western melodies on which Bengali as a language just sits so comfortably on it

04:30that you can really deliver it the way you would deliver an English song so I find that it has a

04:38lot to do with how the language rolls off the tongue and what kind of melodies work with it.

04:46Now me being a Maharashtrian I also happen to compose music for a Marathi film and I was very

04:53very close-minded before I did that film about the capabilities of Marathi as a language to

05:00sound modern, to sound not like it was made in a village like if it is a Marathi girl living

05:11in a city what would she sing about or how would she sing but with the film June

05:18that I did music for I was able to understand how we can crack that, how we can loosen up the

05:25stress on certain syllables in Marathi in order to bring out the modernness while still retaining

05:32what is being said you're not losing the word completely but it is a less stringent way of

05:38treating the language and it worked and it really appealed to the youth in Maharashtra and I got a

05:45lot of people coming and saying make an album in Marathi we need more Marathi music like this

05:49which was very very heartening so I must say that singing in different languages has really taught

05:55me that there are other things apart from a lyric and a melody to look at when you're

06:02you know learning a song or writing a song.

In Conversation with Singer Shalmali Kholgade | Her Early Success | Musical Cultural Differences

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