Musician
Shankar Mahadevan: Creating Means Taking Risks in 'Untapped Territory'
Shankar Mahadevan views music as a
friend. "When you have music in your life," he says, "you can
never be lonely." Having been trained since boyhood in the Carnatic
classical tradition, Mahadevan today ranks among India's top tier of young
musicians. His blockbuster hit, "Breathless," was a four-minute
melody sung seemingly in a single breath. How does artistic risk compare with
business risk? What can corporate teams learn from the way musicians
collaborate?
In an interview with India
Knowledge@Wharton during the recent Wharton India Economic Forum, Mahadevan
discussed these questions and more.
An edited transcript of the
conversation follows.
India Knowledge@Wharton: Shankar, thank you so much for joining us today.
Shankar Mahadevan: Pleasure.
India Knowledge@Wharton: Let's start with a very simple question. What does music
mean to you?
Mahadevan: Music is -- if you want me to describe it in one word -- a
friend. And when you have music in your life you can never be lonely. It is
just there with you as a companion whom you can talk to, interact with, think
about, and create.
India Knowledge@Wharton: Tell me about how you got started in music.
Mahadevan: At a very young age, actually. When I was about four years
old, I had gone to my uncle's place down south [in India]. I was born in Bombay
[now Mumbai]. I saw this instrument and I just picked it up and I started
playing it without knowing what the instrument was. Obviously I didn't know --
I had never seen it -- it was a harmonium. My parents and my uncle felt a
little intrigued by how this guy was playing. So they started testing me with a
few melodies to sing. And I used to just reproduce them. I think the decoding
-- to decode a melody, you know, and output it on the harmonium -- was already
there [within me]. So that was interesting. I said I want this instrument. I
want to buy one. So I bought one. And that's how it started.
Being from a middle-class Indian
family, I learned Carnatic music. And my parents were very [particular] about
of teaching me the proper Carnatic music in the proper way. You don't take any
shortcuts. So, that's why I'm here.
India Knowledge@Wharton: Is there a difference between learning music the way you
did almost like a vocation? And then turning it into a profession? What's the
difference?
Mahadevan: You can definitely become a professional. You can
definitely become successful. And you can become extremely popular even without
learning music. But it all depends on what you want to do. How do you want to
perform this art form of music: whether you want to approach it the real hard
way by knowing every single technical [element] that is involved in a song? Why
get into all that? Or you can just learn a few songs. If people are talented,
they can just sing. But I feel that if you learn music the hard way and you
know what you are doing [at] every step, you are a confident person. And you
are able to face any circumstances, any situation, any form of music. You are
able to absorb easily. And you will somehow stay on for a longer time because
it is not superficial. You are a learned [person]. It is like any art form. It
is like literature, for example. If you are well-read and you write something,
there is a difference. There is an easy way out, too. But I think it always
helps if you follow the path the correct way.
India Knowledge@Wharton: I think you have described the path very well. What were
some of the choices that you made along the lines of this path? And what did
you learn from those choices?
Mahadevan: During our times -- I'm sounding like an old man -- but
times have changed very drastically in the past 10 or 15 years. When I used to
learn music, I didn't even think about it. Now, kids have become a little
calculating. When they learn music they are already thinking about their first
album. They are working towards it. I don't think this is the way you should do
it. You should learn music because you want to learn music, just follow it blindly
with great perseverance and dedication. You are just hammering that into your
system. The other things that happen -- you become a playback singer or you
become a pop star or you have a successful release -- are just derivatives of
your musical knowledge. That is how we have done it. I don't think you can have
a calculated approach towards learning music.
India Knowledge@Wharton: So can you take me through some of the steps that you took
in your musical journey?
Mahadevan: One thing that I did was -- or it happened to me -- was the
teacher that I got (T.R.) Balamani. She [is] a teacher who has dedicated her
entire life to teaching. So if you get the correct person from whom you are
learning, half the battle is won. You should not think about what I am going to
do and how I am going to make so much money? When you are learning music, you
have to just learn. And rigorous practice, focus, and perfection of the art. My
father used to always tell me that when you go and perform at a competition,
you should aim for the first prize. But you should not aim only for the first
prize. The difference between the first prize and the second prize should be
almost 10 steps. It means there should be no comparison. That is when you have
achieved excellence.
So all these things were with me
always. And I think I was always a student. I am always a student of music --
even now. Anything new that I hear -- anything that is challenging like in my
journey of music. I was learning Carnatic classical music but I was never a person
who wanted to be a pure Carnatic classical singer only, because there were
other forms of music which attracted me equally. When I heard some of the great
jazz masters, some Indian Hindustani classical artists, I wanted to sing all
the things they sang. These are qualities I feel have helped me move ahead.
They helped me in my composing, in my adaptability to various forms of music.
India Knowledge@Wharton: It is very interesting. You are using terms like
excellence, perfection, adaptability. In the business world, too, these are
terms that companies use as they compete with one another.
Mahadevan: Really? Not that I know of because I am completely at zero
in all these things.
India Knowledge@Wharton: What I wonder is what can business people learn from the
creativity that a musician has? Because there is a creative side to business as
well.
Mahadevan: Yes. There is a creative side to anything. I feel that one
thing that a businessman can learn is: do not follow a path that has already
been successful. You will never be a path-breaker then. I would never want to
create a Breathless [the album that gave him fame] again, because it will
always be compared to my first Breathless. That's over. Every time you want to
create something, you should look at a new or untapped territory. I'm sure
there are untapped territories in music, in business, in arts, in painting, in
dancing. Melodically, I am talking from a musician's point of view, you can go
and compose something in untapped territories. The risk is very high of falling
flat on your face. Like when I composed Breathless I could have just thrown the
whole thing out saying, "What is this nonsense? How can anybody sing this
song?"
India Knowledge@Wharton: Just for the sake of those who are not familiar. Breathless
was your first blockbuster.
Mahadevan: Yes. It was a success and it was a different theme. It was
a song which seemed like it was sung in one breath and it just starts and goes
on and on. So it really succeeded. But it was something just completely new and
untapped.
India Knowledge@Wharton: You used another term that is very commonly used in
business and that term is "risk". How do you manage risk in your art?
And what can business people learn about risk management through your eyes or
through your voice?
Mahadevan: The risk in an art form -- becoming successful -- is much
more than a risk involved in a business because I think in business you can
have certain statistics. You can have certain pre-calculations based on graphs
and calculations and statistics. You can judge whether you will be able to at
least achieve this much or no.
India Knowledge@Wharton: Or you could lose your shirt if you miscalculate risk in
business.
Mahadevan: Yes, that is true. But in an art form it is such an
abstract thing. What is a melody? Think about it. Technically you are just
putting a few frequencies together and a few words together. And you are just
letting [it] out into thin air and it has to appeal to you when you listen to
it. It is a very abstract thing. It may appeal to you. It may not appeal to
you. But I feel if you are a learned musician to begin with, if you are a
master of your own art, then when you create something you have to be very critical
internally. You should not fool yourself saying that, yeah, this is okay. No,
it can't be just okay. It has to be good. And it has to appeal to you. It has
to touch your own heart and the people around you.
Then there is the risk: whether the
public is going to accept it or not accept it. But one thing is for sure: when
we create new forms of music, we go on doing it one after the other. Some fail.
Some succeed. But nobody will tell that this music is mediocre. So failure or
success does not mean it is good or bad. It is good. Because you know that
musically -- you learned that aesthetically -- it is of a certain level. Nobody
can tell me that it's not right. That will never happen because I am quality
conscious. I will make music that is of a certain quality. If it succeeds it's
great. If it doesn't, it is fine.
India Knowledge@Wharton: Are there some risks you will not take?
Mahadevan: The biggest risk is when you go into untapped territories
and you create something that nobody has ever done before. Like when we did
this song Maa [in the film Taare Zameen Par]. It was with one guitar and a
voice. It was a risk we took. Many people thought you should dub it in a
child's voice because it is a child's emotion. How can a male -- an adult male
-- be singing for a child's emotion? We gave it a thought. Should we dub it in
a child's voice? We said, no, let it just remain an adult. We felt that a
child's voice always appeals. Somehow, subconsciously people feel that it is a
children's song. Whereas an adult male singing an emotion just cuts across and
it becomes a universal emotion. And that's what it did. The whole country
cried.
India Knowledge@Wharton: That's very interesting. Now you just participated and won
a very interesting competition in India called "Music Ka Maha
Muqqabla" in which teams of musicians competed against one another. Tell
me about your philosophy of managing a team and how you bring about the best in
a team, because this is a very common challenge that companies face as well
Mahadevan: What I enjoyed the most in Music Ka Maha Muqqabla was that
I had to get out of my own little comfortable zone that I had created for
myself because I was very established in my own field. So being established in
my own field, what do I do? I perform for people. I compose. I do a lot of
shows. After performing repeatedly, you are very comfortable in your own zone.
So, you know, the whole team is ready. I was just talking to somebody about the
same thing. The team is ready. Waiting. 20,000 people are there in the
audience. But you are not nervous or tense because your act is absolutely
ready. I walk in. I drive into the venue 10 minutes before the show. Five
minutes before the show I get a microphone in my hand and I walk on stage and I
perform. Because I am very comfortable and I know my band is ready, my act is
ready. The songs are super-duper hits. I know that the crowd is going to dance
from the beginning to end.
But suddenly being thrown in with a
team like this, what happens is that you have to think out of what you normally
do. You have to think for your team. You have to think of functioning as a
group and not only for yourself. And you were thrown with many challenges like
we had to do a round of songs, which were from the 1960s and 1970s. There was a
very interesting round called the medley round. What we decided was we would
make use of this -- the medley round especially -- and we tried to create new
things, new medleys, new concepts. It is not only a bunch of songs put
together. That is what made us stand out differently when people saw the thing
[program]. Our thing was always standing out when our medley came because we
tried to deal with many issues, with social causes -- every medley had a theme.
Sometimes it was funny. Sometimes it was extremely sad. Sometimes we gave a
social message. So I think thinking out of the box is basically it, you know?
What we are not supposed to do is more important than what we are supposed to
do.
India Knowledge@Wharton: That is a great piece of advice. One last question for you.
Based on everything you have said, music is, of course, an art. It is a
vocation. But it is also a global business. And it is a global business that
has been dramatically disrupted by technology. How do you see the future of a
business in which intellectual property may be very hard to protect? How do you
see sources of success in the music industry going forward?
Mahadevan: Since you have talked about intellectual property, I would
like to talk about the scenario in our country so that people over here (US)
also realize what is happening. It is a very sad situation as far as
intellectual property is concerned in our country where the composers -- that
is the authors and the songwriters -- don't own any of the works. You must be
surprised by this. None of the works, which are created by not only us but also
the great masters [are owned by us]. This is a very sad situation. It has
happened because of ignorance to a certain extent and because of the music
companies and the people who are managing the music taking advantage of the
situation and writing agreements where you sign off all your rights. Now the
government of India is bringing out an amendment in the law and they are giving
ownership of the rights to the artists, which is going to be fantastic. If the
law gets passed, which we pray it will, and I'm sure it will, I think a lot is
going to change. My rights are [now] gone. I am worried about piracy but it
doesn't affect me. It is not the money that I am supposed to earn. I feel
anyway cheated and exploited because my rights have been taken away.
India Knowledge@Wharton: Are you using technology to reach your audience directly
like through your own website and things like that?
Mahadevan: Yes. We have our websites and stuff like that, of course.
But I feel that once this law comes into place the authors and writers will be
able to retain their own rights and quality will improve. Quality will improve
because it will directly affect income. It is not like you just write anything
and you get paid the same amount. So things are happening.
India Knowledge@Wharton: That's great. Shankar, thank you so much for speaking with
us today.
Mahadevan: Thanks.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4483
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