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R.D. Burman and Rhythm: ''Making the Youth of This Nation to Dance''
Gregory D. Booth BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies 2012 3: 147 DOI: 10.1177/097492761200300204 The online version of this article can be found at: http://bio.sagepub.com/content/3/2/147

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BioScope 3(2) 147164 2012 Screen South Asia Trust SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC DOI: 10.1177/097492761200300204 http://bioscope.sagepub.com

R.D. Burman and Rhythm: Making the Youth of This Nation to Dance

Gregory D. Booth
Abstract Rhythmic intensity and complexity are frequently defined as key elements in the innovative success of the songs of film composer R.D. Burman (19391994). In a primarily musicological study, this article uses key rhythmic theory to examine the rhythmic innovations heard in the songs that were generated in Burmans music workshop. These innovations are considered in the context of their relationship to the newly expressive and increasingly rhythm-oriented choreographic practice that appears in the film scenes of which those songs were part. These developments are further juxtaposed with Burmans famous and largely successful engagement with global popular music styles, especially musical and cinematic representations of foreign youth culture that were featured in many films that Burmans music accompanied. Keywords Hindi film song, rhythm, film choreography, R.D. Burman, Indian popular music, youth culture

Introduction
A special interest in, or facility with, rhythm is frequently defined as a key element in the innovative success of film composer R.D. Burman (19391994). Not only the rhythms heard in Burmans songs, but also the percussionists who worked regularly with him, collectively referred to as the R.D. Burman rhythm section by their colleagues in the film music industry, continue to be identified as especially attractive and important components of those songs. In his assessment of the song Suno bhai baaraati (Listen my friends) (Warrant [Pramod Chatterjee, 1975]), Ankush Chinchankar comments, It is unbelievable what Pancham (Burman) did by continuously changing the beat patterns from 6/8 to 2/4 to 6/8 again. I do not think any other MD (music director) has even thought of doing so, forget doing it. (www. panchammagic.org). In general, the arrangements in Burmans songs were more poly-rhythmic, more varied, and more carefully structured than were those of many of his peers, his construction of musical time often more aggressive and more global. Kersi Lord, who contributed to many of those arrangements, has suggested that Burmans approach to rhythm was not only innovative, but was innovatively western (Personal Communication, 2011). I have elsewhere questioned the extent to which the long history of Hindi film

Gregory D. Booth is afliated with the University of Auckland, New Zealand. E-mail: g.booth@auckland.ac.nz
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songs engagement with the materials of global popular music should in fact be described in terms of an EastWest dichotomy (Booth, 2009); but there is no question that many of the stylistic features that appear in some of Burmans songs (and in some cases specific musical content as well) reached his ears via foreign and largely British and American record labels. However, along with other Burman collaborators, Lord has argued that it was Burmans successful integration of a western rhythmic feel within an Indian musical framework that distinguished his music from that of his predecessors and competitors and that made his film songs so popular among younger Indians, the college crowd of the late 1960s and 1970s (Personal Communication, 2004). Western stylistic and rhythmic influences are implicated on more than one of the fan sites dedicated to Burman. Mahamuni suggests that in 71[1971], with Dum Maro Dum, [Burman] made the entire youth of this nation to dance to his tunes (http://panchammagic.org). Mahamuni refers of course to a song from the 1971 film, Hare Rama Hare Krishna (Dev Anand, 1971). With its explicit two-beat, rockstyle drumming, electric guitar, electronically modified sounds, and Asha Bhosles unusually lowpitched performance of the refrain, this was the first foray by Burman and the Indian film song into the psychedelic stylings of late 1960s rock. The actual sounds and musical content of the song reinforce the scenes images of actress Zeenat Aman singing and dancing amongst a group of foreign and Indian hashish-smoking hippies. Those sounds also align clearly with the songs lyrics, whose title, using the slang of those times, could be translated as Take another hit. With relatively few modifications, the song might have passed on American or British radio as a local expression of psychedelic rock. Listening to Dum maro dum it is easy to accept Mahamunis claim that young Indians felt compelled to dance to this and other Burman songs of the period. Popular and professional writers such as Bhattacharjee and Vittal (2011) identify rhythm and its potential to elicit physical response through dance, as central to the impact of R.D. Burmans music. In addition to its possible catalysis of social dancing among young Indians, Burmans music also made an impact on the song and dance scenes of the Hindi cinema. I suggest that his innovations with musical time are noticeable from 1961, when he started carving out an independent career, through roughly to the middle of the 1970s. I argue that from the late 1960s, Burmans use of rhythm and time reinvigorated dancing in the song scene, especially the cabaret song. In these song scenes, higher rhythmic density and tension, a more sophisticated approach to rhythmic relationships, and an increase in the frequency, or number, of structural and sub-structural markers of musical time, all produced an equally innovative response by choreographers and dancers, as expressed by the dancing stars of the cinema. Helen (Richardson) was the most important of these cabaret song stars; but Aruna Irani, Bindu, and Faryal also appear in the picturizations of Burman cabaret songs of this period. This article analyzes the rhythmic innovations generated in Burmans music workshop, his management of musical time, and the intensity of the relationship between the rhythms found in his songs and on-screen choreography. This requires a consideration of the nature of rhythm and time in popular music; it also asks us to consider how Indias generally cyclical rhythmic approach operates in comparison to the often linear and gestureladen AfricanAmerican rhythms of globally hegemonic pop. Before proceeding, I point to certain issues beyond the scope of this article. The creative process of choreography in the Mumbai film industry (19501990) is a topic that has yet to be seriously addressed by scholars, and urgently needs attention. There is no question that in the sequence of creative events leading to the completion of a dance scene, the first step was the description of a songs situation by a films producers and directors to which music directors responded as they composed the song. In some cases, there may have been some level of consultationduring the compositional processbetween BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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music directors and choreographers that may have had an impact on such matters as tempo, song structure, length of interludes, and so on. Nevertheless, my assumption is that most choreography in the Hindi cinema was designed in response to recorded tracks. For this article, my focus is with choreography as a visible expression of the musical rhythms in these song scenes. Second, I have addressed issues relating to the attribution of creative agency and input elsewhere (Booth, 2009) and will not revisit these questions here. Suffice to note that throughout this article, the work of R.D. Burman should be understood to include Vasudeo Chakravarty, Manohari Singh, and, especially for dance music, Maruti Rao Kheer. These and others in Burmans musical workshop were never simply assistants or arrangers but must be considered creative collaborators. This article is primarily a musicological assessment: my argument here deals with the sounds, rhythms, and arrangements heard in those songs. I am concerned with the mechanics of Burmans management of musical timethe marking of musical/temporal progress by the use of musical sounds and signs over the four or more minutes of a film songand the arrangement and density of rhythmic tension and emphasis, his use of harmony to mark time, his management of musical and rhythmic gesture, and so forth. Burman and his collaborators paid unusually careful attention to the innovative degree to which their rhythm patterns interlocked, with the goal of creating more complex and danceable rhythms without obscuring the lyrics; they used harmony more explicitly (and to mark time more explicitly) than had their predecessors and constructed an essentially more linear musical form. Finally, although I would also argue that both the choreography and the editing of many picturizations of Burmans songs reflect this level of rhythmic and temporal activity, this article will not pursue the question of editing in detail. The musical processes I outline here should also be viewed in the context of the unusual nature of the Hindi film song. Film songs were, arguably, Indias only mass-mediated pop music genre, but were produced under conditions that made the genre construction and differentiation commonly encountered in most pop music repertoires almost impossible. As I will describe below, despite earlier attempts by some film composers and directors to respond to western youth culture and music in the 1950s, there was a small but apparently growing audience seeking pop music alternatives to film songs hegemony, suggested by oral and published accounts of the late 1960s and early 1970s (Appaiah, 2010; Mike Kirby, Personal Communication, 2011; Nandu Bhende, Personal Communication, 2010; Bashir Sheikh, Personal Communication, 2011). Especially in the major urban centers, this was a period in which at least some of the youth of India bonded with the rest of the world (Susmit Bose, quoted in Bhattacharjee and Vittal 2011, p. 90) with pop music providing one of the potent symbols of this bonding. The sounds of Burmans songs may well have reflected both the abandon Mazumdar (2011) suggests characterized this period and even more so, the global bonding that Bose proposes. Burmans innovative engagement with Western styles complemented young Indias desire to hear and be part of something new. But influences flowed both ways, and if Burman benefited from a novel sense of cultural abandon, he also provided for its carefree expression through his music. Let me give a brief example of a pertinent song scene, Oh mere jaan maine kaha (O my darling, I told you) (The Train, 1970).1 This explosive song comes at the point when Burman was transiting from his position as apprentice and music assistant to his father, the composer S.D. Burman, to that of a successful and popular composer in his own right. Composed for a scene that cuts between a staged dance performance in a nightclub and action not directly related to that performance, the song includes considerable instrumental material. The complexities of song structure in this scene derive not only from the shifts between song and action, but effectively constitute a separate category of song structure, distinct from those constructed without such added elements. The scene shows Helen at her most dynamic and, BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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while Burman may have known Helen would feature when he set out to compose the scene, the details of her response to this music could only have been worked out once the song was recorded. I concern myself only with the initial 20 seconds of the songs introductory passage. Action music precedes the song, which begins with four unaccompanied beats played on the electric bass. A low brass chord precedes (and distracts from) the entrance of the rhythm section (drum set, plus two side percussionists) on the first clearly articulated down-beat of the song. The percussionists set up a clear four-beat meter (beat = 176 bpm)2, with a strong off-beat accent on the second of each beat-group in typical rock n roll fashion. Over the initial four repetitions of the four-beat groups subdivided by a chord change on the third and fourth repetitionsthe brass repeat their accents on the 1 of each group and are answered by the saxophones over the remaining three beats of the group. The choreography at this point illustrates the way Burmans music provided opportunities for dramatic movement. Helen uses large, sweeping leg movements that cause her skirts to flare dramatically and that are timed to coincide with, and intensify, the overall effect of the strong brass accents. After a snatch of action music, this musical section is repeated to different choreography, but Burman adds and foregrounds additional off-beat rhythms, played by the electric guitar on the fourth beat of each beat-group. These accents, two strokes played on the first four sub-divisions of the fourth beat, are also powerfully reflected in the choreography. After this section, the subsequent two beatgroups feature a tremolo phrase played on electronic organ; these accompany what can only be described as an elaborate shimmy by Helen. That I have here employed more than 200 words to describe roughly 20 seconds of music is one of the inherent and inevitable pitfalls of musicological discourse; but it is in the musical details of the songs themselves that we find support for Mahamunis assessment of how Indian youth may have responded to this music. Furthermore, it is through the examination of these details that we may develop an understanding both of Burmans construction and management of musical time and the music-choreography relationship. Before I examine further musical details, however, it is necessary to locate Burmans music in the context of genre, pop, and youth music in the Hindi cinema.

Issues of Genre, Change, and Youth Culture

Hindi film song has always been Indias most popular music. By this I mean that is has always generated the majority of legitimate (and no doubt illegitimate) revenues for the Indian music industry. An Indian Music Industry estimate for 2004 suggested that, despite the inroads of globalization and the growing diversity of Indian music available, 68 percent of that years projected revenues of ` 670 crore would be generated by sales of new, old, and regional film song. Film song has less consistently been Indias pop music; but I make an admittedly tenuous distinction here. Pop as a culturally constructed genre category is defined by an association with youth culture, timeliness, a range of sub-genres defined by fan-based ideological positions (Walser, 1993), and an industrial logic (Dowd, 2003) based on generational change and musical homogeneity.3 Like many definitions in popular music studies, criteria developed within the industrial and cultural framework of the American music industry (Wald, 2010). Although the application of Western understandings of pop music and music industry to circumstances and phenomena in India remains problematic, the issues raised may still be useful to situate film songs. BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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In an analysis of the responses of French intellectuals to early rock performances by Johnny Halliday, Frith concludes that Hallidays performance was fun, because it stressed the physical pleasure of music in ways repressed elsewhere. He goes on to argue that a good rock concertis measured by the audiences physical response, by how quickly people get out of their seats, onto the dance floor (Frith, 1996, p. 124). Friths work seeks to analyze the alignment of a mind-body duality in nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy with the classical/seriouspop/fun dichotomy often encountered in musical aesthetics. The history of popular music, physical pleasure, and fun in independent India is complicated by the relatively sober and restrained nature of Indian post-colonialism that was structured by Nehruvian socialism and the quite real economic exigencies of the first 15 or more years of Indian Independence. Throughout most of the twentieth century, India embraced a classical/seriouspop/ fun duality, similar to that described by Frith, in which Indian nationalism routinely privileged the two iconic classical traditions and the devotional genres (with suitable acknowledgment of regional variants) as the appropriately classical/serious symbols of Indian musical identity and appears to have relied on its reified folk forms for the officially approved fun. Indias only mass mediated fun music was film songs; but despite Friths conceptualization of such musics as music of the body, film songs had no direct connection to any social practice that involved dancing. This is not to say that many songs of the later 1940s and 1950s could not reasonably be described as fun; songs such as Hawa mein udtha jaaye (Its flown off in the wind) [Barsaat (Rain), (Raj Kapoor, 1949)] or Aaye meherbaan (Welcome honoured guest) (Howrah Bridge, 1958) seem to me to be fun no matter how that term is understood. Nevertheless, even the most blatantly physical, fun songs of the Hindi cinemafor example, those derived from Indian folk (dance) traditions, such as the ubiquitous Holi songs (for example, Naushads Holi aayi re Kanhai (The festival of colors has come), [Mother India (Mehboob Khan, 1957)]demonstrate relatively limited rhythmic intensity or tension. They are clearly not intended to get listeners out of their seats, onto the dance floor. The songs that perhaps come closest to this criterion are the songs based on western cabaret or vaudeville culture, such as those heard in Albela (A jolly fellow) (1951), Aar Paar (This or that) (Guru Dutt, 1954), or Howrah Bridge (1958). These songs offer a light-hearted pop aesthetic and a degree of rhythmic activity and content otherwise unheard in the film songs of those years; they align more closely with the criteria for pop music that I outline above. Nevertheless, these songs continued to present a number of distinct drawbacks to any effort to define them as Indias pop music in the first years of Indian independence. Leaving aside the tensions that could have arisen in the context of the Nehruvian seriousnessof-purpose that held sway in those years, these potential examples of an Indian pop/fun music were film songs that were visually and ideologically constructed as in some way western, were based most consistently on an interpretation of the cabaret as an expression of Western popular culture, and incorporated at least the superficial aspects of Western musical content as well. I will address a central musical issue in this alleged dichotomy below. More important at this point, is that as the 1960s came along, cabaret songs (as they came to be called) had yet another attribute that disqualified them from the serious application of the term, pop: they had been around for a long time. By the time Helen (Richardson) made her mark in cabaret song scenes with Mera naam Chin Chin Chu (My name is Chin Chin Chu) (Howrah Bridge, 1958), cabaret songs, as a genre, were arguably already seven years old. The genre was another year older by the time it was attached to the rising star of actor Shammi Kapoor in Dil Deke Dekho (Once youve given your heart, look out) (1959) and was more than 10 years old by the time Helen and Kapoor appeared together in the staged, Ai ai ya, suku suku in Junglee (A wild fellow) (Subodh Mukherjee, 1961). BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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As I discuss below, Kapoor is well known as Indias first post-colonial symbol of the globalizing inclinations of Indian youth culture. The deployment of cabaret songs in the construction of that ideology, however, came with a fundamental tension generated by two factors: first, cabaret songs carried a taint of colonial culture at a time when India was fully engaged with definitions of itself as an independent nation; second, by the time they became associated with Indias first youth star, cabaret songs were becoming increasingly difficult to understand as new or exciting or in any way youthful. They were looking and sounding more and more adult with every passing year.4 As such, cabaret songs were a difficult choice for post-colonial Indias first fully-fledged pop music, especially because cabaret songs hardly constitute a musical genre in any sense. One of the central criteria for genre formation and the viability of genre labelswhether one thinks in discursive, ideological, or marketing termsis the necessity of such labels for the definition of differences that are ideological at heart, but that can also be expressed, however superficially or tenuously, as musical. Although they are never fully definable in musical terms, genres must have some connection to features of musical style that can form the basis of industrial marketing practices and of attempts by fans to distinguish between those genres, however inconsistent or even futile these distinctions prove. The inconsistent relationship between musical style and genre definition is one of the long-standing issues in Western musicologies (for example, Kallberg, 1988: Walser, 1993). In the songs of the Hindi cinema, that inherent inconsistency expanded exponentially under the impact of narrative context (situation), composer strengths or interests, playback singer, actor, story type, and the overwhelming dominance of the verbal and iconic symbols of a songs picturization. Although fans did make some genre-like distinctions, they had to negotiate around these other factors to do so in what was actually, and especially in industrial terms, a single, enormous, inherently indivisible repertoire. Genres role in Indian popular music, especially before the 1980s, was both much smaller and quite distinct from the role of genre in the Western music culture and industry. Despite the limited role of genre in film songs in 1957, in that year the Indian film industry was clearly and explicitly responding to the ideologies and the images of American youth culture that were being expressed through the musical and other symbols of rock n roll in its first, Presleyan manifestation. Hindi film directors of the latter 1950s and 1960s, with help from song composers, lyricists, and actor Shammi Kapoor, constructed the Hindi cinemas first consistent attempts to address a Westernised teenage audience (Rajadhyaksha and Willemen, 1995, p. 113). This fundamentally cinematic, and largely visual, attempt was based on Kapoors resemblance to Elvis Presley, who embodied American rock n roll for much of the non-Western world. Musicologist Ashok Ranade (2006) defined the songs of this phenomenon as the ShammiRafi idiom, using the names of the actor and the playback singer involved in the production of these scenes. It is significant, however, that Ranade-sahebs label depended for its functionality on an actor who made only a visual contribution to the genres identity. Although playback singer Mohamed Rafi, who sang Kapoors songs, clearly made a crucial contribution, popular discourse identified him as film songs classical male voice, in opposition to the jazzy voice of Kishore Kumar. As such, the ShammiRafi label accurately embodies the central musical tension of the Hindi cinema: Neither composers nor singers could fully develop their identities in genre terms; the needs of cinematic context (the inevitable situation) almost always prevailed. As such, the ShammiRafi idiom clearly distinguishes a body of songs, but is more than normally useless as a musical style or genre label. At best, it helps us understand the inherent semiotic inseparability of the musical, behavioral, and visual symbol systems that constructed meaning in the Hindi cinema. BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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Composers Shankar-Jaikishan, Usha Khanna, Ravi, and O.P. Nayyar all composed ShammiRafi songs, which began with Nayyar-sahebs score for Nasir Hussains 1957 film, Tumsa Nahin Dekha [No one like you]. Despite the obvious visual references to Presley and to Indian visions of its own youth culture in the song scene, Jawaniya yeh mast mast, the actual music of the song is typical mid-fifties orchestral film song; it has none of the musical or even visual stylistic markers of rock n roll. Nasir Hussains second attempt at rock n roll, in the title song scene of Dil Deke Dekho (1959), seats Kapoor at a drum set playing a solo that cannot accurately be attributed to a rock n roll style; but in what would become a minor cinematic/musical convention, the introductory instrumental solo and whatever musical and stylistic implications it might possess do not persist beyond the introduction. Usha Khannas song borrows its melody from American traditional song and is accompanied by the bongo congo pairing that was commonly heard in the quasi-Latin film music of the Hindi cinema at this time. Director Shakti Samanta employed Ravi to compose the music for his first engagement with the ShammiRafi idiom, in the 1962 release, China Town. Baar Baar Dekho (Keep looking) features a rather long-haired and mustaschioed, guitar-strumming Shammi Kapoor together with dancers suitably dressed for the 1950s. Although one musical interlude does feature electric guitar, a clarinet trio and accordion dominate the song. Rhythmically, the mukhda is accompanied by snare drum and hi-hat cymbal played softly with brushes; the rhythms of the antara are more active, but are played by the bongo congo pair.5 It is necessary to note that many composers, including Ravi, were sensitive about the extent to which the musical sounds accompanying a song might overshadow the songs lyrics (Ravi Shankar Sharma, Personal Communication, 2004) and that this issue no doubt had some effect on the nature of a songs musical accompaniment. Nevertheless, Ravis music does nothing to suggest rock n roll or to justify Kapoors association with Elvis. Of these three early instances of the ShammiRafi idiom, the latter two are explicitly cabaret dance numbers. Both have steady and arguably danceable rhythms, but relatively low rhythmic density, that is, the number of sounds per second is relatively low; neither is compellingly rhythmic. The drums of Western rock n roll (but also of jazz, of course) may be visually present; but their rhythms, and the rhythmic tension, volume, intensity, insistence that some Western rock n roll produced, are all clearly absent. These ShammiRafi songs, however revolutionary they may have appeared, effectively maintain the musical model established in the late 1940s: a melody, one or two relatively simple rhythmsin many cases, barely more than what some Mumbai musicians called a thekaand an orchestral accompaniment that mirrored the vocal melody. These vocal melodies are almost completely unharmonized; what little harmony is present is more implied than expressed, and present largely in orchestral responses to vocal phrases as a form of embellishment. In these and other ShammiRafi songs, actual chordal accompaniment to vocal melody is rare; changes in harmony do not act as markers of either musical time or structures, both functions that harmony routinely fulfils in much Western music. Musically speaking, film music of the early to mid-1960s had little to offer younger listeners who were increasingly aware of the arrival of something called rock n roll in the West. The only fundamental change in the actual sound of the ShammiRafi idiom occurred when producer Nasir Hussain employed composer R.D. Burman, for what would be only Burmans fourth film score, Teesri Manzil (Third Floor) (Vijay Anand, 1966). I discuss one of the songs from this film below, but the distinctive nature of Burmans use of harmony and rhythm in the construction of the actual musical sound of this well-established idiom is clear from the films first song onward. It can hardly be argued that R.D. Burman had any permanent impact on the musical style of the ShammiRafi idiom. Not only BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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was Teesri Manzil Burmans only score connected to that ideology, the star and the ideology he embodied were both increasingly old fashioned and were shortly to be replaced by new stars and a new approach to musical style, modernism and the West, that would be constructed by R.D. Burman and his crew.

Listening to R.D. Burman

R.D. Burmans songs introduced new forms of rhythmic practice to the music of the Hindi cinema. More so than many who had come before him, Burman and his colleagues worked out constructions of musical time that highlighted the importance of musical and rhythmic gesture. In doing so, they created music that more successfully integrated linear rhythmic structures with the cyclic structures that had traditionally dominated film song, as well as other musical genres. This is also to say that Burmans music was more successful in combining what many writers have defined as the distinctive temporal practices of Indian and Western musical organization. Clearly, this musical understanding of Burmans songs confronts film songs ambivalent role as pop music as well as the popular, if problematic, construction of Hind film songs (or at least Burmans songs) as Western. I have elsewhere questioned the unqualified acceptance of attributions of Westernization to R.D. Burmans music; but if we are to accept Burmans music as Indian we must maintain an equal skepticism to the unproblematized suggestion that musical linearity, a relatively empirical phenomenon, means Western. We must maintain that skepticism, furthermore, in the face of song scenes and musical style elements that are unquestionably Western. Despite these issues, it seems apparent that Burmans success in making the youth of India dance was the result of his more aggressively rhythmic music. Compared to older practitioners in Burmans line, he appears to have been more successful in engaging the rhythmic structures and practices that were essential to Western pop. Many musicians and scholars regularly emphasized Indian musics alleged adherence to a primarily cyclic mode of organization based on the rhythmic principles of the classical tala system as one of the features distinguishing Indian-ness in musical terms (Clayton, 2000). Beat 1 [of a tala] represents both the end of the cycle and the beginning of the next; indeed, the principles of the tala cycle contrast sharply with the rhythmic principles of most Western music which generally end on the last beat. The tala tends to provide a degree of perpetual motion characteristic of cycles (Such and Jairazbhoy, 1982, p. 106107). Clayton also suggests that there is indeed a cyclically repeating temporal structurethe tal in much Indian music; he is also concerned with what he identifies as raga or Hindustani classical music. But he suggests that instead of singling out Indian music as uniquely cyclical, it may be more instructive to test the idea that Western music is unusually linear (Clayton, 2000, p. 23). More importantly, he argues that musical time exhibits two complementary aspects. One is periodicity, regularity, and recurrence, corresponds to the domain of meter, and gives rise to the concept of cyclicity. The other is gestural, figural, and [in principle] unpredictable and relates to the domain of rhythm (Ibid.). Whether they are distinctly Western or not, rhythm and gesture are thus located in a realm distinct from meter and tala, and are connected to linear processes. Burman, through his use of musical/rhythmic gesture and his remarkably linear music, established a clear break with previous musical practice in the Indian film songs and established the basis for a more successful engagement with the melodies, rhythms, and styles of Western pop. In doing so, he also changed the possibilities for choreographers and dancers. BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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Organizing Time Through Music

To analyze the music and rhythm of R.D. Burman, then, is to consider the presence of musical linearity in his songs and music, and whether this distinguished those songs. It is also to consider how and in what manner this proposed linearity might relate to Burmans production of music that was routinely described or denounced as Westernized pop. Musical time, of course, no matter how organized, is a central factor in the construction of genre, at least on a broad, classical-pop level of distinction. Frith makes times importance quite clear for popular music. Following Stravinsky, he argues that music is essentially about time and its meaning and that musical sound effectively constructs a specific version and experience of time (1996, p. 149). Indeed, Burmans songs were about a vision of musical time that distinguished his songs from those of many of the composers that preceded him. That distinctively linear approach to the organization of time is clear from the beginning of his career and can be heard in the introduction to an early and famous song, Oh haseenon zulfon wali (O you with the black curls) (hereafter, Oh haseenon) from Teesri Manzil, picturized primarily on Shammi Kapoor and Helen. In the first 113 seconds of Oh haseenon, Burman offers an instrumental introduction, a single complete performance of the songs mukhda, and the first musical interlude. Table 1 shows the duration, in seconds, of 13 discrete musical sub-sections, defined by instrumentation and musical content, in this section of Oh haseenon. The song begins with a drum solo, followed by the strings in what may be one of the most rhythmically dense passages to have been recorded in Mumbai at the time. A tambourine accents the phrasing of string passage and an electronic keyboard plays two pairs of chordsthe first ascending, the second descendingthat outline the structure of this brief section of music. The strings conclude with an extremely rapid descending cadence that echoes the tripartite cadential structures of traditional Indian music. Oh haseenon is a male/female duet. To the extent that there was a common practice in Hindi film song, that practice called for an initial statement of the mukhda by one voice or the other to
Table 1. Musical Sections in the R.D. Burman Song, Oh haseenon zulfon wali (N.B., timings may vary slightly) Introduction Seconds: Mukhda (male) Seconds: Mukhda (contd) (female) Seconds: Music Interlude 1 Seconds: Seconds: Antara (female)
Source: Authors own.

Drum-set solo 020 Melody A 3140 Melody C 6181 Triangle solo + rhythm (vamp) 8185 Brass chord with strings 108109

Strings + organ + tambourine 2125 Melody A 4150 High winds vs. strings (repeat) 8696 Strings (cadence) 110111

Strings + tambourine (cadence) 2630 Melody B 5160 Drum-set ll and strings (cadence) 97 Spanish guitar: 112113 Strings vs. brass (repeat) 98107

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be repeated using the same melody, covering the same duration, by the other voice, and for the song to be isometrically structured along gendered lines, which is to say, both genders are heard for roughly the same duration. The Oh haseenon mukhda is conventionally gendered, but is neither repeated, nor isometric [see also, Kissi Se Dosti Kar Lo (Make friends with people) in Dil Diwana (Crazy heart) (Narendra Bedi, 1974)]. Rafis melody is structured in a tripartate, A-A-B, form, in which each section has a duration that extends for eight repetitions of the quick, four-beat rhythm pattern. Asha Bhosles new and much shorter melody begins in anticipation of the beginning of the next rhythm pattern (Oh an-ja-na) and ends on a downbeat after 15 repetitions of the same rhythm pattern. The rhythm pattern that accompanies the mukhda is performed on drum set, maracas, and bongo. The drums and maracas establish a four-beat rhythm (beat = 200 bpm); but both accent the back beat (the 2nd and 4th beats of the beat-group) as was commonly done by rock n roll drummers; the bongo accents the down beat (the 1st and 3rd beats of the phrase) so as to create a simple interlocking rhythmic pattern that, nevertheless, has more in common with the Afro-American rhythms of rock n roll than with the rhythmic processes of India. In addition to this percussion accompaniment, the male portion of the mukhda is accompanied by barely audible strings; but in the female portion, while the percussion continues, the strings articulate a clear, fully voiced harmonic progression that includes contrapuntal phrases and interjections. Rather than repeat this relatively long mukhda, the song proceeds to its first instrumental interlude. The triangle solo, which picks up before Bhosles final note concludes, is characteristic of Burmans use of unexpected percussion timbres and features. A short drum/bongo vamp, another feature rarely heard in Hindi film songs of the time, leads to a repeated melodic section. In the first repetition, the high woodwinds are opposed by contrapuntal strings that also outline a two-chord harmonic pattern. After a drum fill, the strings take the lead for the second repetition, with rhythmic interjections by trumpets and regular drum-set fills. After a brass chord, the strings play a rapid and elaborate cadential phrase. A flourish on what Mumbai film musicians called a Spanish, which is to say, acoustic guitar concludes the interlude and, also rather unusual for 1966, shifts the tonality upward for the beginning of the antara. Following my short description of Oh mere jaan, this analysis considers the specific ways in which Burman used musical sound to construct a highly detailed vision and experience of time: not only are the rhythms denser generally, there are more events, that occur in succession. Rhythm, melody, orchestration all change from one state to another, often defining different, and sometimes new, musical sections of the song. Even though listeners may not have consciously registered this, perhaps the asymmetric structure of the mukhda contributed to listeners perceptions of the song as linear and, hence, theoretically at least, unpredictable. Along with the question of linear time in Burmans music, this excerpt highlights the central role gesture played in his compositional practice. A gesture is a movement or change in state that becomes marked as significant by an agent. It must be taken intentionally by an interpreter . . . in such a manner as to donate it with the trappings of human significance (Gritten and King, 2006, p. xx). Especially relevant for this study is the authors observation that it is the acoustic properties of sound [that become] aesthetically valuable in musical gestures (Ibid.). Gesture also has a role in music organized through metrical cyclicity; but for Clayton, it is rhythmic linearity that captures the importance of musical gesture. Rhythmic gestures tend to relate to one another in a more linear fashion, rather than (as in meter) the same pattern being due for return; in rhythm one gesture can be followed by either a repetition of the same, a variation thereon, or a distinct but complementary pattern (Clayton, 2000, p. 23). BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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The crucial analytical concepts of cyclicity and linearity are not inherently dichotomous. Nevertheless, Burman and his colleagues did produce music that was more clearly rhythmic and gestural than the songs of most other film composers. What is more, they seem to have intuitively understood the semiotic content of gesture and its relation to surrounding musical content. The introductory drum of Oh haseenon is an excellent example of this process. As I have noted, the solo is one in a long line of drum solos featured in the introduction of ShammiRafi songs. These solos were often conventionally isolated in musical terms; neither the instrument nor the musical styles they suggest reappear as these songs progress. They are, in effect, isolated gestures, ideological acknowledgments of rock n roll meanings largely unsupported by the subsequent musical content or gestures. In Oh haseenon, on the other hand, the grand introductory gesture (it is a big drum solo) is followed by subsequent related gestures, such as the drum fills between other sections, and by the fundamental musical content: the rock beat played on drum set that accompanies throughout. In this gestural and musical context, the drum solo simply means more than the other ShammiRafi examples. The song, Ghulabi ankhen (Beautiful eyes), from the 1970 release, The Train, (Ravi Nagaich) offers a different perspective on Burmans linear organization of musical time, in the context of a cyclical harmonic progression and choreography. Although I am not able to identify the original model, I remain convinced that Burman adapted the core content of this song from a foreign source. Burman was (in)famous for his reputed use of foreign musical content, from rhythms, melodic fragments, and harmonies to whole songs (as I suspect is the case with Ghulabi ankhen); but his utilization of foreign melodies provides another perspective on what I assume was his intuitive mastery of the semiotics of music. I have argued here that part of the semiotic success of musical gesture is their location in a framework that ensures, as in the introductory drum solo of Oh haseenon, that they are stylistically comprehensible as symbols in the context of the music surrounding them and the visual images of the song scene. Similarly, Burmans management of the Latin popular genre that is incorporated into Ghulabi ankhen results in a coherent integration of the original meanings of this genre with film songs own generic meanings. Ghulabi ankhen has a strongly Latin-pop sound and is dominated by a relentless two-beat rhythm (beat = 116 bpm) and a powerfully expressed harmonic progression. The most distinctive feature of Ghulabi ankhen, especially in the context of Hindi film songs, is the strongly cyclic nature of the songs harmonic structure. A repetitive, four-chord harmonic progression, built in descending wholetones, divides the mukhda and other sections of the song into isometric sections, each two beat-groups in duration. Such harmonies are common in some forms of Latin American popular music, but were extremely rare in Hindi film songs. Although the song has a notably brisk tempo and high rhythmic density, like Oh haseenon, it is more repetitive and has shorter and more homogeneous musical interludes. Also unlike Oh haseenon, but perhaps in keeping with the cyclic nature of the harmony, the accompanying rhythm is consistent throughout. This overall cyclic structure allows for different kinds of temporal variability as well as rhythmic gesture. In addition, however, Ghulabi ankhen demonstrates how the density of gesture in Burmans expressive construction of musical time and the physical responses of actors, as well as film editing, is evident in song scenes. The rhythms in Ghulabi ankhen operate consistently at four distinct levels as shown in Table 2. The fastest pace is maintained by the maracas, bongo-congo, and rhythm guitar. These instruments collectively construct a rhythm that moves at a ratio of 4:1 with regard to each beat in the two-beat rhythm. During much, although not all, of the song, the electric guitar adds repetitive arpeggio-like patterns that BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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Table 2. Multiple Divisions of Time in Ghulabi ankhen Two-Beat Rhythm 1. 2. 3. 4. Percussion and Rhythm Guitar Electric Guitar Chordal Harmony Harmonic Progression Beat 1 1234 1 1 1 Beat 2 1234 2 --Beat 1 1234 1 1 --

Gregory D. Booth

Beat 2 1234 2 ---

Source: Authors own.

outline one-two of each two-beat beat-group. The chords themselves are stated on the one of each two-beat beat-group; while the harmonic progression, the chord changes, organizes time into units that are two beat-groups in durationwhich is to say, one chord every two beat-groups. The editing and choreography respond explicitly to all four levels of rhythm. In the scene, the brisk tempo of the song as a whole demands some extremely brisk movements from Rajesh Khanna and Nanda, on whom the song is picturized and who at some points in the scene are moving to the fastest rhythms (Level 1) of the song. As the scene progresses, however, the choreography responds to all of the multiple layers of time discussed above, sometimes in successive movements and sometimes in unified sequences. Among the most spectacular of these movements is the back-and-forth that takes place during the first musical interlude between repetitions of the mukhda, as Khanna and Nanda, who are kneeling, literally bounce back and forth on opposite sides of a tree, their movements aligned with the steady pulse and driven, so to speak, by the accents of the rhythm guitar. As the interlude continues, the pair race through the park setting in time to the fast rhythm-section pulses of Level 1, stopping mid-way to respond physically to elaborating rhythmic/melodic gestures by the string section. As the repetitive electric guitar patterns lead to what is theoretically the antara, Nandas solo gestures correspond to the guitars pulse (Level 2); but as the antara begins (dil mein mere) she adds a short shimmy that re-emphasizes Level 1. She repeats this sort of end-of-line shimmy as she disappears from view (following tere katil hogaya) immediately preceding the return of the refrain. The contrast between the slow rhythms and the fast becomes physically quite pronounced in the second repetition of the antara (tujpe fida) when Khanna performs a series of twirling lifts with Nanda that correspond to the slow time of the harmonic changes (Level 4). Subsequently, as the song moves to the melodic section that Mumbai musicians often called the sign line (here beginning with the lyrics, mai loot gaya), the couple perform a series of dips that continue to mark each harmonic change (Level 4); but these are now interspersed with short bursts of quick steps that follow the fast pulse of the rhythm section (Level 1). Despite the many romantic garden frolics that preceded Ghulabi ankhen in the history of the Hindi cinema, the sheer physicality of this songs rhythms and of the KhannaNanda performance may well eclipse anything that came before it.

Rhythmic attack
The relentless rhythms of Ghulabi ankhen are in part responsible for the songs physical impact; but the ways in which time and rhythmic tension are constructed through music are endlessly variable. Keil (1994) attempts to explain specific aspects of that variability in a consideration of what he calls vital drive (that is, musics motive potential and rhythmic tension). He examines rhythm-section attack, which he breaks down into two general approaches on top and lay back (Keil, 1994, pp. 6061). In BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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the first of these approaches, musicians strike their instruments (Keil is talking about cymbals) so close to the pulse as to be almost ahead of it. In contrast, lay-back drummers perform a slightly delayed accent on various beats and take more drastic liberties with the pulse (pp. 6162). Although Keils discussion focuses on modern jazz, the phenomenon he describesplaying ahead or behind of an implicitly invariant, if largely theoretical pulseis one that most musicians would find familiar. In the 1970s, and especially in the dance numbers, the attack in the Burman rhythm section was distinctively and predominantly on top. An outstanding example of the aggressive capabilities of the Burman rhythm section is found in the song Mera naam hai Shabnam (My name is Shabnam) (hereafter, Shabnam) from the 1970 film hit, Kati Patang (Runaway kite). Shabnam is pictured on a rather sinister Bindu and is distinctive in that it has long sections of spoken monologue. After an unmetered introduction, regular rhythm is established by the reso-reso6 and the maracas, performing the short-short-long, two-beat rhythm pattern that is almost inherent to the resoreso. An additional rhythm is present, here and in other instrumental interludes, in the vocal sounds (ahha) that were a frequent trademark of Burmans songs, which he normally performed himself. These are so on top of the beat that they do indeed seem to float above it in Keils terms (ibid., p. 61). During the monologue, the regular rhythm continues, but accents shift to the electric guitar and bongo. The bongo accents appear to have been partly improvised, but they expand the pattern to a four-beat structure by accenting every fourth beat. In addition to again coming well on top of the beat, they interact with the phrasing of the monologue and are also reflected in the subtle gestures of Bindus provocative prowl around the table where the hero and heroine are seated. Narratively, the implications of Bindus insinuations become clearer as the scene progresses and as this narrative tension rises, Burman and his colleagues add a full brass section that offers little subtlety, but whose rhythms again ride on top of the beat. Shabnam is an unusual song in that the conventional mukhda-antara structure is completely absent; it is in fact, a completely unique form in which spoken monologue against a rhythmic background and instrumental interludes constitute the entire song. Shabnam was no doubt created in response to the narrative situation; but it offers an excellent, if slightly over-the-top example of the Burman rhythm section (indeed, the entire ensemble) playing on top, something they seem to have done more frequently than not. In contrast to the almost relentlessly on top attack heard in Shabnam is the variety of attacks heard in Gori ke haath mein (In the fair ones hands) from the 1971 film, Mela (Fair) (Prakash Mehra). Picturized on Mumtaz and Sanjay Khan in a traditional mela setting and using primarily traditional instruments and rhythms, the first 18 seconds of the song feature a carefully managed acceleration as Khan and his drum-playing accomplices pursue Mumtaz across the fairgrounds. The acceleration reaches a climax in a traditional tripartite percussion cadence, the structure of which is highlighted by Mumtaz, each of whose lunges toward each of the drummers in turn aligns with one repetition of the rhythmic cadence (these gestures return later in the song, supported by appropriately rhythmic accents in the music). I am compelled by the choreography, so to speak, to open a rather lengthy parenthetical paragraph. A comparison of Mumtazs gestures to similar physical expressions of rhythmic structure in the introduction of Shabnam makes clear the level of choreographic detail that Burmans rhythmic arrangements made possible. Just as Mumtaz lunges from drummer to drummer in response to the repeated phrases of the cadence, in Shabnam, Bindu responds to two drum strokes by using her hips to knock over her two accompanying dancers, one at a time. With each of the first two repetitions of her BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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(modified) tripartite melodic cadence (from roughly 2026 seconds), she lunges forward (for lack of a better phrase) between her accompanists, finally leaping onto their supporting arms in the finaland extendedrepetition, landing precisely at the end of the repetitive material. Another, rather comic picturization of yet another Burman tripartite cadence, appears between roughly 50 to 55 in the song, Tum jaiso ko to payal mein bandh loon (Ill trap you in my anklets) [Garam Masala (Spice)] (Aspi, 1972). Three brass chords conclude the remarkable, and remarkably choreographed, instrumental introduction; as they do so, three dancers pop their heads into the camera frame precisely timed so as to embody the rhythmic structure of the cadence, then sink to reveal Bindu, once again appearing as the films vamp. In Gori ke haath, the tempo resumes after the short, un-metered section that follows the drumming cadence. The traditional drumming rhythms heard here are driven by a very on top reso-reso and reflected in Mumtazs short, quick dance movements in the lower half of her body; but, as in the multiple levels of beat in Ghulabi ankhen, the upper half of her body reflects a slower rhythm, this time heard in the accents coming from the instrumental melody itself. Of central importance for this analysis, however, is the change that occurs as the mukhda begins. At that point, the rhythmic attack relaxes noticeably; the reso-reso shifts to accents that are half the speed of those heard in the introduction. More crucially, and despite the carefully integrated strokes of the dholak and madal, the rhythm shifts to a more centered, on, rather than on top, attack. In general, it appears that in the late 1960s and early 1970s more Burman songs featured on or on top than they did lay back rhythmic attacks. The aggressive nature of the Burman rhythm sections playing may have had to do with the relatively large number of cabaret songs they recorded in these years for staged dance situations. The songs heard in the 1971 release, Amar Prem (Eternal love), which are all rather slow-paced and in what might be called more traditional styles might be expected to offer examples of a more lay back rhythm attack. In fact, many of this films songs, including the fully traditional title song (sung by S.D. Burman) and the reflective Kuch to log kahenge (People will say) are accompanied by the percussionists who are certainly playing more slowly (as the songs require), but who are no less on top of the beat. Only the thumri-style Raina beeti jaye is distinctively lay back; but I must suggest that it is hard, if not impossible, to imagine a thumri otherwise. The very Indian nature of the setting and story of Amar Prem, especially in comparison to some of the other films and situations I have considered here, seems to implicate issues India v. the West in the matter of the music and rhythm of R.D. Burman. This again raises the importance of gesture and genre as discursive concepts and what I perceive to be Burmans ability to construct contrasting musical settings to communicate meaning; this is one of the conceptual bases of genre, after all. I conclude this study by examining two songs that construct intentional ideological contrasts that Burman seeks to reinforce through his use of rhythm. Of the two song scenes I consider here, the more straightforward is Lo mere pyaar le lo (Come take my love) [Nafrat (Disgust), (Shyam Ralhan, 1973)], a scene of debauchery and seduction picturized on Prem Chopra and Faryal, which is organized in two sections with strongly contrasting speeds. Although it is important not to conflate speed of the beat with the nature of the rhythmic attack, here the two do work together. The drum set and electric bass deliver an appropriately laid back attack for the more languorous sections of the song; in the faster sections, the conga accents shift the nature of the attack to one that is clearly on top, especially in contrast to the more strictly on attack of the rhythm guitar. In this song, the contrast is purely musical. By this I mean that the two sections, with their different BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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musical content and attacks, have no ideological implications. My final example incorporates rhythmic distinctions in an ideologically bifurcated song scene. The famous song, Rampur ka waasi hoon mai (Im an inhabitant of Rampur) [Rampur ka Laxman (Laxman from Rampur), (Manmohan Desai, 1972)] offers an instructive example of Burmans ability to mobilize the discursive and semiotic potential of rhythm and genre in the construction of temporally, or rhythmically dichotomous songs [reference Mere nazar hai tujpe (I have my eye on you) The Burning Train (Ravi Chopra, 1980)]. Picturized on Randhir Kapoor and Faryal, set in a conventionally represented Indian nightclub, this cabaret song is unusual in its reliance on traditional Indian musical features and content. This is a result of the films overall narrative context; but the musical outcome is an intentional contrast between musical versions of India and the West. The songs four-beat pulse remains constant throughout (beat 180 bpm), but is expressed in two very different ways both in terms of musical sound and choreography. At the most fundamental level, there is a powerful rhythmic contrast between the relentless kaherwa theka of Indian sections (played on dholak) and the straight four constructed by the rhythm section of the Western section. Throughout the Indian portions of the song, the rhythms are played by a dholak and tabla pair. The musicians maintain the traditional accent on beats 1 and the 4 of the beat-group and perform a standard variant at each sign-line that leads back to the mukhda. They also perform cadences at appropriate points; but the invariant quality of the rhythmic content is remarkably unlike most Burman rhythm arrangements. These rhythms accompany all the sung portions of the song, as well as the first instrumental interlude. In the second interlude, Faryal, who otherwise plays an accompanying role, takes center stage and the music changes entirely. Burman establishes the desired contrast in part through instrumentation; but the content of the music here clearly expresses the differences as he and his colleagues understood them, between cyclic Indian music and linear Western music. This interlude is almost entirely gestural. The drum set begins with short solo leading to the electric guitar that realigns the accents into beatgroups by means of a repetitive pattern that accents the first and second beats, as well as the second half of the fourth for a very different rhythmic feel. This guitar pattern continues throughout the interlude, although it shifts up a whole tone at one point. The interlude is entirely linear, the melodic music and orchestration change roughly every two beat-groups. As it ends, a flourish on the Spanish guitar leads to the return of the mukhda. The entire ensemble involved in performing the interlude falls silent; the dholak and its rhythms return.

Conclusion
I have argued that R.D. Burmans management of musical time, at both the broader structural level and at the level of rhythmic detail, is one of the most distinctive features of his musical practice. I have also proposed that Burmans meticulous rhythms and musical/temporal structures were mirrored in at least some song scenes by similarly more detailed choreography. This last point is clear from, among other instances, Faryals movements in Rampur ka wassi hoon mai. Unlike Randhir Kapoors much more generic dance movements, hers are carefully aligned with the rhythmic gestures of the music at multiple speed levels. Ultimately, Burmans rhythmic practice was a major factor in the revolution in film song sound and choreography that resulted from his music. BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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The modern orchestral sound of the Hindi cinema appeared in Mumbai contemporaneously with, and as a consequence of, changesin technological conditions, governmental regulations, audience make up and other areasthat were themselves roughly contemporaneous with Indian independence. That sound, which we might simplistically identify as the ShankarJaikishan/Awaara (Vagabond) sound, remained fully dominant throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Beginning in the later 1960s, Laxmikant Pyarelal (LP) revived, modified and expanded the ShankarJaikishan sound and maintained their version successfully and prolifically through the early 1990s. Simultaneous with LPs efforts, however, the work of R.D. Burman and his colleagues effected the first significant, fundamental change in the sound, and the ideological implications, of film song since ShankarJaikishan. In ideological terms, this distinction could be described as the difference between film songs that were firmly and solely located within the technological and conceptual realm of the film sound track (very much the LP model), but which were, almost coincidentally, Indias pop songs as well; and Burmans novel production of songs that were much more clearly conceptualized and produced as both parts of a film sound track and as pop songs. This distinction was manifest in double recording practices that Burman and his assistants developed, in which separate formats and machines were often used to make the recordings that were sent to the record companies. The versions of Burman songs that appeared on disc were technologically of much higher quality and more carefully edited than (a) the versions heard on sound tracks, and (b) the recordings of many other film composers. In this article I have offered what is, in effect, the other half of this argument: the other and perhaps most significant aspect of this change was in the way Burman managed rhythm and musical time. The argument is implicitly comparative and ultimately requires comparable analyses of rhythmic practices of those who maintained the ShankarJaikishan sound. It also requires a closer examination of the processes by which Burman and his assistants managed to get their arrangements onto tape/film/disc. Burman was famous for his attention to the technological details of sound recording; he and his collaborators pursued a range of innovations in sound recording both for film and record that not only made the rhythmic details of his music sharper but also made it possible for those rhythmic details to be heard clearly on recordings. This technological edge may well have encouraged Burmans musicians to develop their interest in the interlocking nature of the rhythm patterns, and in the kinds of sounds that contributed to the rhythm of a song. In the introduction to this study, I argued that an examination of musical detail offered one key to understanding important aspects of popular music. The examples I have offered here make clear that part of the distinctiveness of R.D. Burmans sound lay in the details of his arrangements: the changes in rhythmic accompaniment from section to section, the rhythmic approach to vocal sounds, the manipulation of rhythmic attack, and so on. Details, however, have the potential to be constructed not simply as detail, but as meaningful detail, which is to say, musical gesture. As the examples discussed here demonstrate, Burmans songs were highly gestural; they managed and marked musical time in a linear fashion. Although I have been at pains to disassociate myself from the dichotomous conceptualizations of music and time, one conclusion seems inevitable. The innovations with regard to rhythm, time (and choreography) that were heard and seen in the Burman song scenes of the early 1970s, reinvigorated Hindi film song. His workshop produced songs with a sound that is routinely defended as Indian by many musicians and fans, but that nevertheless engaged more successfully and more syncretically with the global sounds of popular music. In doing so, film song was established as Indias pop music in the ears of a younger and more global Indian audience. BioScope, 3, 2 (2012): 147164
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Antara: The second melodic section of a song, classically understood to focus on the higher end of the scale. In Mumbai film-song discourse, the antara is often comparable to a songs verse. Arpeggio: Usually, an ascending or descending disjunct melodic pattern that outlines the pitches in a particular chord, usually the chord underlying the melody at that point. Cadence: A musical conclusion. In India, most cadences (often called tihai or mohra) are often marked by a melodic or rhythmic phrase that is repeated thrice, with the final note or stroke of the final iteration coming on the last beat of the song. Dholak: A mid-sized barrel drum played horizontally with two hands widely found in many forms of Indian folk and traditional music. Kaherwa: An eight- or four-beat tala/tal or rhythm cycle used to accompany many light and folk music forms. Madal: A small Nepali barrel-drum, often played in small tuned sets by Ranjit Gazmer and others in the R.D. Burman rhythm section. Mukhda: The first melodic section of a song, usually treated as a refrain in Mumbai film song. Sign Line: A melodic section of a song, often quite high pitched, that ends at a point where a notated sign directs musicians back to the mukhda. Tala/Tal: A rhythm cycle. Theka: A rhythm pattern played on a drum that expresses a particular rhythm cycle. Thumri: A light classical Hindustani song form.

Notes
1. This and other song scenes discussed in this study are widely available on the YouTube website. 2. To avoid ambiguities about the beat in this study, I will identify the beats-per-minute (bpm) of the primary pulse of each song discussed in these terms. I will refer to beat-groups rather than measures or bars. 3. In this article, I use the terms, ideology and ideological, in the ways constructed within popular music discourse, some of which is referenced here (for a more complete consideration of this concept also see Booth 2010), to mean ways of thought, as well as constructions of social identities and relations that may be expressed through music, fashion, behavior, and other cultural markers of difference. 4. I will note briefly that there were also tensions with the depiction of the Western model on which Kapoor based his persona. Indeed, all of Elvis Presleys cinematic career demonstrates tensions between his early youthful identity and his post-Army adult career. These resulted from a distinct set of underlying forces within the American music industry. 5. These terms, taken from Indian classical music theory, are used in the film music industry to identify, respectively, the initial vocal melody of a film songwith a repeated lyric that includes the songs title and that acts as a refrainand the consequent melody. The latter provided the musical basis for the verses of a song, using different lyrics for each repetition. 6. The reso-reso is a hollow tube of wood or bamboo with parallel ridges cut horizontally that produces a scraping sound when played with a smaller piece of wood or metal (technically a scraped idiophone). Understood to have entered the Mumbai film line through the influence of Latin American jazz bands, the instrument, normally played by Amrut Katkar, was an important time keeper in the Burman rhythm section.

References
Anand, Dev. (1971). Hare Rama Hare Krishna [Motion Picture]. India: Hindi. Anand, Vijay. (1966). Teesri Manzil [Motion Picture]. India: Hindi. Bedi, Narendra. (1974). Dil Diwana [Motion Picture]. India: Hindi. Bhattacharjee, A. & Vittal, B. (2011). R. D. Burman: The man, the music. New Delhi: Harper Collins.

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