One Voice, Many Spaces: a Contemporary Female Self-Taught Musician’S Pathways Into Tamil Film Song Cover Culture in Chennai, South India
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ONE VOICE, MANY SPACES: A CONTEMPORARY FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN’S PATHWAYS INTO TAMIL FILM SONG COVER CULTURE IN CHENNAI, SOUTH INDIA By NINA MENEZES A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2018 © 2018 Nina Menezes To Vandana, whose life and quirky curiosity inspired this work. The voices —hers, theirs, and mine— are not my creation They are part of the paths hidden until now the paths we have been the paths we are the paths we will uncover They are all a part of her, them, and I Like every story, this one is based on a truth— hers, theirs, and mine. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to several individuals—across two continents— who were so generous with their time and support. Thanks to Vandana; without her story, music, dynamic personality, and passion to persevere I would not have uncovered the many cover spaces for Tamil film song in such a short time. I am grateful for her friendship, and the conversations we shared about music and life as we sipped on suda suda filter kapi and munched on idlis and vadas at the local Murugan Idli Kadai. Vandana’s sister, Vagu, and their extended network of self-taught musicians—Shantha, Alex, Prabhu, and Achu—shared their experiences as self-taught musicians within the cover scene. Their passion, adaptability, and self-discovery made fieldwork informative, rewarding, and above all a source of inspiration. I am thankful for their continued friendship. I acknowledge some of the popular Tamil film musicians—A.R. Rahman, Ilaiyaraja, Pop Shalini, Bhavatharini and Justin Prabhakaran—whose work has provided opportunities for me to collaborate over the years. More importantly, it is their work that has inspired this new breed of self-taught musicians who have turned their passion for film music into a creative profession. I am grateful to my doctoral committee. Larry Crook, my advisor provided the space and freedom to explore and be creative with my area of research. His seminar classes on Popular Music, as well as Music and Place have influenced my work. Welson Tremura’s sage advice that “ethnomusicology is about the people making music” prepared and guided me throughout my fieldwork in Chennai. Silvio dos Santos has been a significant role model; his scholarly advice and unwavering support have made me a better scholar. Vasudha Narayanan, a storehouse of knowledge on the Indian subcontinent, fueled my interest in Indian film studies. I am grateful to my 4 doctoral committee for their reading, insightful comments, and suggestions on various drafts of this work. Virginia Woolf, in her essay A Room of One’s Own (1929) asserted: “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write.” The University of Florida Graduate School Dissertation Travel Award (2016) and the Graduate School Dissertation Award (2018) made fieldwork possible. Various travel grants from the School of Music, College of Arts, the Office of Research and Graduate Programs, and the Student government (BOCC) from 2014-2017 facilitated conference presentations. Thanks to these travel-funding sources, in 2017 I received recognition at the annual Society for Ethnomusicology conference for my contribution to women’s and gender studies, South Asian Performing Arts, and fieldwork by way of the Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, and the Wong-Tolbert Student Paper Prizes. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the spaces that facilitated the writing process: the libraries at University of Floirda, Gainesville’s coffee shops, my room with a view overlooking the duck pond, and the few months I was fortunate to live at the Dragon’s Lair. A big thank you to Sophia Acord and the Center for Humanities for the week-long retreat at The Austin Cary Forest Learning Center during summer 2018, which enabled me to revise a draft of my dissertation. Finally, my deepest love and gratitude to my family who have seen me at my best and worst. To my mother, Jean, who nurtured my musical and academic interests and fortified me with grit. My husband, Nathan, who moved to Florida with me, supported me emotionally through the writing process, and above all encouraged me to tell this story. Umrao and Mia, your feline companionship—not to mention distraction— made writing less arduous. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................... 10 LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ 11 LIST OF EXAMPLES .................................................................................................... 18 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... 19 CHAPTER 1 DISCOVERING CHENNAI’S TAMIL FILM SONG COVER CULTURE WITH A FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN ..................................................................... 21 Vandana Mazan ...................................................................................................... 21 What Led Me to Vandana and the Tamil Film Music Cover Scene ......................... 22 Covers and Cover Practices ................................................................................... 28 Navigating Cover Performance Spaces with Vandana ........................................... 32 Outline of Chapters ................................................................................................. 33 Within the Space of a Cover Song ................................................................... 33 Small-Scale Recording Studios Spaces ........................................................... 34 Live Concert Cover Performance Spaces ........................................................ 35 Pedagogical Spaces ......................................................................................... 35 Music Reality Television Show Spaces ............................................................ 36 Live Streaming Spaces..................................................................................... 36 Pathways to and Beyond Cover Spaces .......................................................... 37 Ethnographic Methods and Methodology................................................................ 38 Multi-sited Ethnography .................................................................................... 38 Ethnographic Methods ..................................................................................... 38 The Individual in Ethnomusicology ................................................................... 43 History of Women’s Roles and Self-fashioning in Indian Film Music Production .... 45 Traditional Gendered Role of Female Playback Singers in Mainstream Cinema .......................................................................................................... 45 Evolving Musical Identity of Contemporary Playback Singers .......................... 48 Self-taught Musicians’ Pathways into Film Music Production through Cover Performance .................................................................................................. 50 Female Self-fashioning, Female Respectability, and Social Mobility within the Cover Scene ........................................................................................... 51 Concepts ................................................................................................................. 55 Space and Pathways ........................................................................................ 55 Mainstream ....................................................................................................... 56 Cover Scene ..................................................................................................... 57 Contribution of this Ethnographic Study .................................................................. 59 6 2 WITHIN THE SPACE OF A COVER SONG: FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIANS TRANSFORMING THE CANON ........................................................ 61 Stumbling Upon a Cover of ‘Adiye Manam Nilluna’ ................................................ 61 History of Women’s Roles in Indian Cinema ........................................................... 68 Female Playback Singers in Indian Cinema – The Lady and the Vamp ................. 70 “Adiye Manam Nilluna,” from Neengal Kettavai ...................................................... 73 Non-filmic Covers of “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di” ............................... 90 Mazan Sisters’ Cover, ‘Tribute to the Glamour Queen, Late Silk Smitha’ ........ 95 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 103 3 “YOU’RE NOTHING WITHOUT THE STUDIO:” FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIANS CLAIMING STUDIO SPACE AND ROLES ...................................... 107 First Visit to D-Studio, Valasaravakkam ................................................................ 116 Studio as a Space for Storytelling and Socializing ................................................ 118 Studio as a Space for Gaining Musical and Technological Skills .......................... 123 Studio as a Space for Negotiation ........................................................................ 126 Studio as a Space