The Other Songs of Kavi Pradeep

Posted on Trivia – The Spice of Life on 29/01/2022 The mention of Kavi Pradeep or Ramchandra Narayanji Dwivedi (06/02/1915 – 11/12/1998) at once reminds every music lover of his patriotic and didactic songs. No national festival is complete without patriotic songs penned by him being played. In fact, the inspiration to write this post

Static (?!) Solo Party Songs

Posted by Trivia- The Spice of Life on 17/07/2021 Party songs in golden era Hindi films are pretty stereotypical. There is music, dance and a large gathering. There is usually an instrument being played by the hero/heroine/ supporting actor/actress – which more often than not is the piano. As the piano is played and the

The lesser heard romantic duets of Manna Dey (Part 2)

When I was shortlisting songs for a post on the various ways in which music – especially classical music – has been depicted in songs of the golden era, I noticed that quite a few of these songs were sung by Manna Dey (or Prabodh Chandra Dey, 1919-2013). There is no questioning the fact that

Solo Songs of Lata – Vocal Preludes Special

There is a genre of songs which is unique and uncommon – where there is a prelude, which has both instrumental as well as vocal music. This genre of poetry is perhaps called Qat’a in Urdu and vilambit laya (introductory slow tempo) in Hindustani classical music. The prelude is slow when compared to the rest