ADITI SARAWAGI
Women Achievers
in Music
There is so much talent in this country.
We all hear of the big achievers, the
international celebrities but sometimes
the small victories, which are actually
the important ones, go unnoticed. This
Women’s Day, we at Score, unearth
some true stellar achievements by
women who first and foremost paved
the way for the artists to follow suit
today. Here’s celebrating the women
achievers in music in India. all-women classical band who were also
known as the ‘Indian Spice Girls.’ They
opened Sting’s 1999 concert. Stree Shakti
was founded by Anuradha Pal in 1996 to
create a platform for women to perform.
She was also entered in the Limca Book
of Records for being the first professional
female tabla virtuoso in the world in
1991. She also went on to become the only
female Indian musician to have performed
at the Woodstock Festival in 2008.
A movie soundtrack would be incomplete
without a female voice and yet one of
the first female playback singers in the
Hindi film industry was Shamshad Begum
who had to fight her family and society’s
pressures to enter the music industry. With
a beautiful voice, she finally went on to sing
over six thousand songs in Hindi, Bengali,
Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil and Punjabi
languages. Other female singers of the
time include Rajkumari Dubey, Zohrabai
Ambalewali and Amirbai Karnataki.
Singing and music direction go hand in
hand and one of the earliest female figures
in Indian cinema was Saraswati Devi who
composed many popular songs between
the 1930s and 1940s. She also trained actors
and actresses in singing since playback did
not exist then and she was responsible for
introducing playback singing in Mumbai.
During these times there were hardly
any women working in cinema but it was
their sheer grit, determination and talent
which got them through to the industry and
opened ways for other women to follow suit. More recently, 24-year-old Rafia Rahim
became the first woman radio jockey on
a private radio station from Kashmir's
Budgam district. She has become a
household name after she hosted various
local programs on the radio station. This
might not sound like a big deal but in
the political upheaval of Kashmir, this
indeed is a milestone moment for Rafia
as well as Kashmir. India has always
churned out phenomenal talent and the
first Indian singer’s track to go platinum
is a woman of calibre, Ananya Birla
whose single "Meant to Be" is certified
platinum in the English music category
as per the Indian Music Industry (IMI)
recognized criteria for certifications.
You might not have heard about the first
female band in India but it sure broke many
stereotypes when an all- girl beat group
‘The Ladybirds’ was formed by Farida Vakil
in the late 60’s when the Western music
scene in India was highly male-dominated.
Though there were female singers but an
all-girl band was rare and The Ladybirds
became extremely popular, and till date,
this band is considered a milestone in
establishing women’s presence in the
Indian music industry. Another first
was Stree Shakti which was India’s first
Talking about new-age music, one has to
mention Archy J or The Snake Charmer
who is India's first female bagpiper to play
commercially. She is also a self-taught
bagpiper who faced many adversities
when she set out to learn the bagpipes as
there were no teachers available in India.
Indian musicians are now global artists and
the first Indian woman to win a Grammy,
considered to be one of the most prestigious
music awards in the world, is Tanvi Shah
who was honoured for her contribution to
the song ‘Jai Ho’ from Slumdog Millionaire
in 2010 along with A.R. Rahman and
Gulzar. She has also won World Soundtrack
Award (2009) and the BMI Award (2009).
Music is universal and these
women have inspired many
women in the music industry.
The
Score Magazine
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