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Ustad
Rashid Khan has included the slow elaboration in his vilambit
khayals in the manner of his maternal uncle and also developed
exceptional expertise in the use of sargams and sargam taankari.
He has also included the slower tempo vilambit. He is also
extremely adept in producing all the other techniques and
characteristic features of the Rampur Sahaswan style. His
taankari is as powerful and varigeated as any of his predecessors
and, in fact, among the best in the nation at the moment.
The
brilliant Enayat Hussain drut and medium pace khayals ring
as true in his voice as they have done down the ages. He is
also a master of the tarana like his guru but sings them in
his own manner, preferring the khayal style rather than the
instrumental stroke-based style for which Nissar Hussain was
famous. There is no imitiation of instrumental tone in them
either. His vocal prowess is in the best tradition of the
Rampur Sahaswan gharana. His mastery of all aspects tonal
variations, dynamics and timbre adjustment leave very little
to be desired in the realm of voice culture.
A
notable achievement of Ustad Rashid Khan is the infusion of
an emotional content into his melodic elaboration. This was
generally considered to be lacking in the styles of the older
exponents. The older ustads, being essentially court singers,
put the emphasis on polished technique, skillful execution
of difficult passages and the power to astound with their
musicianship. The Nawabs and Mahrajas and their courtiers
who were their prime audience found these things more interesting
and did not bother about emotional appeal. For the khayal
to them was classical art song and emotional appeal was not
an important requisite for this type of music.
But
after independence and especially in the second half of the
20th century, classical music, including khayal, which like
the thumri, was the most popular vocal form, was patronised
by audiences coming from the middle and upper-middle class
segments of the society. The modern listener thus tended to
find Mushtaq Hussain or even Nissar Hussain rather dry for
their taste. As a result these singers were not as popular
as certain contemporaries who infused emotions into the the
khayal. With the entry of Rashid Khan the tables have been
turned and the spontaneous emotional appeal of his manner
of singing, be it in the melodic elaboration or in the upper
octave pukars, have won him enthusiastic listeners and followers
the world over.
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