After the screening of the first sound motion picture in Bombay in March 1932 a new genre of melodic arts - film music - began taking shape. In the beginning, theatre music with classical moorings was used for sound effects and composition of songs, which were included in the movies to increase their impact on the audiences.
The setting up of several film studios in Calcutta and Bombay during the first half of the decade of 1930s and a few in Lahore after 1935, songs became an integral part of films produced from these studios.
Slowly and steadily folk melodies from Bengal and Punjab make inroads in Indian cinema and became the basis of composition of film songs.
Consequently, theatre music was replaced by folk music traditions. R. C. Boral and Pankhej Mallick from Calcutta and Master Ghulam Haider, G.A. Chishti and Pundit Amar Nath from Lahore, to name a few musicians, composed songs for the films, which were strongly folk-oriented. At Bombay, composer Jhandhay Khan and several other musicians relied on classical genres of music for the composition of their film songs during the early 1940s.
Later, a new variety of original music drawing strength from classical and regional folk music was created, which relied mostly on the creative ingenuity of the composers. A large number of musicians shifted to Bombay from different parts of the sub-continent to compose songs in the strand of this new genre of music called film music.
Included among them were Naushad Ali, Sajjad Hussain, Khurshid Anwar, Feroze Nizami, Master Ghulam Haider, S. D. Barman, Salil Chaudhry, Anil Biswas, Husanlal-Bhagat Ram, C. Ram Chandra and many more, whose songs added much both to the popularity of film songs as well as the success of movies.
These musicians were original composers, who had learnt classical music from renowned maestros.
Some of them had also received high formal education, whose ability to conceive compositions in accordance with the demands of situations in the movies provided them an edge over their uneducated brothers-in-profession.
The period spanning middle of 1930s and the end of 1960s is considered the golden era of film music during which thousands original songs were composed by perceptive musicians, which regaled millions of cine-goers in the sub-continent.
In Pakistan, popular original film songs were composed by a large number of pre-partition fame musicians, who successfully competed with the best songs from films produced from Calcutta and Bombay.
Included among the frontline Pakistani composers of that period were Feroze Nizami, Master Ghulam Haider, Master Inayat Husain, Khurshid Anwar, Rasheed Attray, G. A. Chishti, Master Abdullah, Sohail Ra'ana, Nisar Bazmi, Shaukat Naushad and several others, whose compositions were considered a guarantee for the success of the films at the box office.
Being an ineluctable component of cinematic arts no film could succeed in winning popularity sans popular songs that would reach the lips of millions of music buffs. From 1954 to early 1970s, Pakistani musicians composed a large number of original songs, which won wide public acclaim and contributed to the flowering of film industry in the country.
After the dismemberment of Pakistan in December 1971, which resulted in the shrinking of market for the movies, financiers avoided putting heavy investment in the film industry and produced films based on hackneyed formulae, which lost appeal for the viewers.
They also engaged young composers directing them to plagiarise popular songs from the Indian movies, which involved less creative labour and investment. Thus a decline in Pakistani cinema, especially in film music began, which has caused irreparable damage to what was once a prosperous movie industry in Pakistan.
Inveterate original composers in Pakistan could not compromise with the rising trend of plagiarism and went into voluntary self-exile leaving the field to inexperienced and generally incompetent musicians to compose songs for the few films that were produced from studios located in Lahore.
Gradually, film songs, lost appeal for the cine-goers with the result that now only a very few songs from the truncated Pakistani film industry receive public acceptance as they fail to tickle their sensibilities. It is generally known that musicians associated with film industry in Pakistan lack in their grooming in classical music.
They "compose" songs that lack in originality and are mostly based on plagiarised motifs from Indian movies (which too is now getting deficient in originality) a practice which does not require hard work and thinking. For paltry sums they agree to invent tunes for the songs, which do not engage the attention of cine-goers with the result that a majority of Pakistani flop causing financial losses to the producers.
The pristine glory of Pakistan movie industry in general and film music in particular can be revived only if perceptive and well groomed classical traditioned original composers are engaged for the invention of tunes for film songs. The present lot of incompetent "composers" are not capable of delivering the goods and can only invent tunes, which are totally ineffective in arousing the interest of music buffs.