Every year we notice too many Hindi movies hit the cinema halls and it’s quite difficult to find a Hindi movie which is being made without songs. Songs are integral to any Hindi movie. The tradition which was long ago started is still considered to be the essential element of a Hindi cinema. There are many movies which become hit not because of its superiority in relation to scripts or the marvelous acting of actors – but it’s because of music – which was created with good and catchy lyrics. We assume all songs to have the effect of lyrics – otherwise it’s difficult for a common man to decipher through musical notes which have no lyrics.
Many Bollywood movie hindi lyricist were Ghazal poets and they turn to Bollywood for fame and good career prospects. They were very good with words and that helped them to have a strong sense of music. As a result there was a mark of quality in the lyrics which were churned out in yesteryears.
Writing Hindi lyrics is a two way process:
A, the musician writes a musical tune or he creates a track and after refining it he sung it for the lyricist in ‘laa, laa, naa, naa….type of dhun/tune format. This gives the lyricist the idea to understand the hidden words forming its tune. And, once he understands the positions of words – he starts writing. It’s called writing to a tune. Syllabe count is an essential element. The poet must count the each note of the tune with exact sounding words
B, in some cases the lyricist already has some poems which he recites and the music director starts humming it in some sort of tune. In this type of lyrics for music – the lyrics may change its actual metaphor to a large extent in some cases or in some cases it’s kept intact – it depends on how well the written lyrics are adaptable to a some sort of worthy tune.
Format:
The mukhda first followed with an antra is the popular format of all hindi lyrics. We can say that it’s actually the format of musical notes which are created in mukhda and antra style which is followed by the lyrics writers to mingle with notes easily.
Mukhda is the first part of the song and antra is the second part of songs. Generally it’s divided into three parts the first being the mukhda and then followed by 2 antra’s. every antra calls back the mukhda with its last line which is written in rhyme with the mukhda’s any particular line which music director picks up to integrate it with antra’s last line. Generally it’s the last line of the mukhda. But now a days it’s not strictly followed.
Then what it takes to write a song – it’s practice. Knowing how words fits a particular tune and knowing how you can be able to justify the tune by bringing the correct interpretation of it in writing. If you understand this – it’s just a matter of penning your lyrics with the tune in a smooth flow – no matter weather it’s a antra or mukhda – where ever the music director wishes to have the lines to be written to the tune the lyricist can do that once he develops this basic understanding. But, in a scrip based lyrics writing – the lyrics writer needs to visualize very creatively the words which can be in line with script. This is a very tough job and demands lot of creativity apart from having technical skills of writing lyrics.