Part of the 'whose voice is it anyway' problem is that when they do choose to sing a song in their scale and in their way, they get seriously chastised for it.
In classical music, Carnatic and Hindustani, the same raga and the same kriti or khayal can be sung by anyone, at their scale and in their way. Possibly as a consequence of a few singers dominating the Hindi film music scene, MDs and singers now seem to demand that a song sung in one scale can only be sung there and that no changes can be made. This actually contradicts our own musical tradition.
It particularly hurts female singers with out of the way voices. They have to sound high-pitched because the Mangeshkars did. And part of why that happened was to keep pace with the tenor voices of the male singers. The result is perfectly nice songs get stuck in a 'yeh female gana hai, yeh male gana hai' mode and people cannot sing the same song in what Carnatic singers would call their own 'sruti'. I am not sure if I am expressing myself clearly.
People who can sing well, at least technically, and can simulate other people's ranges, as can Sumitra and Harshit, end up sounding like everyone and then we really wonder who they are. But look what happened to Ishmeet last week. Sad, sad.
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