Music in today's culture: film and wider audiences

This lesson asks you to identify and describe some of the key influences of music within contemporary culture. The museum offers two examples: a qawwali written for a Hindi film, and a qawwal whose music reached audiences far from where his art began. Music in advertising, the tastes of young people and other influences your class must bring from elsewhere. ¹

List the places where you heard music this week: a film, a shop, a bus, a home. For each, ask what the music was doing there.

Follow a route in each of the two examples: from a scene to a song, from one country to another audience. Compare what changed and what stayed.

In the film Rockstar the hero, Jordan, can express himself only through music, and his music takes in the places he passes through. ² When he is thrown out of his house, he goes to the Nizamuddin Dargah in Delhi, spends time with the qawwals and plays with them. ² Out of that journey into music and life, the article says, the qawwali 'Kun Faya Kun' was composed. ²

The song was written for one scene of a film. What would a song need so that someone who has never seen the film still feels it belongs to that scene, and why?

• Kun Faya Kun: who composed and sang it, how long the track is, and the award it won.
• Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: his work on film scores and the albums that took qawwali to wider audiences.
• Mirchi Music Awards: the ceremony of 21 March 2012 where the song was honoured.

Read about the qawwali Kun Faya Kun. Make a table with two columns: what the film scene needed, and what the song gave it.