the world's most pointless debate

A childhood passion- of listening to music- has been revived now that I have been gifted an MP3 player. Some great songs in the player as well.
And as I listen to them, I realise why it is so futile to get into any debate on who is the greatest when it comes to artistic and individual pursuits.
Let me give an example. For years we have been mesmerized by the orchestration of the songs composed by AR Rahman. Take some time out to listen to Laxmikant Pyarelal?
I personally believe with the exception of an Illaiyaraaja, no composer has tried to include so many instruments into the same song as LP. And the instruments vary from the Indian ones like the dafli or dholak to the very-soulless sounding synthesizers of that time. And more often than not, LP will manage to take you over the moon as these instruments play out one by one or sometimes in a cacophony backed by poor technology (think Hero).
Which brings me to my point. Genius and its exhibition remains the same, time and technology change and in the process making the exhibition of genius look better with every new installment.
Simply put, an AR Rahman will look better than an Illaiyaraaja or an LP because of the better technology that is at the disposal of Rahman. The brain that sorts out the different sounds, aligns and arranges them, will remain the same for every genius. Listen to SD Burman for that matter. He too tries small riffs with obscure instruments and pulls it off brilliantly. But the quality of the sound is what is a problem. Nothing that the legend could have done about since that is in the realm of technology.

But listen to the purity of the instrumentation when it comes to Rahman. Because the maestro is as much adept with sound technology as he is with music itself. But that does not make him a bigger genius than the names I have mentioned above.

A friend, who apart from holding a doctorate in astrophysics is also a fairly good Mohan veena player, likes to play futurologist. Of all the things that he used to come up with from what is a very fertile brain, the most wonderful was asking us to listen to the silence. It always has a rhythm.

Actually try it. Choose a noisy place like a railway station or a traffic junction. Sit there just listening to what will appear to be a cacophony of disparate sounds. Slowly you will realise that each of these sounds- horns, tyres, vehicles- actually keep to a fixed time. Same with trains crossing over tracks that have slight fractures.

The point is that someday technology- computers, sequencers, synthesizers whatever- would be capable of deciphering the timing and pattern of disparate sounds. Or be able to pick up tunes in the rustling of leaves, howling of wind and chirping of birds.

Then someone will come in with the ability to use these patterns to create music and the tunes to make songs. And as is the case with every genius, we will be mesmerized. Since the medium of communication would be better than what it is today, this man would be called a genius and phenomenon many times over.But the question is would he be better than Rahman? No because Rahman is doing much the same. Trying new sounds and tunes as much as technology allows him to. Something that SD Burman, Salil Chowdhury, LP, Illaiyaraaja did before him.

As I said, genius remains constant, times and technology change. We might think Sachin is better than Bradman because of the better reach of the media, but just imagine if we saw an inning of the Don with a curtain of cameras all around as is the case with the IPL? Would we still say the same? It is always pointless this debate.