I appreciate what strings have done with Coke studio after Rohail left, one or two gems, a few good songs and a bunch of mediocre songs, but there is just something on my mind that I want to say, and this is just my interpretation of his music.
Whenever I listened to Coke studio under Rohail Hyatt, there were just some things I felt in his songs.
He started adding music from the rule "Silence is golden". That means every instrument, including the vocals and background singers, had a very important purpose for being there. If it disturbed the "Silence" , didnt add to the theme or story or the feel of the song, it wasnt added. Thus there was extremely high attention to detail to what was left in and what was taken out, subsequently there wasn't much noise in the song. Imagine if I give you a pizza with extra of all available toppings, you will vomit it out instead of enjoying it. Just because you have some really good artist at disposal who can play an instrument doesn't mean he/she SHOULD be in the song no matter what. I feel, Strings began the composition of the song from "Okey we have a guitar player, a bass player, a banjo player, a flute player, a tabla, and the list goes on ..and on...and on..".
Instrument complemented each other. This also applied to singers and backing vocals. So that allowed all the instruments and players to shine through, instead of getting drowned under noise. Aik Alif has Saieen Zahoor with minimal background tambura and harmonium for the 1.30 mins, since the song and lyrics demand that his powerful voice shines through. Singer like Atif,Uzair Jaswal and Meesha Shafi were allowed the freedom to expand their lungs and go for those extended stretches in most of their songs, casue it made perfect sense to allow them to go up in the higher notes and hit them perfectly everytime (Dhonla, Channa, Charkha Nolakha, etc). Singers like abida parween and sanam marvi were allowed to go off tempo and then return back to it and join the rest of music at their will as they understand the analog intricacies between the bars and chord changes (an example Listen to soz-e-ishq from abida parveen from 3:55 and when she joins back in at 4:05 mark). Instead of giving them fast paced There were guitar solos, bass lines could be appreciated, a cappella, drum and tabla "jugalbandi" and he understood the harmony between instruments. Some instruments entered, others exited, some increased the bpm but all made such an impact. Thus the whole thing was uplifted to another level.
Every pause, every tempo change, every bar change, every entry of new singer didnt seemed forced or felt more enjoyable, it wasnt there just for the sake of it. Experimentation meant that, even if I didnt like a particular song first time, given time it sounded nicer. Songs had a fresh and new feel to them. I actually really liked how Rohail in his final season introduced international performers. I still remember the last few secs of "Miyan ki malhaar" where that African guy is playing that stringed instrument as the outro of the song....anyways, I wish Rohail was back, I am tired of listening to a mixmash of (bass + electric guitar + acoustic guitar + drums +flute + Rubab + tabla + harmonium = Every Strings song ever....)
only Noori and other extremely extreamly talented singers are the saving grace of CS for me.
