Musicology

Now there is a wave of reality shows(not again!), and singing competitions happen to be on the top. Now, most of the judges here are renowned(meaning whoever is popular but idle) folks giving suggestions(now that can vary depending on the judge and the episode) to "tomorrow's singers" as they are called. But even though there is so much hype, i have seen that so many of these singers came and went and now we just dont see them anywhere ("Tomorrow never dies" for "Tomorrow's singers"?). Anyway, the point is, no one, i mean no one, says anything against classical music. If there is a singer who has not learnt classical, then he is promptly adviced to learn it, creating an atmosphere like 'your career is doomed if you dont learn it!'. Now i am not against classical or something but i do happen to feel sometimes that, are we overrating importance of classical music? Yes, i agree its age old good indian school of music(and it works beautifully given that we have an amazing variety of songs in india). But again, if you see example of Kishore Kumar and since there can be a marvellous singer like him without learning classical, then maybe classical is not the only option to learn singing. Ofcourse its a matter of opinion and opinions vary from person to person but yes, i do tend to hold the opinion that, the amount of patience required in learning classical might be tiring out many people who want to learn singing and who think that singing is exceedingly difficult to learn as classical happens to be difficult and that it seems to be the only starting point if you want to learn music. I believe there can be many ways of learning and we need to put aside the religion of classical music to which we have so much stuck to, if we want to atleast explore (or lay foundation for)different schools of learning music. That might ("might" :D) help in creating new music and also in making learning more accessible to the common folk(that includes me :D)
Now, the pic is Ganesha :D (this was on the door of our guesthouse in bangalore), lord of all auspicious and sacred things. Since i have started learning music myself, let me say, lord Ganesha, Please guide me!!! :D!!