Birth of Film Songs in India

Gauhar Jan recording the first song

The songs are integral part of Indian Cinema.Right from the advent of Indian Talkie cinema in 1931, musicals with song numbers have been a regular feature in Indian cinema.Within the first few years itself, Hindi cinema had produced a variety of films which easily categorised into genres such as "historicals", "mythologicals", "devotional, "fantasy" etc. but each having songs embedded in them such that it is incorrect to classify them as "musicals".The first talkie film ALAM ARA(1931) had seven songs

Immediately after Alam Ara another movie SHIHREEN FARIHAD(1931) by J F MADAAN had 42 songs
A film INDRA SABHA released in 1932 had 71 songs which made a record of highest number of songs in a single film till today.
Though Talking cinema started in India 1n 1931 but film songs were played with the films durring the silent movie era.Those days playback music was not born Initially few musicians used to play music durring the screening of the movie but after the invention of gramophone the records were played with the movies.
Experiments in capturing sound on a recording medium for preservation and reproduction began in  during the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. Many pioneering attempts to record and reproduce sound were made during the latter half of the 19th century – notably de Martinville's Phonautograph of 1857 – and these efforts culminated in the invention of the phonograph, patented by Thomas Edison in 1877.
The First recorded film song was sung by GAUHAR JAAN recorded on 2nd November 1902.Though GAUHAR KHAN'S song was the first hindi song recorded but before that few bengali songs were recorded.If you google search we find that the first recording done in India was in 1988.Hemendra Mohan Bose, an Indian entrepreneur, imported the phonograph of Edison and made the cylinder record. The records were popularly known as Bose's record. Rabindranath Tagore recorded the 'Bande Mataram' here in his own voice.
De De Khuda Ke Naam Pyare from Alam Ara carries the credit of being the first song ever to be played on the Hindi film screen. The name of poet is lost in history. The music is composed by Pherozeshah M Mistry. The singing voice is that of Wazir Mohammed Khan, who plays a fakir and a beggar. And he is singing this song