Raaja Paarvai - A Perspective on Raaja

Raaja's Jazz Waltz

2012-02-18T01:39:00.001+01:00

A recent article I wrote/ recorded is published in Solvanam. You can read it here.

Videos I made for this article are here:

I linked about 17 odd songs of Raaja in the article.. A sample of what I attempted to say is here:

Couple of my personal jazz waltz favorites which I also linked in the article is given below for your listening/ learning experience.

Coltrane the King:

Composer who dreamed of massive orchestration in films and executed them with panache..
The great Burt Bacharach:

(Don't miss his Raindrops keep falling from the same movie. It can lift you regardless of how gloomy a day you may have had)

Showman thy name is Sammy Davis Jr:

I first time I heard this song was on a local French radio while driving along coastal route with the early morning son beating down the lovely pink granite rocks of a postcard village called Perros-Guirec. A new place with arresting scenery that I am seeing for the first time resonating with the lyrics of a new song I was listening for the first time - "Golden Brown , texture like sun" .. Its a moment that will stay with me forever..

Sunday Driver of relatively unknown Limp Twins fare high in my list too..

As usual, my apologies for non-tamil friends. I made it a point to recorded the video in English so that you can appreciate this as well. I promise that you can expect the English version of the post soon..

With Love
Vicky

Waltzing Away

2010-12-06T00:12:00.009+01:00

Continuing a bit on my previous post..

All of Raaja's evergreen and ever greatest hits have one thing in common. i.e., besides their mass appeal they are worth in gold from the eyes of an instrumentalist. The singers, as blessed souls as always, invariably take away the lion's share of a song's success. For instance a "Ilaiyanila Pozhigiradhu" or a "Mandram vantha Thendralukku" are "SPB hits" first of all. "Mohan hits" perhaps takes away the second best honor. But they never will be classified under: "Chandrasekhar hits" (the lead guitarist of Ilaiyanila) or "Frank Dubier Hits" - the Trumpeter of Mandram Vandha.. (for that matter we don't even know for a fact who played the trumpet in this song. Frank is an educated guess at best. Speaks for the level of appreciation we tend to show on the people behind the scenes.)

Usually the instrument tracks behind such songs are so challenging, that it takes some effort to play them. Take "Poove Sempoove" for example. For the abilities of Padma shri & Padma Bhushan KJ Y, this song is a piece of cake. But look at the instrument tracks in the song. Be it the Gowrimanohari dished out in Hindustani arrangement in the first interlude or the most unorthodox jugalbandhi of Tabla Vs Drums in the second BGM, the instrumentalists need to be on high alert here. One count that you miss and the whole BGM is gone.. !

Speaking further of the second interlude, If an orchestra is playing it live on stage, you can judge their quality just by this interlude. Its the toughest test for a team not on the scale of individual brilliance of artists, but how well they fare collectively. The constant tracks formed by the bass and hi-hat are quite convoluted in itself. Ironically that's the only reprieve which the keyboardists and the percussionists can latch on to and find out when to start and when to finish their bit. And speed of this interlude is an element to factor in as well. Ask the strings ensemble towards the end and they will vouch for that certainly. Its like a tight rope walk on top of a moat with hungry crocodiles waiting to gobble you if you fall.. But still, the appreciation at our level stops with "some serious sounding" music that matched the visual tension and turmoil the Hero is going through on screen.

Take the innocuous sounding guitar during the prelude for instance. It demonstrates nothing but Raaja's ingenious creativity. D6th Added 9th followed by G6th followed by E minor 7th. Killer arpeggios which is actually a melodic track in itself as opposed to a straight forward side track that such strumming usually is.. The way how the distinct variation from D to G to E comes out despite G6th and Em7th being exactly the same set of notes underlines what improvisation is (i.e., the base arpeggio and the chord transition are perhaps decided upfront and how these two should compliment each other w.r.t right inversions etc., are chosen on the fly based on the most efficient finger traversal). Sada sir who played these arpeggios effortlessly has certainly done a noteworthy job here, but the question is have we noted it before ..? :-)

(Headphones recommended for the below video)

The problem with these musical phrases are that, half of the time they are so nuanced and its unfair to expect a listener to appreciate this. But even those who can, usually does not look beyond how it 'sounds'. The fact though remains that, its indeed a big deal to record such songs of rich content as a team in a live environment. Even if one musician fails, the whole recording has to be repeated. (Remember SPB's famous trivia that it took them 16 takes to record Ilaiyanila due to the guitarist and the results are here to be seen today 25 years since). I was told that the unbelievably orchestrated song of "Idhu oru Nila kaalam" was completed on the first take. And this may not have been the only such wonder.. So next time when you listen to a "nice sounding" instrumental bit from a "popular song", I hope you will try to visualize what it takes to record such complex musical collaborations and give these unsung heroes their credit..

With Love
Vicky

Humungousaur

2010-10-18T02:25:00.057+02:00

This is a word that I learn from my son.. !!

Its apparently a fictitious character in Ben10 Alien Force (another fictitious Mega Cartoon series to begin with.. ! But much more imaginative than our Saas Bahu Mega Soaps, I must admit !). If you ask my son about Humungousaur, he has no difficulties in explaining about what it is.. Its basically the bench mark for anything big.. Nothing can be bigger.. When needed a Humungousaur can grow tall and become even bigger.. It can never be defeated except by (what else) an 'Ultimate Humungousaur' !!

Its that simple..

As imaginative it may sound, the term actually does make sense in real life when applied to the pillars of Raaja's orchestra. While Pyramids of Giza or Great wall of China are known to every one, surprisingly these names are not household names except for the people in the music industry.

Viji Manuel,
Purushotaman,
Sadanandam
Napoleon
VS Narasimhan
Shashi
Vasanth
Noel Grant
Tabla masters Kannaya and Prasad

The list goes on...

They are musicians with unlimited talent and are highly regarded in the Indian film music circuit. Thanks to few friends who are in touch with them, I get to know a bit on how they go about their business in real life. And if anything is to go by, one thing is certain. These people are not just musicians.. They are:

Humungousaurs

If at all there is only one force which does injustice to these giants, its the recording and sound reproduction technologies of late 70s and 80s. Its such a shame that we never got to feel the full potential of "what would have been....!!" of what we listen to in most of Raaja's songs. I have been in touch with many of the friends in the Raaja community.. Listening to his songs in good quality is the holy grail (me included) for all of us. Though I have garnered quite a bit of high quality tracks in the past, I miss (and still do) the quality tracks of certain songs where these Jambavaans' talent is showcased.

Motivated by two other Humungousaurs, I finally decided to do something about it.

One is, Dr. Doraisamy. HOD of my department (ECE) in my college life.. He always used to reinforce the faith in we the Engineers using an interesting analogy!! Teaching the "Electronic Devices and Circuits" from the book authored by Milman and Halkias (the book I still fear the most in my life.. !!), he used to ask: "someone from vocational education can fix a motor if it goes kaput, while you engineers cannot. Does that make him better than you..?" Having made us feel worthless he would go on to give the answer of the question we didn't ask in the first place: "No.. Theoretical science is the mother of all inventions. Without it, there will be nothing.. So without you there was no motor to begin with !!"; While you are wondering, "What is he trying to say..!!??!! Does he imply that you too will end up fixing fans and mixies in your life if you don't pay attention to me..?" he would have completed explaining how the high pass filters work !!

The second one is "Audacity", the open source freeware which has been a GOD to me since I started using it a couple of years back. Although I mainly use it for music clipping, I recently managed to unearth (some of) its hidden features. Last couple of months, I have been putting my select list of songs through its High pass filters, Low pass filters, Amplification, Bass Boosting, Equalization, Leveling, Repairing, phasing and practically every other option available under its "Effect..".

This weekend I cut my first home made CD with the sole intention of celebrating these genius for my personal listening and learning.

I managed to work on about 75 songs.. The songs are of two categories. The first 43 songs or so in this CD are more acoustic.. A few samples are here on display..The remaining 30 odd are electronic beat oriented songs (Like the Rojapoo Adivandhadhu that used a bit more than just the acoustic rhythm kits but still those that are not looped and played live during its recording). I still need to do some minor rework on these.

I am not a sound engineer and I wouldn't say these versions enhance one's listening pleasure.. My aim is that next time I sit in the keyboard, I expect to have it a bit easy in decoding these songs thanks to those Audacity effects and educating myself a bit of sound mixing and post processing along the way.. Now I can say with certainty that these tracks sound many a times better than the originals of the same that I have.

Having felt like Tinu Aanand in Aditya 365, finally I am ready to unveil my fruit of labor of last few weeks...These remastered tracks are the Ultimate Humungousaurs :-PP

(As part of my processing I had to jackup the amplitude in some cases to bring up the hidden sounds up and then suppress the remaining tracks.. Consequentially, If you are using headphones, then keep the volume levels low. It might get too close to your ears for comfort!)

I am able to appreciate the rim shots of Puru Sir while Sada sir is mesmerizing in his re-defining-the-clean-guitar- playing solo..

I am able to listen to the Thani Aavartanam of Puru sir in his drum kit much more clearly.

And how the hell did Viji Manuel managed to bend, pluck and slide his bass guitar (Yes.. he is also the Baap of all bassees from what I learn) all at the same time in that "tttt...toooon" (at the 17th second, before "I Love you".) and then falling back with an unimaginable grace (at 00:22) better than the injured Greg Louganis from his dive board ! Any traces of inspiration from Boney M's "Sunny" which Raaja was forced to take in to account is absolved with this jaw dropping stunt of Viji Manuel..

And the three different Cymbal Rides of Puru sir for the first three "Yaa Yaa Yaa " (in the ending of the pallavi, please please don't miss it..) are nectar to my ears now.. So is the crystal clear keyboard bends on the DX7 by Viji .. The foot pedal of Puru sir is so controlled and warm.. slap bass of Shashi sir starting the lines "Kiji Gaadi..".. crispy strokes

The half beat challenge that gives nightmare for all guitarists in this pallavi.. One time its the Tom at the 2nd maatra of first aksharam and its a single Chaapu in mridangam for the next.. It is impossible to have this kind of live arrangements anymore..

And Majestic is the word for this team work.. !! Scintillating guitars (both rhythm and lead), Puru sir's authority on the drums and Viji the emperor in the keyboard (on your right ear).. What a transformation of the folkish tune that we have known to in "Oru Kili" (Don't miss the crisp Tom at the end of this clip at 1:03.. Philips..!! Fill-ins cannot be with more Sense and Simplicity..!!)

Vasanth Sir with his flamboyance in this bass guitar Gem..

Sada sir in his elements.. Wamping-oo wamping.. and Major 7ths galore in this captivating BGM..

And so is this bend exposing the Sri Ragam. Ri2 is bent so beautifully to reach Ga2 (just) and then back to Ri2. The signature Ri2Ga2Ri2 Sa of Sri.. The lead guitar pieces in the interludes exemplify Fusion.. What playing !!

About the talk of all this Techno music providing the high for the urban youth, அட போங்கப்பா நம்ம ஆளு இந்த பிலிமயெல்லாம் ஒரு முப்பது வருஷத்துக்கு முன்னாடியே காட்டிட்டாரு..
(This has been mastered by Raaja some 30 years ago using manual playing..!!)

And if that is not enough, feel the drum's bass pedal (Dhak Dhak) in your heart here together with the rocking side bass.. Disco.. eh !!

And if there is one song where Tom Tom is exemplified its here. Its not the symbols that provides the groove but the Toms.. what an idea..

And how about some flam para diddles on Misra chappu (found after the Tabla in this interlude..) I still wonder the bass pattern set by Viji sir for such running rhythm in odd signature. I could never visualize that additional bifurcation on the running bass pattern of the pallavi lines until it was enhanced. I still can't get enough of these new extra notes..

And how can you explain such a intensely westernized disco and yet an integral Sarasaangi.. Love the way how VS Narasimhan sir takes off with his solo..

I reworked this track just to feel the warmth of that Snare at (00:08-00:09) of Puru sir.. Followed by inimitable clean guitar leads of Sada sir..

Rediscovering the Oh Premi !! Didn't know this song is as free flowing as these with all the hidden tracks (what with those wamping etc.,) coming to the fore.

How the hell was that bass tone achieved in the beginning of pallavi.. It really sounds Baaasss!! Viji Manuel in Keyboard with funky modes not to be missed in this whole song, especially the 2nd interlude..

And to calm down I fall back to some Major high !!

Finally goose bumps is the only explanation I have for this.. (one of my most satisfying result !)

I am feeling a bit like Caasim to have lost within these treasures with one exception.. I intentionally forgot the password to get out of the cave and come to the real life..

Point Blank!!

2010-07-15T01:45:00.011+02:00

Sometime ago, fellow Raaja affinicado Harikrishna sent me his video of Nenjathai Killathe's Title score. It was the dialog between lead guitar and the bass from the original score which he had played flamboyantly in his keyboard and sent me.

The title track has everything that Ilaiyaraaja stands for.

Surprise:
Every time you listen to Raaja, you will end up discovering something new. For a long time I have looked closely to see if there are any 'Sankeernam' like applications (i.e., 9/8 time signature) from Raaja but to no avail. When I went back to hearing this score, I was treated with a sweet surprise. It's first 4 bars are set to a 9/8 time signature. Even though its occurrence is short, the deliberate placing of Church bells that fall at the first count of all the first 4 beat cycles, conform to a "1234 12 123" rhythm cycle (there by conforming to a Sankeerna Eka meter).

Innovation:
The full length rhythm of this title score is conceived with the idea of a natural jogging rhythm. The initial 9 count oddity augurs well with a feel of uneven rhythm a jogger may follow. As we all know, Raaja chose this idea to signify the romance between the hero and the heroine which develops during their early morning jogs. The song "Paruvame" remains as one of the most adorable song in Tamil and Telugu Cinema to date. But not many are aware that this score already paves the way for it.

Structure:
A classical humming evoking the fresh feel of dawn... What starts as a Sankeerna meter, becomes a regular 6/8 from the 5th bar... This jogging rhythm of "12 12 12" forms the base for a complimenting swing waltz played in an acoustic brush kit... With those days' 80s technology, you hear harmonic recorder embellishments and a bamboo flute played in Indian style responding to it in short but a powerful manner... Controlled strumming of a guitar together with a solid Bass track forms the backbone through out... And both of them break free with a chit chat of their own which is the further focus of this blog post... A complete string ensemble that concludes the affair in a grand style. The whole score is incredibly well structured. No inexplicable wandering of the melody... No waste notes... Its by no means a simple piece. But it sounds simple!

Lets now look a bit closely at that dual between both the guitars...

What is a counterpoint is a question nagging many of us. I view this bit as a good uncomplicated example of a basic counterpoint . I base my view on the following qualities: You can see two independent melody line that are in harmony but follow different rhythmic structure. They overlap each other and yet co-exist beautifully in the end.

Please refer the sheet music to feel this:

Please note the crucial areas where both the tracks overlap and the occurrences of dotted notations that differentiate each track's timing being different. (You can also download the sheet music here. Comments and reviews of the sheet music are welcome.)

(Headphones recommended!)

Imagine composing all these are for a time when we are fervently searching for our seats in the dark much to the chagrin of the voice behind: "சாவுகிராக்கி ..!! சீக்ரமா குந்துப்பா!!" ("You irritant.. ! don't hide me and get settled fast!!")

With Love
Vicky

Araajagam

2010-06-02T00:12:00.007+02:00

Just a small gift to the readers on the occasion of Raaja's B'day....

From the conception of this song to the final product on Tape, It would have probably taken Raaja and his team a couple of hours. It has taken me a few weeks...

Intro:

Song (Pattu Inge - Poovizhi Vaasalile):

Now you know why the title of this blog post is 'Araajagam' (அராஜகம் is a Tamil word - that can be translated as "Audacious").

Its not a co-incidence that 'Raaja' is a sub-string of that!

With Love
Vicky

Everytime the first love

2010-04-26T21:42:00.010+02:00

Just heard the song "Aaro paadunnu Dhoore" from the new Sathyan Anthikad's movie - "Kadha Thodarunnu". Its one of those songs that you hear for the first time and fall flat.

Sathyan has the knack of getting at least one special song out of Raaja for his every movie. Be it the "Koda Manjin" (Kochu Kochu Santhoshangal) or Melleyonnu (Manassinakkare) or "Swasthin Thaalam" (Achuvinte Amma) or "Aatrinkarai" (Rasathanthiram) or "Mandhara Poo" (Vinodayathra) etc., etc., the impact of first time listening of such songs drains you out. You feel fresh as if someone just pressed your 'restart' button.

This song is a free flowing waterfall. As a listener you can clearly differentiate that, this is one song that is not "Manufactured". This was the basic trait of all music directors until the Ilaiyaraaja era. i.e., their specialty is not the creative spark they come up with for each song. Its their ability to finish what was started without going astray. In my personal view, I do not see any modern day composer who is showcasing this ability to build solid syncopation every 2 lines in each songs..

And thankfully Raaja on his 67th year, still has this gift of Spontaneity..

Such as the unexpected lengthy syllable of "Aathmaavil" of second line which starts a half beat earlier than the corresponding "Yaaro" of first, tells you that such tunes just come out that way when he places his fingers in the harmonium.. The rest of the Pallavi toes the cue from there to start ahead of each beat cycle. Chithra and Hariharan flaunting their experience through out the song.. For instance, effortlessly doing some tricky ascending kaarvais at the syllable "ill" (of Aathmaavil... Try oscillating your throat with your tongue attached to the roof and you would know !).

Looks like Raaja is going deeper into genre of free flowing jazz.. His penchant in recent movies to retain the guitar bends with minimal strings ensemble and some predominant 7th and diminished chords in the background, continues in this one two.. But again there is no wandering business.. the song is like a horse on blinders that follows a shifting reference between C# and its relative minor A# but all the time playing around with the same set of notes, the integrity of the song never once in question.

You can clearly feel this from phrases like this.

(The whole song can be heard at Music India online. I hope its legal..?)

Look at the chordensity at "Mazha - Villume Kondu Puthindhoru Vedhana nee" (Sorry for my poor malayalam lyrics). It goes around as F sus4, GbM7th, Eb6th, Fm and returning to A#m I suppose. That second chord of GbM7th is as unorthodox an application possible at that place (If you look closely it almost brings in the feel of Amruthavarshini in a shifted scale of Gb.) And yet it fits more than any normal chord you imagined..And when you thought its all over, then comes the unexpected coda in the form of Twinkle Twinkle. It sums up the overall experiencing of this song...

Both the Gandharams that act like the conjoined twins is the defining face of the song. Beautifully invoking a pensive and pining thought as you listen.. It would have by now triggered the debate among the internet intelligentsia if its a Pahaadi or a Maand. But this is one song where we should leave all such aspects behind (including the ones I blabbered above) and enjoy it for what it is for a moment.

An echoed voice that comes floating from somewhere in the ether, smothers you all around, takes you down the memory lane and brings few flashbacks in front of your eyes and finally puts you to sleep with lot of peace at heart..

Listeners to Raaja are the luckiest because whenever such songs come, they experience the first love all over again..

With Love
Vicky

Sound Of Silence

2010-04-01T22:45:00.009+02:00

I wanted to post this article in March itself (to keep up my personal target of at least one post a month).. Because actually this article was written in March and hence technically I still met my target.. Posting it on April 1st is not to play a poor fools day joke! But, because it is part My latest article in Solvanam. So I decided to mention it here only after that.

The article is in Tamil. (It always feels nice to write in Tamil..) But non-Tamil readers please excuse me.. I will try to update this post with an English translation as soon as I can..

Basically I attempted playing the song in question to highlight the beauty of silence in this song. Though I did elaborate about it in the article, the best way to connect to my thoughts is through the video I guess.. Where ever there is silence in the original song, I tried to play it a bit spontaneous and not necessarily always sticking to the timing .. I thought the inherent feel of the song is best felt that way. Else I just played the melody with a mix of regular arpeggios and original bass track occasionally.

As always, your opinion matter to me the most. So Good/Bad or Ugly I am curious to know what you think of it. I also notated the sheet music for the song, in case you are interested. And of course corrections are welcome !

Enjoy the Sindhu Bhairavi in D Minor..

With Love
Vicky

(Headphones recommended)

Raja Chaapu

2010-02-07T00:25:00.018+01:00

Pongal of '94. After duly monitoring the direction in which the milk boiled over, I knew what I should tell my mom and started counting my chickens. Of course whichever direction it flew out, she will have a theory that its still a good 'sign'. But only 'East' would make her content to the brim that all else would appear irrelevant. Even the thought of letting her sons commit the heinous crime of going to the theater on the morning of a festival...

Mahanadhi is the only movie till date that I have watched First day! First show !!

Watching the movie that day, the background motif for the romance between Heroine and behind-the-bars hero was something inexplicable. Though a usually emotional Kamal Hassan became a super emotional Kamal Hassan on that particular movie and was grabbing the best part of my attention, I could still notice how 'complex' that background score was .. Years later in Coimbatore - thanks to the vast collection of Jaffer brothers who ran a successful audio recording business in Gandhipuram - I came to know, that background score was actually a full blown song which never found its way into the movie. Back in my college music club, Our drummer Rajesh and me have spent quite a few nights trying to understand the song.

You can listen to the song in question here.

Its after all a 8 beats per measure song.. But its neither a 'normal' 8 beat cycle that we are used to in pop/ movie songs nor our Carnatic Aadhi Talam. In fact to discern that its not any monster but just an 8 beats a cycle song, requires some observation. Its because though the song has 8 beats, the strong beats are on 1,3 and 6th beat.

In other words, the key here is the absence of any emphasize on the usual 5th beat where an unmistakable divider is felt in most forms of 8 beat cycles of world music. Its signified by concepts such as Aridhi in our Carnatic music or an odd crash or a base pedal which signifies the symmetry that you have completed the first 4 and entering the next 4.. Much like Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie that proclaims "You are now entering the American Territory"..

But that is not to be in this song!

Therefore, the meter is more of a: 1 2| 1 2 3| 1 2 3|

I really couldn't fit what I heard in this song into any of the known conventions. For a long time it remained as my Reimann's Hypothesis making me wonder how to trap this prime.. But the answer to this puzzle was no where in sight..

Almost a decade and half later, when this query was still haunting me I finally found help. Rasikas.org is a high quality carnatic musical forum where lot of professionals discuss and guide beginners like me. I posted the same query there and got quite a few remarkable and enlightening responses. Following is the summary of that discussion.
- You could consider this meter as a Tisra Mattiya Tala (Which is a cycle of 3 + 2 + 3) with an eduppu at 4th beat. But the problem with this view is that, no 'shift' is perceived in the song whatsoever. Samam is unmistakable and woudln't fit.
- Through an advanced concept called 'Talaprasthara' in Carnatic Music, it could be established that there are 128 permutations in which beat cycles of 8 could be arrived. Our case of 2 + 3 + 3 is actually the 19th combination in this set.
- If I am insisting of having a structure of Dhuratam + Tisra Lagu + Tisra Lagu, then it lacks necessary Talangas required for a regular 'Tala'. So this can not be even considered as a 'Tala', but a more of a Rhythmic form which can be named after you or me.
- It is a song with actually 3 beats, and not 8 beats per cycle, where by the first beat is divided as two sub-beats, 2nd and 3rd beats is divided as 3 sub-beats each. More like an interpretation of: 2/8 + 3/8 + 3/8; It makes this beat cycle one of mixed gathi since each beat is not divided by same number of sub-beats. This is the way how Chappu talams in Carnatic music are interpreted. i.e., They have Tala cycles with no lagu in it but only beats that are not necessarily of same Gathi. Other popular examples are Kanda Chappu (2/8 + 3/8) and Misra Chappu (3/8 + 2/8 + 2/8).

(For academic interest, you can follow the whole thread here.)

To me the last explanation is more satisfactory. Not just because it compliments the other points above, but also the lyrics of this song seem to be beautifully written emphasizing the syllables of the aforesaid duration per each beat. i.e., Solladha = 2/8, Raagangal = 3/8, Ennenna = 3/8 and so on. (Who is the lyricist of this song, any idea..? He has done a fabulous job writing poetic words for such a tough meter..He deserves as much acclaim as Raaja.. I would love to think its Vaali..)

The way in which the experiment is carried on through out the song to bring about variations even in such a tough beat pattern is beyond my imagination;
For instance, take the finishing of Pallavi
Inaindha Sandharpam = 12 123
Izhandha Pon sorgam = 12 123
Thirumbumo = 123
Pudhu Yugam= 123
Arumbumo = 123
+ 5 beats offset by chords
i.e., a total of = 5 + 5 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 5 = 24 or 3 cycles of the original meter.

First 4 bars of 1st interlude is a maze agin... Especially the 10 count synth vibraphone that runs from the 6.5th beat of 1st bar and offsets all the way to the end of the second bar.. what an half beat timing man.. Keyboardist's nightmare..

And think of layers of attentive craftsmanship to the main beat.. A Triangle at 2nd and 5th count somewhere in the back. (can be more clearly heard in the pallavi)

So is the variety in ending of interludes with divisions of 5 + 5 + 6 to makeup two cycles. The second interlude where the song switches to Roopakam is one of the enchanting shifts in the song (although from a theoretical view point the song fails to return to the original meter at Samam).

The point I am trying to make is, even though it appears that the beat is running in the loop, its still full of mutations that wanders away in an almost unnoticeable fashion. That is the aesthetics of Raaja's compositions.

As is his ability to simplify a complex thing, he ably demonstrates a dummy's version of this tune in regular 8/8 in the background score that I spoke about. Listen to this string ensemble adoption of the same theme. Who can dare to erase all the rhythmic complexity and make it appear more appreciable to mortal ears. And later the Guitar strummed version of the complex meter returns.. and caps with chromatically embellished finish.

If you are tempted to think, this is an one off indigenous idea that struck him one fine morning by fluke, you are terribly wrong.. A decade prior to Mahanadhi, Raja already demoed a very similar complex meter... It was in fact the title track of Nothing but wind, one of his most significant non-film albums that sealed his status of genius.

Listen to this.

This is a movement with beat cycles of 3 + 3 + 2. Surely not your Adhi Talam next door. Yet we missed it because the lead melody here is set as if its played on top of a normal 8/8; This is highly camouflaging. Once you notice it, you will kick yourself. Because the stress points of the drum beat is highly accentuated by the base pedal very prominently at 1st, 4th and 7th count, while the melody is oblivious to these stress points and takes a more conventional reference. In one sense, this cycle is an alternate view of the meter of the Mahanadhi song. i.e., if you consider the "Solladha" song's meter with an 'Eduppu' at 3rd count you will arrive at this movement's meter.

Instances such as this are proof enough that, time and again Raaja keeps himself savvy with such real experiments. I mean, music experiments in film music often needs to be deliberate. You tell me how often true and meaningful experiments are attempted by composers in Film music whose limits are driven - Not by the technology you possess nor by some stupid script that demands Hero plays an instrument until blood is dripping from his fingers. Music composed with such ulterior aids are already prejudiced in the mind of the listener, that it ought to be good.. Its creator ought to be a genius. This is the reason everyone is a genius now a days.

But its music that's innovated for art's sake that needs to be celebrated.

With Love
Vicky

Discover Janaki Chechi

2010-01-07T22:27:00.026+01:00

My aunt's family used to be radio worshipers. Particularly, the pocket radio from Philips which used to retail under Rs.100 in the late 80s. In order to avoid the clash of - Is it going to be 'All India Radio - Trichy' or 'Madurai' or 'Chennai Vanoli Nilayam' for the prime time show, each of them had their own and used to get drowned in their own world. One of them was a walking encyclopedia of the entire discography of Tamil cinema. Be it the songs of MSV or KVM or Raaja or V Kumar or Sankar Ganesh or whoever it is, You tell her the song name and she used to give you the entire history of it faster than a Google search ! Its through her I came to know of this song called "Neer Veezhchi Thee Mootudhae" from the movie "Kanne Kalaimaane". I used to think thats a original Tamil number composed by Raaja and used to take pride of being privy to such a high class number. Even in my Coimbatore college days, probably only 1 out of 10 knew this song, least realizing the fact that just across the border a few kilometers away, The original version of this song is akin to National anthem. "Thumbi Vaa" from Olangal was and is a mega hit in Kerala.

That song is a odd man out. It gained its fair share of reputation all across the country due to its recent incarnations in "Live In Italy" and "Paa". But there are many more 'its-a-crime-to-miss-this-song' from other languages which people from other states are not aware of. Since its been a while I touched upon Vicky's Virtual Playlists, I thought this time I will take up some of my Malayalam solo favorites of S.Janaki.

Like in other languages, Janaki was the first choice for Raaja's Malayalam songs especially in his early days. Majority of these songs are between 1977 to 1985. Its not a co-incidence that she didn't sing much for Raaja after this in Malayalam. (Chitra was found there after ! She had an edge probably hailing from the state) Another interesting aspect is that some of these songs are for a Balu Mahendra Movie. Hence they standout in terms of quality due to their astounding chemistry. Some of these songs are popular in Tamil as well while the truth is they are originally composed for Malayalam movies first.

So Discover Janaki Chechi !

1. Poovadikalil - Vyamoham
The year is 1977.. A very pleasing light music song with focus on lyrics and melody with not much attention on Orchestration.. Atypical of Raaja, even for those times. Probably it was the compulsion from the producer to give a song sounding like contemporary Hindi music of that time. Even then this serves an indication of Raaja's viswaroopam to come in terms of melodic beauty. I believe the KJ-SJ duet version of this song is actually more popular. This solo version by Janaki is relatively rare.

2. Paalaruvi Paadivaru - Dooram Arike (1980)
Listen to the prelude humming and its obvious this is a folk song. And soon after that listen to the Swing Waltz of Rhythm Guitar and Bass combo in the prelude. If that doesn't leave you dumb, note the seamless shift back to the Folk rhythm of the main song.

3. Tanal Virikkan - Aalolam (1982)
In my personal opinion this is the best Chakaravagam by Raaja. Its obvious why Raaja holds Janaki in high esteem if you listen to such songs. Its very difficult to drip emotions when the song is technically challenging and probably Janaki is one of the best in the business who can do it like second nature.

4. Veene Veene - Aalolam (1982)
Beautiful song. It was reused later as 'Ondra Renda' from the movie 'Thazhuvatha Kaigal' in Tamil.

5. Kiliye Kiliye - Aa Raatri (1982)
Rocking song, which sure must have been fresh sounding at that time (Why, even now actually !). This song is one of my favorites for its Bass patterns.

6. Theeram Thedi - Unaru (1984)
From one of earliest Mani Ratnam Movie, this song is the Malayalam version of 'Roja Ondru' from Komberi Mookkan which also came in the same year. But look at the variation in the presentation of both songs. Listen to the M7th strums in the interludes. What a stylish sound. Compare it with equally powerful but simple rendition of 'Roja Ondru'. Would any one believe both are same melody.

7. Yamuna Theere - Yaathra (1985)
Its Balu Mahendra and hence another regulation Raaja stuff.

8. En Poove - Pappayude Swandam Appus (1992)
This song very closely resembles "Nee Dhaana" from "Thalattu padava" and yet this is a high quality Keeravani in its own right. Espeically very neatly done pallavi finishings by Janaki etc.,

9. Olathumbathirunnu - Pappayude Swandam Appus (1992)
I believe, This is one of those national anthem kind of songs again.. Early 90s was the time when he had a different color to his Strings. It used to create a free falling effect. Listen to Maasi Maasam, Chromatic descents of Finishers in Oh Butterfly, Re-recording of many movies in this time frame such as Nadodi Thendral, Veera etc., Just like the interlude of this song.

Now for the biggie..

10. ThazhampooThaalil - Oomakkuyil (1983)
Balu Mahendra again. There are two unforgivable things about this song. Number one, many many Hard core Raaja fans from Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and rest of India is not aware of this song. Number two, YG Mahendran was the hero in this song :-).

I simply didn't have the heart to edit this song and post only a portion of it.. Because whichever portion of the song I considered, it made a strong case to be the one. What to say of the bass parts of this song..? or the guitar solo in 2nd interlude.. Another testimony to Janaki's inimitable talent of rendering almost impossible things in a way making others look useless. Listen to the feel through out this song.. and the voice control (especially places like finishing of Pallavi) If you are an aspiring singer on one of those TV shows, please attempt such songs. If you can reproduce this emotion with no tinge of artificiality and this level of voice control + note sense as effortlessly, then the trophy is yours.

Hope you liked the guided tour of God's Own Country !

With Love
Vicky

Chordensity

2009-11-30T23:13:00.010+01:00

Having extensively covered Raaja's application of Chords, one particular aspect which I would like to highlight is the density of chords in his arrangements. Let me patent a term for this:

Chord + Density = Chordensity

At constant Temperature, c = n/t
Where c= Chordensity
n = number of chords
t = time (lets say, no. of beats)

(Ok.. the constant temperature part was rubbish in case you are wondering!! :-))

This not to say Raaja's chordensity is always high. Its absolutely dependent on the melody at any given point of time. Most of the time the chords are Walking behind the melody dutifully or walking hand in hand like an able accomplice. The Chordensity here is usually low to moderate. This is how most of the composers compose..

But then suddenly Raaja would go into this Turbo mode, typically overwhelming the melody (and the listener) and pack the punches. Chordensity is at the highest here..

I thought I will demo this with a song..

Now if you see the first two lines of the stanza, It starts with DM7th..

i.e.,
Thedinen = DM7th

He hangs on to this chord for 2 bars, rather unusually long for Raaja's standards.. But all he is doing is going into the stealth mode to come out firing all cylinders.. See this:

Thendralile = DM7th Gmin
Midhandhu Varum = F# Bm
Then malare = E A
Aeee = F#

The Chordensity leaps from zero to 100 in less than 4 seconds.. Better than a Ferrari F40 !

And yet not one chord is mistimed.. Not one chord is out of place. The Chord arrangement fits the melody to the T. Overall aesthetic beauty is stunning.. That is Ilaiyaraaja !

Phrases like this is all too common in Raaja's songs. What is not so common is finding another composer who can do the same.

With Love
Vicky

Disclaimer:
I am not a Guitarist ! I am not a Guitarist ! I am not a Guitarist !
(Sorry if I reminded you of a court season !!)

See this scene from the classic "Varumaiyin Niram Sigappu"

The reason why I can strum some basic guitar is very similar to why Kamal knows Malayalam and Gujarathi...

About 10 years ago, when the over-payed-under-efficient-managers (is there another kind?) of my would be employer decided that they have recruited one too many, they conveniently asked all we green beans, not to join them immediately but to take a stroll and come back 3 months later. I happen to spend those 3 months with a guitarist friend and got mutually inducted.. He has since become a professional guitarist/ composer while what I am doing is pretty obvious to you... Vetti blogging of course :-)

Therefore please don't blame my beautiful guitar for the part that sounds like I am plucking a rubber band wrapped around the lunch box. Its the guitarist :-)

(I am personally cross with the word "Deiveegam" in the end of the pallavi which is D --> F# --> Bm. I did this correctly while plucking (relatively tougher to do) while screwed it up doing the rhythm guitar on both times.. too lazy to redo and left it as such)

And finally, this one is dedicated to Ved, the guy who taught me to guitar !!

Blasco

2009-11-21T22:55:00.015+01:00

It was about 8 months ago that I wrote my Trombone post. As I hinted in that article, the reason why I went behind tracking the Trombone songs in Raaja's music was that, some one was preparing the background for an interview with the leading Trombone player of India, Mr. Blasco Monsorate and I was asked if I can help.

The interviewer was one Mr. Shankar Iyer, one of the editors of a music e-zine named Swar-Aalap based out of Mumbai and now a good friend of mine. Recently Shankar concluded his interview with Blasco. When he shared his memorable moments of Blasco with me, I was equally excited too. During the interview, Shankar showed this blog to him. It seems that Blasco was really thrilled and appreciable of those Trombone tracks in the post. He actually played them for Maestro some 20-25 years ago. Particularly When Blasco heard the Prelude of Sangeedha Megam, he was delirious it seems. Because as musicians they are too concerned about just playing their part and never got a chance to listen to the final output again. So after 23 years, he got to listen to his solo piece in all its glory for the first time in this blog.

Similarly another casual writeup that I made once on the Ilaiyaraaja Yahoo group about the song "Radha Azhaikkiraal" and particularly of its usage of bass guitar caught the attention of Maestro's great guitarist Mr.Sadanandan and he was kind enough to send a word of appreciation through Eddie, another good friend of mine. When the people whose work you write about, acknowledge it themselves, its personally a very cherish-able and rewarding moment :-)

Mr. Shankar's interview to Blasco is not to be missed by anyone who loves Indian Film Music. Unlike asking mundane and formal questions for the sake of asking them, he really came up with some innovative and good questions, which in turn brought the life behind the curtains of recording theaters to us. Blasco uniquely explains the genius of both Raaja and RD Burman. On RD Burman, he talks about the richness of his orchestration, What a visionary he was, How his music was a team work..

While on Ilaiyaraaja he explains, How his work is much complex than any other type of film music in India.. How he is the sole proprietor of everything what we hear.. Honest about the anxiety of musicians that playing for him is no easy task... First hand account on the legend of his notation writing skills.. And some esoteric references to Raaja's other musicians, his brass players et al. Its great to get reaffirmation on the unique and genial working style of Maestro from someone who worked his side by side for 8 years.

With the author's permission, I am presenting you the maestro specific portions of that interview below.

With Love
Vicky

The Interview:

Shankar: How did you get to play in the South? Why did you leave Bombay to play in Madras?
Blasco M.: Kersiji itook me to Illaiyaraja’s recording studio while we were in Madras for the background recording of the movie Mahaan. When we met Illaiyaraja, he put up his reel of a background score and asked me play a Trombone piece. Since I had not carried my Trombone along, he asked me to come again on the following Sunday. He wanted me for a recording on a Sunday, while I was in a shopping mood since it was an off-day.

We returned to Bombay; but the Madras visit was playing on my minds. One fine day (in March 1983), I took my Horn and left for Madras to meet Illaiyaraja. That was when I met popular singer S P Balasubramaniam (SPB) there; he asked me to come for the background music recording of a Telugu movie the very next day. He was very thrilled when he heard my style of playing. “Your style is something different”. He wanted me to meet Illaiyaraja and was keen that I stayed in Madras for a longer time! And 4 days later I got to play for Illaiyaraja!

Shankar: How long did you play for Illaiyaraja?
Blasco M.: I played for Illaiyaraja from 1983 to 1991.

Shankar: How did Illaiyaraja use the Trombone in his music?
Blasco M.: Illaiyaraja’s music, in general, was different compared to Hindi film music. It had lots of syncopation stuff. The Trombone pieces he gave me were difficult to play; they were mostly played off-beat (demonstrates an off-beat playing style). In Bombay, Trumpets were played off-beat and Trombone played on the beat. However, Illaiyaraja’s Trombone was always on the off-beat. I had to be on my guard always while playing for Illaiyaraja. It was a challenge for me as a Trombone player to play for him. That difficult music I don’t think happened in Bombay. And nowadays, there is nobody to write like those days. They just ask us to pick up the notes and play them. Illaiyaraja was very fond of my style of playing. He used to lovingly call me “Blas”!

Shankar: Please explain why Trombone playing in the South was different to its playing in Hindi films?
Blasco M.: South music directors preferred the solo Trombone sound to a group of Trombones. I mostly played as a soloist in the South, whereas I was always part of a brass section in Hindi films. In the south, even if there was a section of Trumpet players, the Trombone was almost always used as a solo instrument. Illaiyaraja used to call 5 Trumpet players on the set, but only one Trombone player!

Shankar: Which other South Indian composers have you played the Trombone for?
Blasco M.: Besides Illaiyaraja, MS Viswanathan, Shankar-Ganesh, Hamsalekha, Deva, Raghavelu, Johnson, Shyam and Ravindran are some other south composers I played for.

Shankar: How about AR Rahman?
Blasco M.: I have done concerts and shows with AR Rahman. I have also played in some jingles for him. As you may know, he played the keyboard with Raja and Telugu composer Rajkoti for a long time. I also played the Trombone in the famous Asha Bhosle song “Vennila Vennila” from the Mani Ratnam movie Iruvar.

Shankar: What do you think were the reasons for your success in the South?
Blasco M.: I would say most of the composers liked my style of blowing. My style of listening first to the composer to understand what phrase he wanted also possibly helped. Also I think my playing blended well with the overall brass section used in songs.

Shankar: Do you remember any of the hit Tamil movie scores that you played in?
Blasco M.: I can’t recollect the names. Some of the names like Nayakan, Appu Raja and background music in a movie called Vellai Roja have stayed in mind.

Shankar: What was Illaiyaraja’s style of composing while creating background music?
Blasco M.: It was no different to the song recordings. It was all just notations. He always wrote the score, the musicians had to read the notations and play. He used to hand over notations to me, which I used to transpose for the Trombone. All his musicians played music based on the notations given. Once Illaiyaraja okayed, all was final. The responsibility was with the musicians’ to play with feeling and passion.

Shankar: Having worked with RD Burman and Illaiyaraja the most, what have you to say about their composing styles?
Blasco M.: RD Burman’s team of musicians always sat together to produce music. On the other hand, Illaiyaraja composed his music keeping the musicians in mind. We as musicians never knew what was in his mind. With Panchamda we had an idea of what was coming. He used to suggest things like “Put one chord here; add this piece here“. There was a sense of excitement for the musicians as there was always some discovery happening. With Illaiyaraja, it was the opposite. He used to sit thinking for the music piece and after a few minutes would get down to writing the notations. He was sure of what he always wanted. He then sat with the musicians for their part and checked if he was happy with it. In about 30-45 minutes, the entire song was finished. When he went back to the monitor room for the final recording, the entire score was in his brain! Many a time, he even challenged musicians on the sequence of playing of their own notes. And not once did he end up on the wrong side. It was a one-man show, literally!

Panchamda had two different types of arrangers for him; Manoharida and Basuda. Manoharida was strong with Western music; Basuda was strong with classical music. It was a combination of the heavy and light musical pieces. This served as a good mix for Panchamda’s songs. With Illaiyaraja, it was all a solo effort. Nobody could tell him to change the style of playing. What was given to the musicians was final.

With regards to the overall styles, they showed 2 different schools of instrument playing. Panchamda was more rhythmic, even his brass section was full of rhythm. The demarcation was clear with a full spread-out harmony. Panchamda also gave a lot of focus to the Strings section. With Illaiyaraja, it was more technical stuff, more hard music. You had to be a good musician to play for Illaiyaraja. It was tough to play for his music. He wanted exactly what he wrote. With Panchamda it was working together, adjusting to everybody’s capabilities and requirements. For Illaiyaraja, what was put on the score sheet had to have no deviation. Musicians had tough times with him. But he definitely had a soft corner for me. It may also be since I was from Bombay or even maybe because I was RD Burman’s Trombone player!

Shankar: What did Illaiyaraja have to say about RD Burman?
Blasco M.: Of course, he liked Panchamda. On seeing the big Orchestra section, he used to jokingly say “Big people, big orchestra”. He used to also like Manoharida's Saxophone playing.

Shankar: Which musicians from Raja’s team have you been closely associated with?
Blasco M.: All from the Violin, Cello and rhythm section. There was Shashi the bass Guitarist, Purushottaman the Drummer, Viji Manuel the Piano player, Narasimhan the Violinist, and Sada the lead Guitarist. And don’t forget Raja himself played the Guitar.

Illaiyaraja’s trumpet player Eugene Lazarus, from Chennai, was a good friend of mine. We worked a lot together. He passed away a year ago. Another good friend was Frank Dubia, Trumpet soloist for Illaiyaraja.

Shankar: Can you tell us something about Illaiyaraja’s music assistants?
Blasco M.: Mr. Govardhan and later Mr. L Vaidyanathan were Illaiyaraja’s conductors. Then came in Judy; even Ram Subu his Viola player conducted some times. One day his drummer Purushottaman conducted; I think he has hence been Illaiyaraja’s conductor till this day.

Shankar: Noted Mumbai musician Uttam Singh also conducted for Illaiyaraja? How did that happen?
Blasco M.: Once when Mr. Govardhan, Illaiyaraja’s conductor, was unwell, I had suggested Uttam Singh’s name. I used to like Uttam Singh’s style of conducting. Slowly, Uttam Singh started to work with Illaiyaraja, becoming a regular with him later.

Source: To read the complete interview of Blasco in the Swar Aalap magazine, click here.

Mudhi Mudhi

2009-11-17T12:57:00.010+01:00

There is a reason why Ilaiyaraaja is next to God for many, especially those who are musicians - Amateur or Professional. Playing any of the track in any given Raaja song is not only a very challenging and enjoyable experience, its also a very addictive one. One which would shift your allegiance to him for good.. Don't trust me? Try yourself at your risk..

So when I heard the new song "Mudhi Mudhi" from Paa, two things struck me at once. First is the simplicity of the tune.. Just with predominant usages of Poorvanga notes of Mohanam (i.e., D, E and F# in this case) how he repeatedly comes up with innovative tunes. Such varied syncopation with such limited resource is like trying to (successfully) create 80 combination with 3 inputs while mathematics claim only 8 is possible; Second is the arrangement that's behind this tune - which is a stark contrast to its simplicity.

"Mojo" of an average listener is so much high now a days that I am sure websites and reviews are already blaring with how "Jazz"-ish and "Cool" this song sounds. So I decided to take a shot at how Jazz it really is..

Although Jazz is not an alien in this part of the world, it has been mostly used in commonly appreciable Swing or Cool jazz styles. But without any shade of doubt, its not usual that you will find such high quality free flowing jazz chord progressions in regular Indian film music. The spontaneity is mind blowing that the tune is certain to motivate the keyboardist to cut loose and bring out his best. Not to scare you with the following chords, but the song's prelude in DM7th is an indication of what to come. GM7th, Bm6th, Bm (9th), A6th, D (9th), A (9th), F# sus (4th), an inversion of C#m 7th (without the perfect 5th note) are some of the chords used in this song !

To demonstrate these chords, I quickly threw in an inbuilt rhythm in my keyboard and arranged the accompaniment track first. Then I played the lead melody of the song. It was a cool tune to play because I haven't had the chance to use Pitch Bend so effectively in a while. The inherent melody of the song which toggles either side of E provided ample scope for this. Then I played the chords in yamaha DX Piano tone on top of this with a higher volume (So its heard better in isolation) and recorded it. Because in the original song even though you hear them, its still very easy to overlook them.

Actually I have taken a hybrid version of the chords from both Shilpa Rao's and Shaan's version. Hopefully (and rightfully) this would demonstrate the genius of Raaja for the new listeners who never heard him before.

You can watch it in Youtube here.

With Love
Vicky

Down With Y!

2009-11-09T12:19:00.006+01:00

My first blogging experience was way back in 2002. Google was just 4 years old then and was an young and upcoming rookie.. The idea of blogging was rather alien to even many net savvy users.

Tripod and Geocities were two very popular free web page hosting services then. They offered users a non-existent sense of achievement by providing a platform where one could 'host' one's own web site (while in reality they were nothing more than a rudimentary html editors where one can type and publish - Which in turn generated web pages where what you typed can be found somewhere in between all the advertisements which you had no control to remove.)

I also jumped the bandwagon then. I used to maintain few web pages on 'geocities.com/violinvicky' about Maestro Ilaiyaraaja. My first web site !!

That website was called as "How To Name It" - based on my all time favorite of Raaja's works. As a true predecessor to this blog, It was about Raaja brand of Fusion and Orchestration. It was established on 2002; Between 02 and 03 I wrote a few articles in them. Many of my Raaja's name-de-guerre such as "Boss of Bass" which have since become part of regular lexicon of Raaja fans, were invented during that time frame.

Yahoo recently discontinued the Geocities service and hence that website is not available any more. (Now, seriously what sense does that make in the era of freebies all over the internet. No wonder their share prices keep going down :-P !!)

Since I don't want to loose those articles, As a stopgap arrangement I am placing them at the Google Sites. Soon I hope to revamp these articles with audio clips so that it gives a better reading experience to the visitors and post it in this blog.

With Love
Vicky

y=f(dhenuka)

2009-10-31T22:21:00.022+01:00

Its been quite a while since I blogged on a Carnatic classical theme. The last posts were perhaps Desadi and before that the Rajakesi. Since then actually I have been longing to come back to this domain. But somehow the topics of my posts of late have been centered on Western Classical. Those have been inspired by some spontaneous moments and hence I couldn't help but blog about them. Its merely co-incidental. So perhaps it has taken another spontaneous spark to thrust me back into what I always consider to be my home turf.

Recently I stumbled upon a song of Illaiyaraaja from the movie Aalapana. The movie itself is a milestone in Maestro's Telugu works. Directed by one of his favorites, Its a classical Dance oriented movie. Going by the high standards that he set for himself in similar classical dance based Sagara Sangamam, one need not even dare think about the quality of songs in this movie. All of them are as classically and critically acclaimed as reaching to the masses. Apparently there are more surprises left in this movie. The song on which this post is based - "Madhana Lathika Hare" is supposedly from the movie Aalapana and it has left me flabbergasted from the moment I listened to it.

Once my first listening completed, I was left thinking "This sounds like "Dhenuka" but do I miss the panchamam here?". Having listened to that song for 'n' times since, I am feeling a little dazed on the magnitude of this find.

The song is indeed the Pa varja janya of Dhenuka and It has the following grammer:
Arohanam : Sa Ri1 Ga2 Ma1 Dha1 Ni3 Sa
Avarohanam: Sa Ni3 Dha1 Ma1 Ga2 Ri1 Sa

A Perfect Shadava Shadava Ragam, this one is also one of many such Anonymous Shadava beauties privy to Raaja (Planning a series on Raaja's Shadava stable of ragas is on my cards for a long time. Hopefully it will materialize soon)

I feel this song is special not just because of its rare raaga, but in the way the melody and the interludes are constructed as well. It starts at Dhaivatham, a relatively unusual swara to anchor your melody upon. The way how both the Pallavi and the Charanam ends are in a real unorthodox descent of the Raaga going as: "Ga Sa Ni Dha Ma Ga Ri" is teasing big time as it descends all the way signaling a landing on the foundation Sadjamam (which is the norm) but instead jumping back to the unique Dha start.

The real hero of this song though is SP Balasubramaniam. I think this song should be a watershed moment in his illustrious career. You would agree with me that, this is a rather uncharted scale to sing. But I am sure he relished the challenge as it shows how effortlessly he pulls it off. The accomplishment is even significant given that the composer has gone to some extraordinary length to bring out the essence of this scale. This is clear as both the interludes are a SPB show with elaborate aalapanas. This arrangement is unusual of Raaja too. Because generally in classical based songs he might pack the interludes with kalpana swaras (Indraikki Enindha etc.,) but leaving the interludes open for singer's aalapana is unprecedented.

The Charanam has some interesting variations in each line as they are repeated at least twice fully scaling the length of this Raaga (I didn't dare use the word "breadth" or "depth" here although for a song that lasts less than the time of a "Thukkada" in a classical concert, the engineering of Raaga is quite phenomenal here);

1. Charanam's first line "Nadha Seema Lone" is sung with some beautiful craftmanship of swaras effortlessly jumping an octave for each swara sung (like sa Sa, ri Ri, ga Ga); And this line anchors on Sadjamam

2. The second line "Palakarinche Andhe" anchors at Rishabam in the end, after displaying some fine nuances such as "Nilichi Choose Sandhe" = daaTu gamakams of sa ri, ni sa, dha ni, ma dha - ga ma dha ni sa)

3. The third line "Korukkunna Aagamyam" stresses the Ghandharam The song is ondra kattai shruti..i.e., C#; Since there is no panchamam you cannot say its either minor or major although because of chinna Ri,Ga and Dha this song gives a quintessential minor feel. So the prime chords available for Raaja are F#minor (more or less the root chord) and A Major. Of all the lines in the song, This line emphasizes the A major so beautifully.

4. And the final push of "Aaa Aaa" in the charanam = sa ri ga Ma and anchors on Madhyamam before talking the mystic descent as explained above already.

Where else can you see such a gradual built up of melody .. eh ?

And don't forget to take notice how SPB efforlessly scales the Mel Sthaayi Dhaivatham in this song. (This happens in the Kaarvai following the first line "Theega meeta kunte" in the 2nd charanam) Its not usual in cine songs that the upper limit of vocals goes beyond melsthaayi Panchamam (At least in the last 40 years). So I think this is a rarity and again SPB at his effortless best.. No false voice.. just plain bold committed singing. Out and out the complete song is a testimony to SPB's Technical prowess, Shruthi precision and Voice control.

As a kid "Tirunelveli Vanoli Nilayam" (Tirunelveli Radio station) was my only source of carnatic music and I never missed their 1 hour program of pure classical concerts between 10 to 11 PM every day (I even remember the station violinist's name who used to play regularly in those programs - Thiruvallur.V.Parthasaarathy); Once a blue moon, they will air some quality instrumental music. One of the popular combination of instrumental music that I always look forward to is the "Veena-Venu-Violin" trio performance. For a change not listening to heavy vocals and just listening to this heavenly combination of 3 instruments in a dark room with open windows thats funneling the cool breeze from western ghats together with the sound of rumblings leaves that resonate with the music waves emerging out an antique mono Philips radio.. Wow.. what a sublime experience...

The prelude of this song is indeed the combination of Veena-Venu-Violin. As illustrated, Its a real joy when Raaja chooses a classical base and retains the same ragam and arrangement through out. (Eg: Poo malai vaangi vanthal, Vedam Nee etc.,); Because when he does that he is at his traditional best. This song is no exception. After CR Subburaman when was the last time anyone cared for such traditional arrangements in cine songs?

Many of Raaja's Songs are a double jeopardy. For one many of his songs never comes out because either they are recorded but not used in the movie or picturized but censored. And secondly, on some of these songs he would have opted for some mind boggling experiment. And sadly we would never come to know it. I personally know 3 or 4 more songs that fall in this category (like the Hieroglyphics post). Needless to say, they will be blogged in future. But what about ALL of those songs that are still lurking around in the oblivion :-(

Finally, if you are wondering about the title of the post:
Dhenuka as such seems not that frequented a ragam in Carnatic classical although Raaja has used quite a few of them. The fact that you feel the song "Udhaya Geetham Paaduven" when you hear the above song is because "Udhaya geetham" is loosely based on Dhenuka (Although I would say its an insult to call it a Dhenuka. Because Udhaya Geetham has some out of the box usage of Ri2 and Ni2 which accentuates the complex nature of the song. But nevertheless..); When I look up in the internet, I found a a janya of Dhenuka called "VasanthaThodi" which has the same arohanam of the one we are discussing here but a depleted avarohanam of just "sa ni dha ma ri sa" (i.e., without Ga in the avarohanam as compared to this Raaga.)

So the only way I am currently able to define this Raaga is through some fun maths. As you know of the ubiquitous y = f(x) equation, 'x' is the input and independent. Based on the function 'f' that you apply on 'x', you get the output of 'y' which is the dependent variable. Here In my case, I know the input and the function.. i.e.,
x = Dhenuka
f = remove Pa
But I don't know what to call the 'y' :-(

So what's the name of my 'y' ..? Anyone ..? please help..

I will close this post by sharing my excitement of discovering something new...

Recently, my other idol Stephen Hawking made a candid statement when he stepped down from the prestigious academic title of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University (the text version is here). He has followed the space and the universe all his life and keeps discovering things. Therefore he is able to crystallize his abstract feeling albeit through a somewhat controversial comparison ;-)

I would just restrict myself by saying, following Illaiyaraaja is similar to following something as gargantuan .. Just like how you look up the space and gaze all those stars all night and discover new galaxies and constellations, exploring Raaja's creations yield similar rewarding experiences..

With Love
Vicky

Update: 2nd Nov

Thanks to Nagaraj and to Sathya_Vrathan from Rasika.org forum (where I had raised the same question) we have finally cracked 'y'. The Ragam is called as "Vatsa" and indeed a janya of Dhenuka. Thank you to both of them. And as far as I know, there are no carnatic classical Keerthanais or Varnams or Swarajathis or other type of compositions. That leaves me to think, Maestro is the first person to use this Ragam (although with my limited knowledge I could well be wrong). Yet another silent revolution.

Pining..

2009-10-25T21:23:00.007+01:00

Tired of writing lengthy blog posts (I can hear you saying the same thing !!);

When I was a kid, one of my favorite section in the local magazines was the one that had a series of pictures and let the reader assume the whole story for him/herself (படம் பார்த்து கதை சொல்க!). So this post is a similar attempt by me..

Watch (rather Listen to) the following videos in that order.. You should be able to get the same point that I wanted to convey through paragraphs after paragraph.

(Headphones recommended!)

(Credits to Tariq Masaudfor the above video; Al alternate youtube version is available here)

(Credits to ILAYARAJAfan1 for the above video; And an audio version of the song is also available here.)

With Love
Vicky

Ghazal

2009-10-15T23:31:00.006+02:00

All right ! This post is not about Raaja. But nonetheless its about Music and I thought its worth sharing with the readers of this blog. My second article in Tamil is published and its about the Ghazal maestros from Pakistan - Mehdi Hassan and Ghulam Ali. Although I do listen to a lot of Ghazal including those of Indian stalwarts Jagjit Singh, Anup Jalota, Hariharan etc., I particularly find the Ghazals of these two Pakistani legends to be a bit more meatier(Musically). I have also been doing a small time research on Ghazal, its history, grammar and some popular compositions. So this article is a culmination of all such efforts over the past few years.

You can read it here.

With Love
Vicky

PS: Its in Tamil. So apologies for non-Tamil readers. I will try to translate it soon and post it either here or in my general blog.

Counterpoint For Dummies

2009-09-28T22:50:00.023+02:00

I had the dilemma of calling this post "10 Seconds = 2 light years"; But it sure does sound off tangent! Then I thought "Andha Oru Nimidam" would be a catchy title (Which means "That eventful minute").. But that was already taken !! (besides a minute feels like a millennium in front of the time scale that I am going to talk..) Finally I settled for a rather unimaginative title, inline with the spirit of my previous post!!

Recently there was a request from fellow musician/ friend, Kumar about the counterpoints involved in one of Raaja's songs.. It was a female solo by S Janaki that goes "Uyire.. Uravil". The title of the movie in which this song is wasted is called 'Mella Pesungal', which means 'Talk Softly'. Unfortunately the audiences of this movie took the name of its title little too seriously I guess.. The movie was never talked about.. and like many other beauties this song too languishes in the oblivion like a ghost seeking salvation!

Whats worse, the portion of the song in question is a bit lasting all of just 10 seconds in the 1st interlude of the song.

You will hear 3 main instruments in this 10 seconds.. These three tracks each of Flute, Guitar and Piano does sound as if they are following the same melody and rhythmic pattern. Poor recording of the early 80s is not helping our cause either. Even then when I first set about the task of decoding this bit, I had no idea what was coming. After all, this is just 10 seconds..

I never understood the concept of this 'light year' in cosmos.. I used to wonder at times, how can there be such vast distances that makes even our Sun, virtually a speck of dust (or even insignificant than that!!)..

Not any more.. Now I know that such unfathomable mismatches do exist in unit of measurements.. Because this 10 seconds took me some light years to understand.. (I do personally recommend you to watch that video in case you missed it in the previous sentence)

For naked ears it feels that during this 10 seconds all the 3 instruments are towing the same line.. If you have a damn good pair of ears, you would know right away that, Flute and Guitar are playing different melodies.. But if you are not Ilaiyaraaja, the only way to decode the ultimate truth is by adopting the patented technique (of how to place your ears on the speaker/ head phone) that I explained in my previous post. :-))

Here is that part again which measured 10 seconds in Raaja's time scale and 2 hours in mine..

This is a counterpoint involving 3 tracks.. What I have done is to unravel each of them separately as midi files as well as to notate them in sheet music, so that we are dealing with the same parameters as the composer and performing artists.

(I was told that, there is some problem that the Yahoo Media Player not being able to play the midis.. I believe you need to have additional plugins in your browser to make this happen. So in any case I am also providing the additional direct link of the midi files. You can download them to your machine and listen to them in your usual music player (such as Windows Media Player). If you still face any problems, please give me a shout...)

1. Here is the First track. This is the main theme played by Flute

Alternatively you can listen to this flute track here.

2. This is the Second track, where a guitar is actually found playing the second fiddle.. :)

You can also listen to this guitar track here.

3. And here is a parallel galaxy to this 10 second milky way. This is Piano going off tangent to the rest..

You can also listen to this Piano track here

4. Finally the String ensemble, played in two tracks to finish off the deal.

You can listen to this String ensemble track here.

And this is how they all sound together..

You may also play them together by clicking here.

(For your review, this was the original again)

From an established western classical stand point, the guitar track is more of a derivative to the main melody and can be quite simply harmonically derived. Such score writing is a given in many classical compositions. So its not such a big deal. But holistically speaking, even a seasoned classical buff must admit the intricacy and the intellectual genius behind this bit.. Especially in the context of below given points..

Look at the platform on which such wizardry is displayed - Some unknown movie in which there is some unknown song, and even worse - it's a sad song which usually doesn't captivate the listener's grip as much as a hero intro song or a love duet or a "kuthu paattu".. But for Raaja where ever he sees the scope for such high quality stuff in any song, he simply goes about applying his intelligence.

Even though the guitar track is regular harmony, the piano track is a sheer genius and out of the box thinking. Such casual application of counterpoints sandwiched between a native melody and tabla rhythm is truly original. As I always say, this is not fusion. This is pre-conceived original genre in which he saw no difference between Sadjamam and the note F (the Key signature of this song) instead he saw them as one. Its like when Raaja is looking at this note, he sees them as green alphabets falling vertically in columns and laughs "The Matrix has you!!"

For such a small period of time, the amount of Workmanship is supreme by any yard stick.. Three soloists (One flutist, guitarist and pianist each) playing in tandem and a string ensemble on stand by to provide the finishing touch with at least few 10s of violinists (who are in turn split into 2 tracks).. So totally 5 tracks for a bit of 10 seconds..

Regardless of the duration, he still finds scope for advanced ornamentation techniques such as Trills for the Piano.

And look at the wholesome aesthetics of this bit.. in spite of what could become a clutter with such overload of instruments, not even a single note is out of place. How is this possible for him..? The answer is here:

(For the benefit of non-Tamil readers, what he is saying here is: "When you get a main idea, you need to again compliment it afresh by writing accompaniment for a different instrument, then again rewrite it for another instrument 2, and then again rewrite, and then again rewrite.. etc. This is called "Full Score Writing", not many people here are aware of this"..)

And below you will find the "Full Score Writing" of this 10 seconds. And again to recap with the score, this is how they all sound together..

(Please remember, this is 10 seconds out of a 4 minute song.. i.e., what you see below is just 4% of sheet music of this song that he wrote.. The score for whole song with an 80 piece orchestra would run for quite some pages I guess. And extrapolate it to significant number of 4500 odd songs that he has composed so far and you will realize what kind of genius we are talking about here..)

Often you will find that Raaja interviews/ stage speeches are on a Spiritual or emotional plane, that lands him in trouble. He is simply put, a very bad orator. And rarely he talks about absolute intellectual stuff regarding music. (If you ask him about music, his responses are usually philosophical). The fact is, he does posses intellectual mind like no other. As his fans or even critics we spare no stone to pick on his "spiritual-talk" blunders. On the other hand, we don't pay as much attention to his real useful intellectual talk. Probably because we prefer the safe route of just "talking" about how he composes "layers of music".. Peeling the onion is hard work and burns the eye, you see..!

Through such "Seconds to Light years" exercise, I wish to clarify one point.. Such ideas didn't go to paper from his head via a computer.. There was no software that filled in the blanks for him. There was no infrastructure whereby he could "process" the idea through zillions of pre-programmed musical techniques that could change the dynamics and texture.. There was no cherry picking on which instrument to choose from precompiled list of exuberant tone banks..

There is only one "thinking" entity in all of the music that he produces.. It commanded him to Write this 10 seconds of notes for flute, and then rewrite another 10 seconds for Guitar and then write 10 more seconds of counterpoint for Piano and then rewrite another 10 seconds for String Ensemble..

And that entity is his intellect..

Unfortunately such entities are suffering a fate similar to WWF's list of species threatened due to man made causes..

With Love
Vicky

PS:
- You can download all the notations used in this post as PDFs here.
- You can download all the Midis used in this post here.

- Credits to Sharankay whose youtube video I have used in this post.

Chords For Dummies

2009-09-01T22:57:00.040+02:00

Often while reading musical reviews or discussions of Ilaiyaraaja (or any genre of music that evolved in the past 50 years for that matter) a popular 'hip' word that one comes across is Chord. While a formal definition or a technical description of that word is available all over the internet, you are expected to be musically 'educated' or at least be aware of the basic anatomy of music to understand those references. Getting more confused, you would usually run for cover to your flamboyant 'expert' next door on the internet. Since he is often throwing this fancy word at you and proclaims to no end that "Wow..What Superb Chords..", you ask him "What exactly is this 'chord' thing? Can you pin point?" or "I am terrified by these Major 7th or minor 9th chords that you mentioned? what are they?", you will most likely see faces that resemble a rabbit caught under the headlamps midway down the road and receive "Hee Hee... Oh.. Adhuva..!!" as the answer.

Many years ago as a novice Carnatic initiated when I started hearing these terms, at least that's the response I received from the umpteen number of guys whom I approached thinking that they were 'Genius' (because of the way how they presented themselves and fooled around innocent people with their Jargon laden talks)

That was the time when I was scared to death by the western classical music in general and the concept of Chords in particular.. With no reliable guidance, with no internet and with no means to practice, all I had was Raaja's songs and loads of determination.. The quality of music tracks then was not of as much crystal clear quality as today, nor did I had these super gadgets of "bass boosting" players or "noise reduction" headphones or "rip off" softwares to eliminate unwanted tracks and just listen to the sound you want in isolation. With a worn-out 2 in one cassette player (which, to copy the popular comical Tamil Adage - would not even fetch me any date fruits!!) and with my ears pressed against its speakers in a manner that would put water tight Swiss watches to shame, I would rewind any given Raaja song at least a hundred times just to play back phrases of two seconds again and again until that exotic chord was fished out of the abyss from deep beneath the vocals and rhythm and the recording noise..

I had many such Raaja songs that served as personal companions to overcome my Chordophobia" :-) The lesser known "Vaanengum Thanga Veen Meengal" from the movie 'Moondram Pirai' is one such song..

As a beginner, You just have to listen to the prelude of this song to get your first direct rendezvous with the Chords..

What you keep hearing in the Prelude of this song until the Flute starts are all nothing but chords.. (Well, the chords continue in the background after the flute starts as well.. but in the first few bars you hear pure unadulterated sound of how a chord feels)

(I already used a term called 'BAR'.. Lets assume a person with little technical background of music hears this song. To initiate him/ her as well as to bolster everyone's basics, lets proceed using some simple non-technical words; So I split this post into two halfs.. Beginner's lounge is the main blog post and I leave the 'technical' stuff separately on the Appendix so that the main post remains lucid)

Part I - Chords For Dummies:

Stage 1: Identify a 'Bar'

The song starts with plain guitar sound played periodically..That is, in the prelude of this song, if you simply start counting 1 2 3 4 along with the song's speed, you will here this. As you go on and hear the prelude you will also realize that there is a repeating pattern to this guitar sound.. And you will 'feel' this repetition involuntarily after every 4 counts..

Hearing that clip again you can recap to be sure that what you heard lasted for 4 counts. This is called One Bar, or rather this lasted for the duration of one Bar. (Please note that a Bar doesn't always last for 4 counts universally in all songs. Songs with 3 counts, 5 Counts, 6 counts and 7 Counts bar are also common in Indian/ World music, although not as common as 4 count based Bars.)
Exercise 1:
Listen to this prelude bit. How Many Bars did you listen?

Stage 2: How does a given Chord Actually 'sound'?

Lets take the same reference bit used for illustration of stage 1. In this one bar of music, you heard a SAME guitar sound through out (although on your 4th count you heard two sounds played fastly. But Lets ignore how that 4th count was divided for the moment)

What you just heard is nothing but a MAJOR CHORD played each time when you counted 1 or 2 or 3 or (the two quick sounds on) 4 . This is an example in isolation, of how a given Chord 'Sounds'.. (a given major chord in this case)
Exercise 2:
Listen to this famous song. Except for the Janaki's voice, what else did you notice in the background?

Stage 2b: Something Extra
Having known how a chord actually sounds, now lets go to the next challenge. That is to identify a slightly more complex 'sound'. "Vaanengum" was the song that helped me grasp the concept of Major 7th chords.. So I would like to continue with it for the illustration..

(For your ready reference, here is the the First bar again.) Now you can already notice that when the second bar starts, the 'sound' of music (!) slightly changed.

Second bar = counts 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 = Guitar in the same PATTERN as the 1st bar.. but the SOUND OF THE CHORD IS DIFFERENT

Agreed..?

What you just heard during the counts 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 is nothing but a MAJOR 7th CHORD..

So dear readers, again as I noted before, the objective here is not to get you technically savvy of a Major 7th chord's anatomy. But just to enable you to listen to a (relatively) 'special' type of chord in isolation. That's all.

Mini coffee break:
So now Raaja conducts a revision to you so that you can understand doubly for sure what you have learnt now .. Because the whole stuff is neatly repeated for you..

So here are the first 4 bars of this mystical song.
You have already mastered the first 2 bars.
Third Bar = same as First bar (Feel the sound of a chord.. note where the bar ends)
Fourth bar = Same as Second bar (You started a new beat cycle now.. What you are hearing is a relatively special chord);
Exercise 3:
Hear to this bit. (This is the prelude of the song "Kiss Me" from the band 'Six pence none the richer')
Please focus on the first two bars. What is the similarity that you noticed with the "Vaanengum" Song?
Additional Q: How many bars did you listen now ? ;-)

Closing Note:
I want to close by saying that, its very easy to learn the concept of chords just by following Raaja's songs.. No other source is needed.. I for one am eternally thankful to Raaja for this..

I am still scared to death by these concepts and by no means capable of dissecting and analyzing each and every chord of Raaja's songs..But now the difference is that at least I know 'what' I am scared off.. I know the face of this mysterious force, as opposed to get chickened out by the fear of the unknown..

I feel this post's objective is met if you also sign off with the same feeling..

With Love
Vicky

PS: For the 'Key' of all exercises, refer to the bottom of this post.. If you got them right please pat yourself at the back and of course please do let me know how you fared.

Appendix - An inside view:
This is more of an 'Absolute' interpretation of the samples used so that the musically initiated readers can take home more. Please don't bother yourself with it if you think its too much of information.

1. The First bar of Vaanengum is actually a F# Major chord.
(To be specific, one can feel this chord already relates to the Aadhara Shruthi of the song.. so this chord is nothing but the the Root major of the song.. i.e., the song's key signature is F#). To be more technically correct its played with the omission of the Major third (i.e., A#) on one track and with the inversion of "5 + 1 + 3" (instead of "1+3+5") in another faint track. The bass is played on the alternating half count and is touching the root note F#.

2. The Second bar of Vaanengum is actually the M7th of the ROOT. i.e., its the F# Major 7th chord which in turn is nothing but the F# Major chord + its 7th note on the major scale which is 'F'. (Major 7ths are also noted as M7th for simplification). As a matter of fact the prominent chord sound that you heard in the bar appear more like the minor triad of the Major Third (i.e., A# minor). Its the bass which still anchors at F# which reassures the final Major 7th delivery (i.e., Bass of F# note + the A# minor traid = F# Major 7th)

(Extended) Stage 3 : Chord progressions:

Now lets go to the next step called CHORD PROGRESSION, which is not exactly worth loosing your sleep right now if you are a beginner. On the other hand, now that you know how a chord sounds, you may still follow this section to merely know the "Changing of Chords" in a bar/ set of bars.

Fifth Bar = G#m G#m G#m F#/C# = minor Triad of the major second (i.e., G# minor traid for 3 counts) and the root F# major on the last count of this bar. (Please note that the last F# major is notated as F#/C# since its played with the inversion of 5+1+3 suggesting that its F# major chord played with the inversion of bass note as C#) .
So this is Second Progression Down

Sixth Bar = B B B C# = Perfect Major fourth on first 3 counts and perfect Major 5th on the last count.. So right from the beginning of prelude the progression can be (roughly) summarized as: F# - G#m - F# (With the emphasize on A#) - B - C# .
This is a lucid Fifth Progression UP that loops back to the root when the flute starts..

This is relatively a heavy topic.. So lets park it for now..

Key for the exercises:

Exercise 1:
4 bars

Exercise 2:
Chords.. Chords.. மேலும் Chords:-)
(To be exact, the chords that you heard are of the sequence:
Am F A| A Dm - F|Em G C Am|F E Am||)

Exercise 3: The similarity between Vaanengum and Kiss Me is that:
First Bar = Root Major chord
Second Bar = Root Major 7th chord
i.e., the chords of the opening two bars are of same make. Even though the key signature of both the songs is different (Vaanengum is F# and Kiss me is D), similarity can be clearly felt in respective 'relative' descents. Kiss Me's progression is: Root - Major7th - 7th - Major 7th (i.e., D - DM7th - D7th - DM7th). So if this helped you to make the 'connection' and 'receive' the 'sound' of a major chord and its major seventh together, then you cracked it..
Additional Q: There were 8 bars in that original Exercise 3 question.

Note: we discussed about just the Major7th in this post. We didn't touch upon the dominant seventh (a.k.a 'THE' 7th) type of chords (that I mentioned in Kiss Me's progression); There are various types of chords and each of them has a distinct character. We just touched upon two (popular) variety. Thats all.. If there is enough interest, lets see if we can extend this exercise to each of the known types using Raaja's songs.

A Train Journey With Ilaiyaraaja

2009-08-07T00:33:00.026+02:00

An Article that I wrote for the online Tamil magazine Solvanam (with the title "இளையராஜாவுடன் ஒரு ரயில் பயணம்" or "A Train Journey With Ilaiyaraaja") can be found here.

The irrelevant background on why I treat this to be a credible personal milestone can be read here.

My apologies to the readers who cannot read Tamil. I promise to translate this article in the next available opportunity and post it below.
With Love
Vicky
Aug 7th

========================================================================
Update: 14th Aug
As Promised, here is that translation. This is devoid of the Tamil Verses and cohesive sentences that I used in the original. Honestly I feel that this translation is not doing enough justice to the original. Nevertheless this still gives an idea of what I was trying to say to my non-Tamil readers.

A Train Journey with Ilaiyaraaja

In Tamil grammer, there is a technique known as 'Ani Illakkanam' (ornamentation?). This is often used by the poets to enhance the lyrical beauty (of both the word constructs as well as their meaning). I still vividly recollect all such different 'Anis' from my school days. Out of these, my favorite Ani is the one where a poet skillfully employs the natural backdrop of a given incident to convey his message. It is called "Thar Kuripperra Ani" in Tamil.

In Kamba Ramayanam, When the announcement that Rama would be the heir apparent is made, Kooni is outraged. She tries to plant the seed of jealousy in Kaikeyi's heart by ranting that "you are being besieged by danger". But Kaikeyi responds by saying that, "Every parent in this world leads a carefree life if they have an ordinary son. I have Rama as my son who is exemplary. What possible danger could besiege me?" Kambar wants to convey that, Kaikeyi loved Rama as her own son even if she is not his biological mother. He gets this message across through the practical fact that, Those who have offspring can be rest assured that their kids will support them in the hour of need.

Similarly a flag fluttering in the wind is a normal incident. But in Sillapthigaram, Ilango adigal conceives this natural occurrence as a backdrop conveying a sinister message to Kovalan and Kannagi when they are entering the city of Madurai. He imagines the back and forth movement of the flag in the wind as a warning signal to them that suggests, "Do not enter this city. There is a grave danger here in store for you"

Poets are a privileged lot to have so much of such established norms to enhance the clarity of their communication. What techniques do a Music director have if he has to draw an inspiration from the backdrop of a song? If you close your eyes and listen to the song, its not a easy task to make you 'feel' the situation and circumstantial movements in a song. A successful representation of visual aspects of the song through an audio medium is dependent on not only the individual potential of the Director and the music director but also of the chemistry between the two. This is all the more applicable in Indian cinema that offers a lot of tricky (and often ridiculous) cues to compose. Where else do you have dutifully exercising youngsters who use the excuse of jogging in the morning mist to fall in love.. Or a nitwitted oldy for that matter who is too busy to be perturbed by the petty ceremony of bride watching and would rather prefer making her own pawn. With such tiny details of screenplay facing the real prospect of being lost in translation, a music director is forced to fight his way out to represent it in the song.. As silly it may sound, Using the jogging rhythm as the main beat of the song for the first situation or making the betalnut crusher answer Mrudangam's percussion for the second, indeed requires some advance thinking.

Of all these, the most frequented interesting backdrop in cinema are the songs and scenes that are shot in a Train. Be it the "Kelvi Pirandhadhu Andru" and "Mere Sapno ki Rani" of the yesteryear or "Chayya Chayya" of today, songs that are set against the backdrop of the train have invariably fascinated everyone. However, when it came to expressing the train sound, music directors often stayed conservative, didn't venture much into experimenting and conveyed it through a running symbol of the drum or a maracas and the innovative lot went one step further and added a running rhythm guitar track on top of it.

Ilaiyaraaja however, has been a unique musician in this arena. He shattered the stereotype that train should 'sound' like a train and often brought in his own out of the box interpretation of expressing this feel. He managed it through a gamut of instruments such as a Solo Violin, or a String Ensemble or a Bass guitar or a Shehnai. Besides, the emotional context of his train songs vary widely too. There are happy songs, sad songs, thrillers and teasers. From a picturization view point, the backdrop of all these songs is a mere train. But the onus had been on Raaja to draw inspiration from it in a way it still conveyed the underlying emotional current.

Movies where Trains are an integral part of the story are Raaja's delight. He almost treats them as a predominant character and composes the score. This is evident from the Movie 'Alapana' where the hero is a railway worker and the heroine is a Bharathanatya dancer. The way how their love gradually progresses around the railway station and trains was beautifully expressed just like a Train starting its journey and gradually picking up speed. This is the score during the initial phases of that love. And here is when its moving in full speed and here is when it reappears later with the carnatic background of the heroine.

Two aspects are noteworthy here. He complimented the Director's thoughts (Vamsi) and enhanced the visuals; He used the same tune with a Swing waltz rhythm arrangement and a normal Carnatic arrangement, thus casually demonstrating his musical prowess.

Raaja has successfully passed many such challenges right from the early days of his career. The song Poovarasampoo is a case in point. Even though the main train rhythm in this song is rather explicit, Raaja weaved a musical magic around it by adding a layer of native percussion instrument (Dappu) around it. He pioneered the use of western instruments such as solo violins, Saxophones & Vibraphones for such a folksy song. He leveraged the full potential of Janaki and camouflaged the song behind Sudha Dhanyasi. In the end he ensured that the handicap of importing a fresh face from London who couldn't act for nuts (the then Radhika) was not a deterrent for the success of this song.

Similarly, in the Manjal Nilavukku song, he gave some unplugged moments to even a very senior artist like Susheela, by making her hoot and toot like a train..(With no software available to generate 'loops' at that time, It takes some strumming talent to maintain that kind of tempo in the Rhythm guitar through out the song..)

Following this, in Moondram Pirai Raaja raised the bar of all composers, past and present. The second interlude of the song "Poongatru Pudhidhanadhu" is extreme composing. Just by using a String Ensemble that includes 2 sets of violins and 1 set of double bass & cello, he created the suspense of an secretly approaching train. A credible experiment by any yard stick.

He continued using train to his advantage in many songs that followed such as Pogudhae Pogudhae (kadalora kavidhaigal) and Goods vandiyile (Kunguma Chimizh); He also had the compulsion of composing songs for some ridiculous situations in the meanwhile such as a weird heroine who wants her dream wedding in train or a foolish premise of a nearby train making the protagonists roll off their beds. But the quality of musical output even in such songs were supreme.

Ilaiyaraaja has also used the technique of 'Double Stop' in violins (bowing on two adjacent strings simultaneously) quite frequently to convey the effect of train. As if to represent each track by a string, the way this double stop violin follows the train tracks and culminates in a weeping Saarangi is a nicely picturized sequence showcasing the genius of director, camera man and the music director all at once.

The pattern of Train's sound have always appeared rhythmic to me. Sitting on the window seat and dissecting the 'Tala' of train is my favorite pastime during long journeys. Most of the time the pattern would resemble a 'Tisra Eka Tala' (thagida thagida thagida thagida) or a 'kanda chaapu' (Thaka Thakida Thaka thakida); In between all this, whenever the train passes through a bridge or when its track runs through densely or sparsely populated stone bed, its sound changes. In that process, its rhythm gets changed as well. Finding the starting beat of the new rhythm cycle and counting the Tala is indeed a very triumphant experience.

One can understand that the Train's rhythm doesn't remain the same but waxes and wanes while listening to the Thaalattu Ketkadha song. During the 3rd line (that starts as "Pattu naan adimai") the way the rhythm drops intensity and later picks up speed sounds similar to the natural way in which a train's sound change. The fillins of the rhythm are a bit asymmetric and enhances this feel. Dominant usage of Snar in this song that fades rhythmically as opposed to the usage of a hi-hat (of the drum kit) in regular train songs is a new attempt as well. The connecting flute between the lines sounds like the train's horn. In the interlude that follows, the call and response between the pan flute (that simulates the train horn again) and the Double stop violin is very catchy. The solo violin that continues in Keeravani leaves a lasting impression. So as mentioned before, instead of restricting to the usual train sounds, the way Raaja blends other minute aspects of a moving train into the song's mainstream is astounding.

I haven't seen the song "Kotti Kidakkudhu" in a visual medium so far. But the moment I heard the prelude of this song in which the duo violins sets off the mark like a sprinter, I had an intuition that it has to be a train related song. That doubt was cleared when the song's second interlude arrived. Its the fast arpeggios in the bass guitar this time (Headphones recommended) that aids the train feel. Similarly in the song Sakkara katti, just by using a single rhythm guitar, he lays the foundation and completes the picture of running train in one's mind with the assistance of Strings and Shehnai.

Just like a skillful potter who is capable of turning the raw clay into a shape that he wants, Raaja has a gifted talent of molding a tune to convey any feeling that he wants. The titles of the Gopura vaasalile is a morphed version of the popular song "Devadai Poloru". The tune here though is arranged against the backdrop of a train and it creates an inexplicable tension expressing the fear of unknown that follows in the movie. With Ilaiyaraaja complimenting the wizardry of PC Sriram, this titles ought to be in the hall of fame of audio visual treats. Sadly the visual experience is marred by the titles...

Ilaiyaraaja doesn't always take everything but the kitchen sink with him when it comes to the train. There are numerous occasions where he treats the plain real sound of train as music. During the climax of Mouna ragam, when Revathi leaves Mohan for good and when he realizes that he has to stop her, a violin shares his sense of urgency and runs with him bringing the audience to the edge of their seats. As he reaches the galloping train and realizes that he has made it, the music stops and pure sound of train would reverberate on our ears.. That silence is the most powerful moment in that sequence.. Its that silence which relieves the pressure of the audience as they heave the final sigh of relief.

Besides recording 3 songs a day with 70 piece orchestra, Raaja still managed to find some spare time during the lunch break (!!) in which he (what else, but) composed more music. But this time it was for his pet projects. Composing for no one but oneself was his way of relaxing... "Nothing but wind" is one such album and he also composed a track with the same name in that album. Thinking at a different dimension, he tries to convey that even if life is extinct from the face of Earth, Wind and therefore Music will continue to survive in this universe. In that track too, he uses the plain sound of train among other musical forms.

Final reference is, the climax of the movie Moondram Pirai. The spell bounding music that accompanies Kamal until he enters the railway station, stops the moment he sees Sridevi. Continuing with the music would not have been a good idea for Kamal's great acting against the backdrop of Several natural happenings on the platform. Raaja reads this pulse just like a physician and doesn't start the music until the train leaves the station. As it leaves and its sound fades out in Doppler effect, Jesudoss starts slowly as "Kaadhal Kondane kanavinai Valarthane" alongside the rain. If your heart doesn't feel heavy at that time, its probably a good idea to consult Dr. Cherian and check if its there or not !

Music directors should know when to exercise silence as much as composing music for situations. If not, its obvious that director's effort would go down the drain. It is not an exaggeration to say that using the train, Ilaiyaraaja has demonstrated this silent and clear (!!) message to the generations of composers to come. When you look Indian film music in the context of Train based songs and scenes, Ilaiyaraaja's presence would be foremost. For over thirty years now, this express has left the station of Pannaipuram and is still going on track. Its, we the passengers who are the luckier lot.

With Love
Vicky

Raaja Hindustani III

2009-06-03T23:40:00.044+02:00

Final post in my 3 part series and I must remind the readers of the focal points that I had in mind when I started these episodes. This post is about Raaja's ground breaking ideas on the use of Hindustani instruments and his adoption of other traditional concepts in routine film songs; These adoptions are so subtle that you will find no relevance to the songs specified and the original HCM (Hindustani Classical Music); We have already discussed his presentation of classical ideas in the first post; So this one is about just ideas (be it a concept or an instrument) that were hijacked from HCM and used in absolutely non-relevant patterns and situations as compared to the classical art. In my Comment Factory article, I had specified how Raaja understands the music from all genres at their atomic levels.. How he builds a musical compound of atoms and molecules from various categories that are deemed unfit to co-exist. This post is an epilogue to that statement by going a bit deeper and explaining how this compound is produced using the inspiration of HCM.

The musical Legacy that Raaja will leave when he eventually retires will be many. The most obvious ones would be the way in which he popularized Tabla as an integral part of South Indian Light music scene. Even before him, Tabla was the percussion instrument of choice in film music. But Raaja not only used it on an industrial scale(!) he also pioneered the movement of Tabla rhythm pattern in accordance with the meter of the words like no other. But a more unique legacy that he will leave behind is the way he brought another HCM instrument to the fore.

Shehnai, is certainly one instrument that he loved experimenting with and pushed it beyond it's limits. Thankfully in Pandit S Ballesh, he found an able performer who could deliver his ideas flawlessly and as a team they revolutionized Shehnai's usage in Film music. Although Shehnai has been always widely used in film music even before Raaja's arrival, its not an exaggeration to claim that it was Raaja who unlocked the hidden potential of the instrument as explained below.

Greatness of Raaja should always be evaluated in the context of how he sticks to the tradition and breaks the rules at once.

Shehnai is traditionally used in auspicious and happy occasions such as weddings. Here is a Traditional Application of Shehnai by Raaja. But sensing its obvious connection to Nadaswaram, he also used the shehnai in a Carnatic Classical arrangement to play this authentic melody in Maya Malava Gowlai. And probably Raaja is the only composer to have arranged Western Classical strings for a Shehnai solo. Besides, Shehnai being an instrument of masses, he has promptly used the instrument in a both North Indian as well as South Indian Folk setting.

And he had the audacity of using the Shehnai as Jazz instrument in this bread and butter 8 Beat Acoustic Drum Arrangement while at the same time also used it frequently in jest in his Lighthearted Songs .

I am not sure if there is any another composer who gave such multiple dimensions to one instrument... An instrument that does not even belong in his native culture. So in order to achieve such versatility he need to have a thorough understanding of its timber and range.

Not confining to traditional genres, Raaja also invented unique arrangements such as a combination of Shehnai with Rhythm Guitar Strums (with no percussion) as well as employing Shehnai on dual tracks (usually with Flute but also occasionally with Nadaswarams and Clarinets). The most prevalent application of Shehnai and flute together is unique to Raaja and can be noted in the last part of the ensuing track (as well as in many other popular songs such as Maanguyile, Adi Athadi, Poovoma oorgolam, Rakkama Kaiya Thattu etc.)

In fact Raaja has been so mesmerized by Shehnai that he repeatedly gave the instrument the task of Spear Heading the prelude in many a songs. Besides being an accompaniment in the background, he also wrote lot of Challenging Shehnai Solos to give the instrument its due 15 seconds of fame. These phrases are demanding ones for the artist to play while leaving the listeners spell bound.

And his obsession with the instrument continues till date as can be heard from tracks that are released as latest as A Week Ago.

The most important aspect to note here is that, Shehnai is not an exception with Raaja but an illustration. Almost the same can be proven comprehensively and objectively by analyzing the way he has employed any instrument as the subject. For instance, the same can be said of his usage of Sarangi as can be noted from these Myriad Of Arrangements.
Raaja's Saarangi & Dilruba

He regularly uses Santoor and Sarod as well. (Infact Raaja used a lot of Keyboard Santoor in between 88 - 93, especially in all folk songs; But this one is a real Santoor as exposed by its bass notes). Sitar has been an integral part of Raaja's arrangements from the day one as well(Such as in the songs Ellorum Paadungal, Hey Paadal Ondru etc.,). While music just naturally occurs to him, he is as much a hardworker in learning new genres of music properly. For instance Saarangi Maestro Ustad Sultan Khan works with him as required while its a well known fact that Dr. BalamuraliKrishna collaborates with him where Carnatic classical related references are required.

And talking of experiments, Raaja is probably a rare species to have conducted a unlikely Q&A session between Tabla and Piano as seen in this clip. The stanza is a joy to here as well. So I let it run :-)

The idea of this blog post is neither to highlight the mere usage of these North Indian instruments in his songs (Many before did it) nor to identify the sound of these instruments when they appear in interludes. The point I am trying to get across is the variety of ways in which they are used. For this reason I stop boring you further with posting multiple clips specific to an instrument and proceed to a different dimension.

One particular song that I would like to single out in terms of relatively complete adoption of HCM is "Nadham En Jeevane" from Kaadhal Oviyam. With its Sarangi, santoor and a carrying Tabla, the song is a complete HCM package that is delivered by Raaja Express.

Qawwali is another genre in Hindustani Classical Music which borders around the territory of traditional classical realm on one side and rugged beauty required to cross them over to the masses on the other. As rigorously religious as it is, its also a great genre to relish because of its alluring rhythm arrangements supplemented by the clapping of the "party" who accompany the Ustad. Though some sufi classics are being re-arranged in today's bollywood, Raaja was way ahead in experimenting with Qawwali in his own way. He considerably deviated from the tradition in arranging the melodies with western concepts alien to Qawwali such as complex chords and instruments from popular art forms such as jazz and rock (eg: Saxophone, Electric guitar).
If you go a bit behind the skin to illustrate better, this is how a Traditional Qawwali would sound like. (That was Shahenshah of Qawwali, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Saahab) But Raaja's qawwalis sound no where close to the original in toto except for the underlying rhythmic current. For example, listen to this Interlude. Now just listen to the Interlude's Beginning . The phrase starts with a Major 7th chord and proceeds further with a plethora of M7th chords. If you are hearing with a headphone, you can carefully hear the following specific chords in your right ear. The piece starts with AM7th followed by AM7th C#m7th F#m7th followed by DM7th E7th.
The chords during the Finishing Piece of this interlude are: During the first bar, it starts in A Major and the root note keep diminishing one semitone; The second bar follows the same pattern with the chord B Minor. i.e., The 8 chords that you listened are: A C#m A7th F#m7th| Bm BbAug Bm7th Bm6th ||. (You need to listen hard and focus on your right ear to hear these crystal clear chords)
My idea of presenting you with these chords were: If you consider the chords alone, its not possible to imagine they are accompanied by such a Qawwali rhythm. On the other hand, if you take the Qawwali rhythm from this track alone, you cannot imagine that it can have such a jazzish saxophone lead melody arranged with such intricate chords. I don't even dare to talk about the Bass riffs there which is another complex topic altogether. And yet, there they are sounding as ONE COMPLETE BIT as if they were born and brought up together. Listen to the whole piece Once Again. That's what I am trying to tell you !! :-) In fact, the choice of this interlude was random and nondescript. I just picked it up to illustrate that, pick any song and you can find such symbiotic relationships.

I can further illustrate Raaja's qawwali adoptions through the following tracks. You will not only realize how well he understood the original concepts but also appreciate the multilayered exhibition of various genres of music demonstrating their capabilities silently but powerfully.
Raaja's Qawwali
Colorful Qawwalis

Whenever a south Indian appeared in a Hindi movie, he was ridiculed most likely as a Madarasi chewing betal leaves speaking with an accent of 'commu' and 'Goo's (for Come and Go); While a North Indian appearing in a Tamil movie was invariably a "Sate" or "Pattani" chewing the 'Paan Parag' (he is supposed to be a 'Pathan' by the way) speaking in a non-existent language of "Nimbal Ki" and "Numbal Ki"; The fact is both these stereotypes are highly exaggerated or even fictitious. While the film industries across the poles of India were always busy inventing concepts to exhibit each other in poor taste, there has been very little creative efforts made to learn from each other. So in areas like this, Raaja's work has been often taken for granted.

I finish with this final track. Listen to this Song from Pattu Padava. (The Funny lyrics of the track can be easily explained if you know that the characters pictured on the song are from a mental asylum :-) !!). With in a span of 2 minutes you are treated to a Qawwali and then a Carnatic Kalyani and then a Synthetic Rock.

It exhibits at least one fact. Raaja's brand of Hindustani fusion is much like Hindustan itself...

Harmonious existence of genres that have little in common..

With Love
Vicky

Raaja Hindustani II

2009-05-17T23:37:00.026+02:00

Continuing the series of Raaja's Hindustani techniques, in this part we will look at specific Hindustani Raags that he has ventured into.

It is a common knowledge that almost all Raagas of the Carnatic Classical Music (CCM) has a direct or indirect equivalent in the Hindustani Classical Music (HCM). However usually there are miles that separate each of them even though their DNAs match to a fair extent. There aren't many composers who has taken the same set of notes and have given it a both CCM and HCM treatment. Raaja of course in his quest to conquer new musical horizons has consciously ventured into few of those exclusive HCM scales.

To start with we can look at the Raag: Patdeep and its CCM equivalent Gowri Manohari. To make the picture complete, in Western Classical this is same as the scale of Melodic Minor in ascent.
To understand unique applications of Gowri manohari you can listen to a traditional Carnatic piece here.
Guru Lekha

And a traditional Patdeep would sound like this:
Rang Rangeela Banra Mora

As you can see, visibly the Carnatic version does not give the same weight to Nishadam as that of its HCM counterpart. "Ga Ma Pa Ni" is the characteristic Pakad of Patdeep. While the prayogam "Sa Ri Ga Ma" is a strict no no in Patdeep, Its Carnatic counterpart revels on a much fuller set of the first half of the notes (i.e, sa ri ga ma pa); There is a sea of difference in the application of notes. No doubt that Raaja's Gowrimanohari based tunes have won many a hearts in the form of "Dhoorathil naan Kanda" (Same as the song 'Vennello Godari Andahm' in Telugu), "Solai Poovil" or "Muthamizh Kaviye Varuga" (all with their liberal doses of 'Sa Ri Ga'); But its his Patdeep versions that are unquestionably more gripping and surrendering. Here are the most poignant Patdeeps from Raaja :
Kanna Varuvaaya
(The traditional "Krishna kannaiya - Meera" theme of this song accentuates this feel much more)

Oru Kaaviyam

As one can see, in these Patdeeps there is a clear usage of "Ga ma pa ni" usage with not much emphasize on the 'Sa ri ga' patterns; In fact in the song "Kanna Varuvaaya", during the phrase 'Manmadha Mandiram Solli' of second charanam, the song goes as "sa ri ga ma" and suddenly you feel a drop in the intensity. Though the song does sounds a bit out of place there, On the contrary this small deviation helps one appreciate how best Patdeep is handled in the rest of the song.

A similar pair is the Raag: Yaman and its CCM equivalent of Kalyani. Lot of people whom I know consider it 'fashionable' to interchange these two raagas just because they seem to know these two are of same kind. The fact is, Yaman's Aarohan stamps its uniqueness from Kalyani in a way better than the watermarks of world's most sophisticated currencies. See it for yourself:
Tu Jag Mey Sharam

"Ni Ri Ga" or "Ga Ma Dha Ni" are mandatory progressions in Yaman with no scope for "Sa ri ga" or "ga ma pa". And there are no such hard and fast rules in Kalyani although such progressions are considered beautiful. In fact Raaja's favorite pass time appear to be handling Yaman like progressions in pure Kalyani Songs to the point of making it look like Hamsanandhi in Ascent; All though such momentary application of "Yaman" is very common in Raaja's songs (Eg: "Vizhayatta Solli thandha dhaaaaaaaaaaaruuuuuuu" from the song Malayoram mayile, "Paadungal paatu paadungal" etc), there are infact pure gems of yaman from Raaja. I have stitched my favorite yamans of Raaja here:
Raaja's Yaman

It doesn't take one too long to observe the deliberate absence of "Sa ri ga" or "Ga Ma Pa" progressions in these songs. That's Raaja..

Regardless of Yaman or Kalyani, Its a pleasure though listening to any of Raaja's umpteen interludes and melodies that operate around these territories (especially with a liberal addition of Sudha madhyamam his kalyanis usually leave a much more lasting impression):
Such as this collage or
This sample charanam among many such beauties

Of course, among the same lines there is the heavenly "Nee Oru Kaadhal Sangeedham" (As I said in the Part I, Whats it with Mano and Hindustani numbers) or "Oru Devathai Vandhadhu" both of which can be eternally debated as being Des or Tilak Kamod or Shyam Kalyan or.. But as I said, regardless of the tag, these are HCM for dummies and ultimate songs to cherish with.

Another interesting dilemma among the South Indian Intelligentsia is to equate Bageshri with Sri Ranjani; People go at lengths to tag some very popular songs as Bageshri without giving any consideration to what separates the two raagas. While Sri ranjani is a strict Panchama varja raaga based out of karaharapriya, Bageshri does allow the prayog "Ma pa dha ma" in the avarohan; Besides its Aarohan is same as Abogi or in other words the progression "sa ri ga ma" is not allowed here; You can listen to a traditional Bageshri here.
Kanha Giridhari

From a puritan's point of view most of the Tamil songs that are branded as Bageshri in the internet forums are not Bageshri at all; Rather it can at best be defined as a mix of Abogi and Sri Ranjani, if at all one is particular about fitting a raaga to those songs; In fact none of Raaja's songs are Pure Bageshri, even though it could be shocking for some to read this. But if you get down to the work floor and get your palms greasy, you will realize none of these songs have the "Ma pa dha ma" application nor do they abstain from the "Sa ri ga ma" progression; However the handling of lot of Raaja's (and MSV's) so called Bageshri melodies does give due feel of Bageshri where the song revolves around Madhyamam i.e., Some poignant usages of "Sa Ma" and "Ga ma dha" prayogams does in fact evoke the right bhavam of Bageshri and hence its very tempting to call them so; In any case Bageshri per se is perceived to be a very light and liberal raaga and it can't be considered a crime if one maintains his account of certain song as Bageshri; As far me, I consider the following song the best Bageshri of Raaja to date (Even though, this song too doesn't use Panchamam in descent which it should as well as contains some heavy "Sa ri ga" parts):
Ye Jagala

If you see the raaga pairs discussed in this post, they are very very popular scales by HCM standards and yet in the South Indian context they are either not understood or still worse, misunderstood. So gaining control over these gray areas, daring to walk the tight rope and coming out unscathed with both HCM or CCM numbers with these pairs is yet another testimony of Raaja's verstaility. At least for a person like me with no formal education in HCM whatsoever, he has been the gateway to this vast ocean. Since then HCM is a genre which I have come to appreciate very much.

Another area that I wanted to touch upon in this post is about the Ghazal based arrangements of Raaja's songs. Ghazals are a very popular sub genre of HCM; Actually lyrics and poetic beauty are the main allure of a traditional Ghazal and the music's role in a Ghazal is to elevate the lyric and be non-intrusive. Therefore a typical Ghazal is set for minimalistic arrangement with astute beat pattern shifts in accordance to the meter of the lyric. Given this criterion, it is not appropriate to tag tamil film songs into a traditional Ghazal umbrella. However from a musical stand point, Raaja does produce few minimalistic songs now and then which are a pure joy to relish. There is no denial that these songs does create a Ghazal-ish feel. Here is an assortment of such songs although this list is far from being complete given Raaja's repertoire.
Raaja's Ghazals

The scales that are used in these songs are as diverse as one can stretch his imagination, what with unique usage of Hari kaambodhi with hopping swaras (Vaana Mazhai) to the audacious attempt on Madhuvanti (Ennullil Yeno). The arrangement on all such kind of songs is unmistakable with a challenging melody for the singer, minimal to non-existent grandeur in orchestration and some innovative usage of Tabla.

I have already made all the clips that will future in this 3 part series a few months ago. And yet, many of the readers of Part I already connected with this feel and commented in advance of many of the songs that are mentioned in this post. It speaks volumes about how one composer can educate a generation.

Love
Vicky

Raaja Hindustani I

2009-04-13T19:58:00.027+02:00

The movie "Raja Hindustani" was screened at the Archana theater in Coimbatore during my sophomore years.. 99% of the crowd watching that movie didn't understand one word of Hindi and yet the movie was running to packed houses. As far the College students who made the majority of those crowds were concerned, the Hindi handicap was momentarily forgotten in the charisma of Karishma! While this post is thankfully not about the on screen antics of Aamir khan on a rainy evening in that movie, it certainly drives home the point that - it takes something extra ordinary for the penetration of any North Indian art into the Tamil hinterland :-P ; It also offers a glaring contrast that often it needn't be as notorious as this case, For - the real 'Raaja Hindustani' of TN is the one with a double 'a' who has presented North Indian classical music as Trojans that conquered us.

This is a 3 part series in which I plan to (re)visit the application of Hindustani musical techniques, instruments and arrangements by Isaignani Ilaiyaraaja. Part 1 of this series will exclusively focus on pure creations of Raaja in this genre while in Part 2 I plan to take up Realizations of Hindustani genre based raagas and arrangements by Raaja. The last part of the series would focus on how he understood the original traditional concept and adopted it into a version of his own - be it in the deviation from tradition in the usage of exotic Hindustani classical Instruments or some radical experiments that no one else dared before.

In the context of South Indian film music, application of Hindustani style has not been unique to Raaja; Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao's delivery of the Raag 'Dharbari' (or Dharbari kaanada) in "Shiva Shankari" is probably still the benchmark of Hindustani singing that any South Indian singer might want to reach some day. And Composer Pendyala Nageswara Rao would be certainly proud of Ravindran Master for taking off from where he left and constructing a beautiful Sindhubhairavi in the Malayalam Sangeetham. The song 'Hari murali ravam' was not only a composer's delight, it also tested the boundaries of mighty KJ, who in the end of course proved why he is infallible. Speaking of testing the singer's ability, Hamsalekha came close to pinning down the South Indian Baadsha SPB in his "Umandu Gumandu". Winning the national award for that song was an achievement second only to SPB's own personal triumph that he actually accomplished the song as a proof to claim that he is the most versatile playback singer of our generation. (However I am not sure if its an original composition by Hamsalekha or simple reproduction of an established Hindustani number just like How ARR merely 'used' the track 'Bhor Bhaye' in Delhi 6); There have been traditional Qawwalis as well where our composers have shone bright with stars such as ARR ("Haji Ali", "Kwaja meri Kwaja", "Moula Moula - Delhi 6)" etc and Ravindran Master again (with "Tu Badi Maasha Allah") etc.,

Raaja's application of Hindustani music has not been as rigorously classical. But in terms of demonstration of the subject, individuality of the technique and the frequency with which his Wizardry was shown, he probably is second to none from the above list of composers. Raaja is more like the Neil Bhor who famously answered how a Barometer can be used in umpteen ways still relevant to Physics to measure the height of a building other than the one based on pressure which is the 'expected' answer.

In terms of usage of Tabla, Tabla tarang, Dholak and Pakhawaj though, He was certainly in the league of his own as you will see from the clips that follow. As yearly as 1978, he dared to experiment on a full blown scale in the song:
Manjolai Kilidhaano

India 24 Hours was a landmark album from Raaja in terms of showcasing his hindustani capabilities.
- First some experiment with
Tabla Tarang

- As far interweaving Tabla Bols so casually, I wonder if Raaja has any peer in south;
Tabla Bols
This track is a true case of tradition with ingenuity; In the second half of the track, the "Ae.. Aele lo" part is so unexpected and exhilarating.

- Now for some brief Khayal (in Bihag?) with some aid from Pakhwaj
Mini Khayal

- For some astute use of Pakhawaj together with Tabla, you can listen to this clip:
Pakhawaj

Back to film music and Singer Mano had this unexpected surprise in his noteworthy career - A Tarana in Raag Bihag set to Deep Chandi from the film:
Vanna Vanna Pokkaal

And bench mark composition of Raaja's Hindustani came through Pandit Ajoy Chakraborthy's Isaiyil Thodungudhamma; The song is set in a scale unique to Raaja whereby he uses Ga varja version of Kalyani;
Isayil Thodangudhamma
The intricate vocal work on this song is actually a norm in the Hindustani classical. So one can easily appreciate the richness and superior standards of this genre.

There are also few Jugal Bandhis hidden in Raaja songs; This one being my favorite
Sadha Sadha

I don't know whats it with Mano and Hindustani Singing; Obviously Mano was Raaja's favorite at some point as evident from some hard core Hindustani stuff showered on him. The premise of this song based on Raadha - Krishna type of setting must have spurred up Raaja that he came up with such an out and out wonder; I am tempted to tag this in the Raag Dharbari as well but for some "pure" Kanada prayogams; So probably its a mix of both.
Chithra doing a wonderful job initially (especially the oscillation of Melsthaai Ga - to Madhyasthaai Ri - and back to Melsthaai Ga during the pallavi ending is too good).
Gokulame Needhira
(if you listen carefully you can see how Raaja has instructed the singers to pronounce the swaras in the Hindustani way. For instance, Rishabam is pronounced in the Hindustani way; i.e., not like "Ri" with a "ee" sound but more like a "Ray" with an "ay" sound at the finish.)

and Mano left doing the catch up act here.
Gokulame Coda
Usage of Pakhwaj is noteworthy in this song as well.

The song "Ulagil Mudhal Isai Thamizh isaiye" by the master MSV is one of its kind for weaving parts of Carnatic and Hindustani in the same song and producing a genuine fusion. Raaja, being an open admirer of MSV thought himself not to be left behind and produced this wonder
Raagam Azhaithu Vandha
The uncanny knack of choosing both the scales that are Hindustani style based loose Raagas which are also equally popular in the Carnatic domain speaks for Raaja's astute taste. This way the separate portions look alluring whichever way you look at it (Desh for the carnatic part and Kaanada for the Hindustani part)

And in terms of providing light but authentic North Indian numbers, Raaja has proven himself time and again; The latest one being this gem of a song from Naan Kadavul:
Maa Ganga

The range of clips hosted in this post vary from 1978 to 2009; Think about it.. For a period of over 30 years he has fed us with such tasty dishes that we know doesn't belong here; And yet because of the way he "localized" them, we have taken it for granted as if these are wonders that are homegrown down south. Just like the ubiquitously available Tandoori Butter Naan or the Chole-Batura or the Paani Poori in every famous small town restaurants of TN.

With Love
Vicky

Discover SPB

2009-03-18T21:53:00.023+01:00

The most obvious connection between Sharjah and Cochin are the Malayalis. Not so obvious but yet an interesting knot that ties both of them is, Sachin Tendulkar. Almost 11 years to date in Sharjah, He made the sand storm that interrupted a match look less vigorous. It was lost but not before he ensured that its India and not New Zealand that qualified to the finals of Coco-Cola Cup, a trophy India would eventually win, thanks to a yet another stormy display from the same bat.

On another occasion at Cochin, you wouldn't take the figures of 5 for 32, especially if the bowler in question is not a regular.. Your suspicion is understandable.. That match was played on a Fool's day.. However, Tendulkar was named man of the match that day for rolling his arms over ...

Now, I don't want to sound like Navjot Sidhu by calling Tendulkar as Cricket's SPB or SPB as South Indian Playback singing's Tendulkar.. The fact remains that, lots of such enriching, challenging and not-to-be-missed performances are.. well, always most-certainly-missed.

While the 80s of SPB are like the Sharjah performances, the 90s still had enough fizz to rattle the new comers.. For example, one of my most frequented playlists is titled as "SPB Refresher"; They are not the 'Mike Mohan' set of Solos that by and large remain close with the listeners. Nonetheless they are beauties and were quite popular when the movies released.. but slowly faded from memory.. That one goes like:
- Velli Nilave (Nandhavana Theru)
- Poongodidhaan Poothadhamma (Idhayam)
- Keladi En paavaye (Gopura Vasalile)
- Paattu esa paattu (Senthamizh Selvan)
- Enna vendru Solvadhamma (Rajakumaran)
- Chinna Chinna Thooral (Senthamizh Paatu)
- Vana kuyile (Priyanka)
- Thulli Thirindhadhoru (Endrum Anbudan)
- Ila Venil Idhu Vaigaasi (Kaadhal Rojave)
- Hello Guru Premakosam (Nirnayam)
- Vanamellam Shenbaga Poo (Naadodi Paatukkaran)
- Thanga Nilavukkul (Rickshaw Mama)
- Kola Kiliye (Kaakkai Chiraginile)
- Ada Va vaa Raaja (Paatu Paadava)
- Aatamma Paatamma (Nadigan)

This post is not about the above list or songs as popular as them. But Its on a second play list of 90s SPB solos that's named as "Discover SPB".. These are ones like like the Cochin performances... not to be missed. As I mentioned earlier, I have such a 'Discover' series for all prominent singers of Raaja and this is the second in line. But this time I wanted to enhance your reading experience with audio so that you may be introduced to this songs if its your first time.

All these songs are very lightly arranged songs with utmost thrust on vocals. Therefore the onus is on SPB to carry it forward.;

The list goes as:
1. Thene Senthene - those workmanship at the words "Poovee..." ! Thats still the same 70s SPB of 'Kamban emandhaan';
2. Unnai Paadadha Naavum - Always there is a surprise in life.. I didn't notice this song until recently..
3. Kuyile Ilamaanguyile - No proof is needed that this is a tune composed by MSV and arranged by Raaja
4. Chinna Thambi - What vocal parts.. !!
5. Thangakili Tholil - Jam.. With gliss and rolls, thats the word that comes to mind..! (Its the quintessential Tabla in the stanza though)
6. Kinnaram Kinnaram - A song personally close to me.. I still vividly remember this was one of the most sought after song in the Regional Radio's 'Neyar Viruppam' (listener's choice) program
7. Paadi Thirindha Endhaan - The Simmendhra Madhyamam of this song evokes a feel similar to Janaki's Keeravani in 'Kaatril endhan'; But are they treated similar ..!!?
8. Le Le Baba - I think Raaja composed this one when he was still on the Mathyamavathi hangover from 'Vanamellam Shenbagapoo'. No reason to complain though..
9. Nalla Kaarampasu - Similar to 'Adi Komadha', 'Saami Kodutha varam' etc except for the captivating guitar/ flute of 1st BGM; Such guitar for native numbers is unique in Raaja's folk echelon.
10. Chinnanjiru - A Gazhal-ish beauty (from Vocal and not lyrical perspective); The voice is really dancing when he is singing 'Aadudhu'.
11. Annan Ivan Kannan illa - Like Chinna Thambi in the list, This is another 'Wow' song as far as harmony arrangement is concerned.
12. Dhinam Vidindhadhum - One of the few songs where you can find Raaja doing an ARR act or two. Its unfortunate its a short song.
13. Vaigasi Vellikilama - Superb meter.. captivating melody.. well sung..

Finally here is the collage of all these songs - your 10 minute experience of SPB:

Discover SPB

I hope you are able to (re)discover SPB as well..

With Love
Vicky

Trombone

2009-03-03T23:08:00.014+01:00

My first tryst with Trombone was in the year 02. My manager then, a gentleman by the name of Ben was a trombonist at a local brass band. I accompanied him on a couple of occasions during his practice sessions and attended their orchestra's live show once as well (well.. I had free tickets..!); When I heard the timber of the instrument, the background musics of Tom & Jerry, especially of the types when Jerry is spoiling Tom's beach vacation or when he is meddling with Tom's lady cat etc., flashed in my mind. I was truly fascinated to see such a looong instrument. The complicated maneuvers to produce such amazing notes were equally fascinating.. Especially when performed in unison by a group of them...The instrument is truly one of its kind.. (To orient yourself to it, you can either read the wikipedia, which I found rather technical or you can read a simpler account here . Also Youtube has tons of videos on Trombone solos although most are jazz based that requires an acquired taste of listening. )

While the instrument is usually played as an Trombone ensemble in Brass bands - accompanying the main theme by giving punching phrases lasting all of single or two counts typically during the end of the given bar, the potential of this instrument to perform a solo act is second to none.

Actually Trombone is quite common in the Indian film music scenario. In the background scores, it is usually played together with other brass instruments to convey the de-facto 'Thigil' (suspense) effect.. like when the villain approaches the hero from behind with a Knife !!!! While in the movie songs, its used heavily as well particularly for partying songs, patriotic songs etc., Works of RD Burman employed a great deal of Brass instruments including Trombone. AR Rehman uses it as well (even today in songs like 'Azeem-O-Shaan-Shahenshah') But this instrument has always predominantly been used as part of the larger Brass ensemble. Pathoda Padhinonnu.. (insignificant !!); Whatever limited scope that existed for a solo in the interludes of movie songs was besieged by more flamboyant instruments of the brass family. After all, Baagyaraaj and Balakrishna look much "cooler" pretending to play the Trumpet or Saxophone in the interludes, rather than err.. a Trombone !

My interest on this lovely instrument was revived after I came to know that it was one Mr. Blasco Monsorate from the Goan Jazz circles, who usually plays Trombone solos for Maestro Ilaiyaraaja. Fascinated by the idea of trombone solo in regional film songs, I went about searching for them .. What I found were clips of mere 15 and 20 seconds.. but then to think that in a song of 4 minutes where more than half is vocals, this is rather a healthy proposition of length given the plethora of instruments. Besides, the exercise of extracting them and listening in isolation might pave the way for non-trombone aware listeners to appreciate the instrument.

1. Prelude of Sangeetha Megam..All along I was thinking this is trumpet. But I think this is in fact trombone (while in the last part of this section, a trumpet can be heard, floating out of no where and joining the trombone); The tone of trumpet is clearly sharper than Trombone.
Prelude of Sangeedha Megam

2. A Solo trombone starts at the end of 2nd line (oh..Kannal kaanugayaam) and continues through the 3rd and 4 line in the background
Aruna Kirana Deepam

3. 2nd interlude of "Hey I Love you.." Orchestration of this song is very very trendy.. Even Today
Hey I Love You

4. In the interludes of 'Suttum Sudarvizhi', the Trombone can be heard intermittently amidst the orchestral colossus.
Suttum Sudar Vizhi

5. Here is Japanil Kalyanaraman:
Vaaya Vaaya

6. And "Vaanam Kezhe" (Thanks Ramesh for the find):
Vaanam Kezhe

7. 2nd interlude of "Ennama Kannu".. Trombone solo repeated by trumphets;
Ennama Kannu

There are much more applications of trombone by Raaja. Rock n Roll beauties (Ram bum bum, Vaanamenna Mel irukka), magnum opuses ("Sundari kannal oru") etc., But as I said they were always part of a wider Brass section .. Solos hidden in (even well known) songs was quite interesting (well.. atleast for me!) Hope you liked it as well.. Please leave a comment when you can think of more Trombone solos in Raaja's songs...

And finally...

When Jazz meets Banthuvarali, we are treated to arguably the best trombone solo ever written in India by an Indian and played by another (Blasco):
Is It Fixed

Can you beat that ..?

With Love
Vicky

Comment Factory

2009-02-18T23:59:00.004+01:00

An article on Raaja that I wrote for Comment Factory can be read here.
My thanks to the editor of the website Matt, for providing me with the opportunity.

With Love
Vicky