"Anything that can possibly go wrong, does" populary known as Murphy's law. I've often seen my friends lament about the frequent occurence of Murphy's law and I'm no exception to observing and quoting Murphy's law whenever I'm at its receiving end. However I'm now beginning to wonder if Murphy's law is just the result of "confirmation bias". Confirmation bias! what's that. Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses, independently of whether they are true (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias).
A typical example of a confirmation bias would be a tendency to say "It rains just after I get my car washed" (implying it was a waste of money to have washed it). The human mind is very selective, since it reinforces the validity of the hypothesis every time it rains after car-wash but never vice-versa. In due course of time the hypothesis is reinforced sufficiently to now be considered a truth.
Generlizing the above occurence, whenever we have an occasion where we there are one set of events that are favorable and another unfavorable, we will go on our Murphy rant whenever an event from the unfavorable set occurs. Never vice versa. For people interested in reading a whole book on this subject I would recommend Thomas Gilovich's superb book http://www.amazon.com/How-Know-What-Isnt-Fallibility/dp/0029117062/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275739184&sr=8-1-catcorr which goes on to debunk several unproven popular theories like "Childless couples have a biological child once they adopt", "Hot hand in basketball" etc etc. Happy weekend.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Female one with nature
This is a compilation of a few IR songs, that celebrates the spirit of an adoloscent female protagonist basking in the natural beauty of nature.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Meeting with Ilaiyaraaja - Part 3
A couple of corrections/omissions to my earlier blog about my meeting with Ilaiyaraja. My meeting with IR was from 20:30 to 22:15 and not 20:30 to 21:15. The song that was playing on my car as we got into it was “Aali pazham perukkaan” from My dear kuttichaathaan (the tamil version goes “Chella kuzhandhaigaley”)
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It was IR who began the conversation asking me “Neengal Malayalam paattai virumbi kaetpeengala?” (Do you listen to Malayalam songs?) when I replied, “Saar neenga endha mozhiyila paattu poattaalum naan adhai kaetpaen” (Sir, I will listen to a song in any language if it were composed by you). And so saying I fiddled my CD player to go to the “Women in turmoil” playlist. Rest in the first blog. Now to part 3.
When we drove back home, I took the car inside his house, dropped IR and Ravi at the portico and parked my car outside his residence and walked back in. IR’s house is very reflective of his personality. The color of his house is, White. All his cars are white in color. As you enter the house, to the left is the security-room where there is provision for the security to live 24*7 and a place to store the large-back-up power unit. The drive way is an arc (quarter of an arc) leading to a veranda which opens into a big visiting hall. The visitor’s room (hall) leads to the bigger house through a passage-way which resembles a vestibule. The hall has a double-ceiling. It has a 2 + 3 + 2 sofa seater on the right side as you enter and a piano on the left-hand side. There is an ornate lamp near the piano.
There is a simplicity and calmness to the overall ambience in the room which I guess very much suits to IR’s overall taste and preference. As we plonked ourselves into the sofa, my friend Ravi graciously asked me to sit near IR. So IR was seated on the 2-seater while I was seated on the 3-seater, the one closer to IR. I told IR, I was really lost on what to gift him and when I looked around, the best I could do find was an old book on counterpoint that I had bought in a Border’s shop in Milpitas in 2002. He perused through the book very quickly and mentioned that most of it was modal counterpoint. I mentioned IR’s songs were themselves a textbook on counterpoint (Sundari neeyum). I briefly mentioned Palestrina (Bach’s predecessor when it comes to counterpoint) and his music but this didn’t catch IR’s attention as he was busily signing my books/photos CDs. The first book that he took for signing was ”Yaarukku raar ezhudhuvadhu”. To my horror, I discover a small dead-fly on the very first page. IR’s signed “Iraivanadi Ilaiyaraja” and remarked “Book release aana udaney vangiduveenga polirukku” (“Appears you buy the book as soon as it gets released” implying a question “whether I actually bothered to read?”. I do. I’ve read yaarukku yaar ezhuthuvadhu atleast twice). He autographed Naadha veliyiniley, Nyaanaganga and Venba nanmaalai. Then he signed my engagement photos, the ones where my wife and I would be posing with the folks who visited our engagement ceremony and in the backdrop there was IR’s black-and-white portrait. He jokingly mentioned, that he was present in my engagement ceremony in some form.
I remembered reading somewhere that his first public performance was in 1967 in Tiruverumbur, a place very close to where I grew up Ganesapuram (near BHEL township), Trichy, Tamilnadu. He mentioned that the place was right but I got the year wrong, it was 1960. Then I mentioned to him that we celebrated my dad’s sastiapthapoorthy (completion of 60 years) at Thirukkadayoor on 3rd May 2003. His eyes lighted up (IR’s sashtiapthpoorthy happened a week later in the same place). I told him I would have stayed back to attend if only I knew. Alas I was to learn of the function only the next week when my mother in law and numerous others enquired me if I had seen the pictures of the function on a Kumudham (a tamil weekly).
Next up was my 2 copies of the same CD. This is a rare CD, one where IR’s carnatic compositions were played by Mandolin U Srinivas. Whenever I’m discussing music with a carnatic music rasika, who tends to be dismissive of IR’s music, I use this CD as the trump card. If the discussion were to happen in my vehicle when we are listening to IR’s music then what follows is almost predictable. I change to some carnatic vocal music (acknowledging my yielding to their opinion), switch to a carnatic-instrumental track and then slowly to mandolin’s carnatic compositions before going to “this” CD. The listener will be appreciative of the music, while still trying to place the composition (they will be unsuccessful because this is not composed by any famous carnatic composer). However they will reconcile this unfamiliar feeling by telling themselves that “carnatic music is an ocean” and it is very difficult to get one’s arms around it. Now that they’ve resolved the “unfamiliar” feeling, they will begin to listen to the music and once they start enjoying, they’d be curious to know more about the song and invariably the discussion would veer to its composer, when I beamingly would announce “Ilaiyaraja”. Depending on the maturity of the listener the discussion can end in a bitter fight or self-deprecating humor. Whenever it ended acknowledging human fallibility, we would discuss how much we rely on form/reputation to form our opinions rather than possessing the abilities to come to our own conclusions.
I was surprised when IR mentioned that he himself didn’t possess a copy of this rare CD. I guess he mentioned it only because I gave him 2 copies (with different covers) to be autographed. I was more than happy to give him one of those copies . While on rare IR music, I quizzed him about his performance as a carnatic-cutcheri performer in narada gana sabha in 1995. I told him I don’t possess that CD, when he told me that he wasn’t very happy with that experiment. He mentioned carnatic singers practice for anywhere between 5 to 15 years before getting on stage and that he was in no shape, while being busy at his film-composing, to pull it off. My friend Ravi got a little worried that I might have accidentally touched a raw nerve. If I had, IR didn’t make it obvious, on the contrary he appeared disarmingly honest, objective and critical of what he considered a failed-attempt.
I wanted to tell him about an anecdote I had heard about IR’s breathtaking speed in absorbing a new musical idea and presenting it with his unmistakable artistic stamp. On one of my business-trips I was returning from SFO via Kuala-Lumpur and Flute-Ramani, his wife, the mridangist Srimushnam Raja Rao, violinist Vaithi were also on the same flight. While at the waiting room at our flight’s gate, I quickly struck up a conversation with Violin Vaithi and within 2 minutes had informed Violin Vaithi that I’m a die-hard IR fan. I paused for a breath and mentioned to IR that I usually establish my die-hard-IR-fan credentials in no time and indicate that the conversation was going to be IR-centric and can continue if they’re fine with it. IR guffawed and remarked “Mudhalleyey adhai solliduveenga?”.
Yes I do. A small digressio from Violin Vaithi here. I mentioned how there was a discussion with one my customer’s (a pretty famous music label company) I told him that the Indian music that was marketed outside India was Sitar by Ravishankar, Maayamalava gowlai and more recently A R Rahman. This is so ingrained in the foreign minds that whenever you see a BBC or a Discovery channel program about India, they will show the Taj Mahal and play Maayamalava gowlai on Sitar and utter the words “exotic India” that is has become such a clichéd phrase. So I played Kalyanam Vaibogam (not found in YouTube) from Naan Mahaanalla to my customer. The piano preludes are played at a breathtaking speed. I remarked to my customer that the prelude was Chopinesque and so saying played the song to him. After waiting for the Janaki sections to start, he said “The female vocal didn’t sound Chopinesque". And when I related that anecdote to IR, IR replied to me saying I should have asked my customer “Why does it have to sound Chopinesque (IR pronounced Chopin as shopaan which is the correct pronunciation). For once I saw some anger in IR. I later asked IR if he was the one who played the prelude piano for Kalyanam Vaibogam and he replied saying he didn’t remember but it was quite possible.
Violin Vaithi mentioned that he too was a fan or IR and that his guru was T V Gopalakrishnan (I remembered reading somewhere that IR learnt carnatic music from T V Gopalakrishnan). Violin Vaithi then went on to tell an anecdote on how once IR had learnt the ragam “Bilahari” from T V Gopalakrishnan and that very same evening had composed a song in the same ragam, recorded the song and sent a tape to T V Gopalakrishnan. When TVG listened to the song he was happy that he was guru to such a phenomenally talented composer, because he couldn’t really believe that a person who learnt the ragam so recently could do something like this. When I narrated this incident to IR, he said broadly the events were right but the specifics were wrong and then went to narrate it correctly himself. He said TVG and he were returning from Guruvayoor and on their way back TVG was humming “Dorakuna Ituvanti Seva” a carnatic song in Bilahari, not to be confused with another song with similar first-line in the movie Shankarabaranam
Listening to this song on the journey back IR asked TVG what was this song and picked/learned the nuances of Bilahari from TVG by just listening to him. That evening IR was composing a song for the movie Balanagamma (song not found in YouTube), a period movie with Sharath Babu and Sridevi in a vittalaachariar setting – 7 seas 7 mountains etc. Since the movie was a period movie he could afford to compose a purely classical number and he chose “Bilahari” for Koondhaliley megam vandhu. IR then went on to say, how that day’s recording was even more special, since Chembai Vaidyanatha Bagavathar’s daughter and son-in-law were also attending that recording session. IR mentioned once he finished composing the song, he and KJY went straight to the recording room where IR would do a first take and then Yesudas would learn the song that way and then sing for the final take. Chembai’s son-in-law asked TVG, are they already ready with the song and was Jesu singing already without any practice directly from the notations, when he heard IR do the first take (implying he couldn’t differentiate IR and Yesudas’ voice).
IR was glancing sideways at the book “Multiple facets of Madurai”. He asked me what that book was about. I explained to him that it was a simple coffee-table book about Madurai with fantastic line-sketches made by Devadoss. He quickly glanced thru the pictures and got very excited about seeing various landmark like Aanamalai, the school where Bharathiyaar studied etc that he recognized. I offered him the book if he liked to read it. I told him I had brought the book nly with the intent of explaining to him how we were planning to come up with a similar book on IR’s music.
I mentioned to IR that he had tried a lot of innovative experiments and many of these are unknown to us. He nodded in the affirmative and said, if no efforts are made to tell them, then they could get diluted. Boldened by his encouraging words, I went ahead and expanded my idea by illustrating a few songs. The first song is one that comes when a good-natured-brute gets married to the female protagonist. The heroine would have just convinced the hero that he should give up rowdyism, drinking etc and when he tries doing that he is beaten up by the same rowdies who used to fear him while he was active as a rowdy. Realising the incompleteness of her advice the heroine would say, that she didn't want the hero to be a rowdy-for-hire, but it is stupid to not defend oneself. The first interlude in the song will beautifully portray the mellowing influence of the heroine in the hero's life from the recent past of this newly married couple. The starting of the first interlude will depict the hero’s old ways, and the second piece will show the entry of the heroine into the hero’s life resulting in a brief conflict, before the mellowing and sobering influence of the heroine is felt with the resolution by the strings section of the orchestra towards the end of the first interlude. I was telling IR that his usage of strings was unusually sober in this song, as the situation demands, where his usual tendency is to run amok with violent energy whenever he writes the score for the strings. He was looking at me and smiling amusingly. The song is “Unnaithaaney” from Nallavanukku Nallavan.
Next up was a very simple song from the movie Thai Pongal. I was hoping to give him atleast one song that he doesn’t remember and this song was supposed to be one of my attempts. I was disappointed when he immediately remembered and recollected the song. The song is Pani vizhum poo nilavil. The simple innovation in this song is the aspect of the chords leading the melodic lines (where usual practice is to play the chords along with the melodic line or trail it). You can observe it when Malaysia sings arumbey, sengarumbey thruvai malarvaai theyn (it goes “chords arumbey, chords sengarumbey, chords tharuvaai malarvaai theyn chords”). I told IR might have done several such songs, but I wanted this book to focus on some of his more esoteric songs like “pani vizhum poo nilavil” for his die-hard fans like me.
I was asking IR if he had complete artistic freedom in the preludes/interludes “Saar idhellam unga saamrajyam dhaaney” when he replied “Aamaamaam adhula ellam yaarum onnum solla mudiyaadhu”. We discussed the difference between IR’s compositions and Jugalbandhi. How in a jugal bandhi the fusion of disparate genres of music was at a surface performance level. The focus is on improvisation and a form of question-and-answer rather than an organic synthesis of different genres of music that way IR composes. IR replied saying jugal bandhila eppadi onnu serum. Adhu thani thani yaa dhaan irukkum. IR’s approach to composition is very different. He is not one who adds layers and layers of music to his composition. The composition comes to him in one go and then he divides this composition into multiple tracks for the different instruments. He is more of a sculptor who sees a form in a monolith and goes about chiseling the unwanted rock to arrive at this sculpture. This explains Ilaiyaraja’s breathtaking composing speed. He has done 50 movies in a year several years on the trot in the eighties, where he composes 4-5 songs a movie the entire background score and all this on an average within a single week for a movie. He doesn’t take the help of another assistant music director for any section of his song and he is not merely a composer, but he is his arranger and conductor too.
At this point I told IR, that I had observed how some of the other lesser music directors would find it a struggle to compose interludes, since the interludes were purely musical and abstract in nature and demanded the highest skill in orchestration from music-composers. This difficulty made them resort to simple orchestration like arohanam/avarohanam (Sa ri ga ma pa da ni Sa, Sa ni da pa ma ga ri sa), but in the few times that IR decides to use an arohanam avarohanam in his interludes, what all pyrotechnics he will adopt to camouflage the arohanam/avarohanam. It might be a 2-and-a-half octave climb-up or climb-down (2nd interlude of Aayiram thaamarai
Or it will be the culmination of a really fantastic piece as in 2nd interlude of naan thedum sevvanthi poovidhu
I was telling him that many fans like me understood the internal standards that he had set for himself and how we was trying his best to maintain it. I mentioned that like a story teller can captivate the attention of the readers, IR had the ability to complement a visual story aurally, by virtue of his vidwat and that he had raised the bar of musical-compositions and that other music directors have to exceed this bar before they can be acknowledged as a maestro. Unfortunately in India innovations and experiments in music done done by composers like Ilaiyaraaja in movie music is never acknowledged in musical circles, which tends to give a lot more importance to the context (where and for what was the music created/played) rather than its context.
IR beckoned one of his stewards to serve us mango juice. At this point Karthik Raja, his wife and his 2 sons were taking leave from IR’s house. I smiled and so did Karthik Raja. Karthik Raja’s son then bade goodbye “Poren” to his thaatha. Poren is an inappropriate way to take leave (like alvidha in hindi, kabhi alvidha naa kehnaa). IR quickly asked his grandson to come to him and told him to say “goodbye” instead of poren. Next up was mannil indha kaadhalandri. I mentioned how many Tamil-film-audience was aware of the breathless song in Keladi Kanmani because it was marketed well in the movie
Same with Kaliavaaniyey from Sindhu Bhairavi, one where IR uses arohanam for progressing up-the-scale and make non-avarahanam quantum jumps down whenever descending down the scale
I recollected to him how he in a TV interview in 1991 had downplayed the significance of the breathless keladi kanmani by saying he had done similar things in the past too – Thamthana (observe how a song featuring 1 heroine has been sung by 2 female singers)
And kanmaniyey kaadhal enbathu (observe how IR simplifies the song to make it easier for the singers to sing it) '
By now it was getting really late 10:10 PM and IR was beginning to tire, but I can go on and on for days together. The next song I took up for discussion was a song which was a superhit in Tamilnadu. In this song again the innovation was never marketed in the movie or outside of it. However IR, given his strengths, had imposed a heavy artificial constraint for this song but had still managed to pull it off brilliantly. This is almost like making sambhar without salt. The best part is people feasting on the sambhar and saying how tasty. If only they knew this Sambhar was made without salt their appreciation for the chef’s greatness will become higher. The song is “Raaja raajadhi raajanindha raja” from Agni nakshatram. In this song IR stays away from all his favorite orchestra instruments and uses just voices and percussion instruments. If you go back and listen to the song, you will realize how limited (compared to his other rich interludes) the interludes are. Owing to a combination of our interlude-deafness, breathtaking photography by P C, choreography and Karthik’s zeitgeist role we lapped this song ad nauseum.
It was 10:15 now and I told IR that it was probably getting late for him and I won’t ever leave unless he asks me to get out (Neengalaa kazhuthai pidichu veliye thalra varaikkum naan inge dhaan iruppen). To conclude the book idea I told him how there were many books on good compositions in the western classical music and pointed out the book “Eternal Golden Braid” and its reference to the “Endlessly rising canon” by Johan Sebastian Bach . The trick in this piece in one where Bach manages to create a perception where the song’s pitch, after a roundtrip of counterpoint, is seen to return to the starting key, but in reality he has actually raised it by half a pitch
By executing several such round-trips it is possible to be rising endlessly by raising the pitch by a half-step for every round-trip while aurally the song appears to be on the same key/pitch. I told how IR had casually demonstrated a somewhat converse idea in an obscure movie for the song Nilavondru kanden from the movie Kai Rasikkaran. Here he manages to give a feeling of persistent climb while actually playing the same tune in the same pitch. There is a constant supply of energy and a feeling of exhilaration while listening to the prelude of the song
IR asked us to come back with a sample treatment for a few songs and meet him next week. He asked me if this better done in Chennai (suggesting he was more of a face-to-face person) and both Ravi and I jumped and said we will come to Madras whenever we need to meet. As I write this blog I realize IR is busy this weekend in Mumbai and our meeting has been postponed to sometime next week.
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It was IR who began the conversation asking me “Neengal Malayalam paattai virumbi kaetpeengala?” (Do you listen to Malayalam songs?) when I replied, “Saar neenga endha mozhiyila paattu poattaalum naan adhai kaetpaen” (Sir, I will listen to a song in any language if it were composed by you). And so saying I fiddled my CD player to go to the “Women in turmoil” playlist. Rest in the first blog. Now to part 3.
When we drove back home, I took the car inside his house, dropped IR and Ravi at the portico and parked my car outside his residence and walked back in. IR’s house is very reflective of his personality. The color of his house is, White. All his cars are white in color. As you enter the house, to the left is the security-room where there is provision for the security to live 24*7 and a place to store the large-back-up power unit. The drive way is an arc (quarter of an arc) leading to a veranda which opens into a big visiting hall. The visitor’s room (hall) leads to the bigger house through a passage-way which resembles a vestibule. The hall has a double-ceiling. It has a 2 + 3 + 2 sofa seater on the right side as you enter and a piano on the left-hand side. There is an ornate lamp near the piano.
There is a simplicity and calmness to the overall ambience in the room which I guess very much suits to IR’s overall taste and preference. As we plonked ourselves into the sofa, my friend Ravi graciously asked me to sit near IR. So IR was seated on the 2-seater while I was seated on the 3-seater, the one closer to IR. I told IR, I was really lost on what to gift him and when I looked around, the best I could do find was an old book on counterpoint that I had bought in a Border’s shop in Milpitas in 2002. He perused through the book very quickly and mentioned that most of it was modal counterpoint. I mentioned IR’s songs were themselves a textbook on counterpoint (Sundari neeyum). I briefly mentioned Palestrina (Bach’s predecessor when it comes to counterpoint) and his music but this didn’t catch IR’s attention as he was busily signing my books/photos CDs. The first book that he took for signing was ”Yaarukku raar ezhudhuvadhu”. To my horror, I discover a small dead-fly on the very first page. IR’s signed “Iraivanadi Ilaiyaraja” and remarked “Book release aana udaney vangiduveenga polirukku” (“Appears you buy the book as soon as it gets released” implying a question “whether I actually bothered to read?”. I do. I’ve read yaarukku yaar ezhuthuvadhu atleast twice). He autographed Naadha veliyiniley, Nyaanaganga and Venba nanmaalai. Then he signed my engagement photos, the ones where my wife and I would be posing with the folks who visited our engagement ceremony and in the backdrop there was IR’s black-and-white portrait. He jokingly mentioned, that he was present in my engagement ceremony in some form.
I remembered reading somewhere that his first public performance was in 1967 in Tiruverumbur, a place very close to where I grew up Ganesapuram (near BHEL township), Trichy, Tamilnadu. He mentioned that the place was right but I got the year wrong, it was 1960. Then I mentioned to him that we celebrated my dad’s sastiapthapoorthy (completion of 60 years) at Thirukkadayoor on 3rd May 2003. His eyes lighted up (IR’s sashtiapthpoorthy happened a week later in the same place). I told him I would have stayed back to attend if only I knew. Alas I was to learn of the function only the next week when my mother in law and numerous others enquired me if I had seen the pictures of the function on a Kumudham (a tamil weekly).
Next up was my 2 copies of the same CD. This is a rare CD, one where IR’s carnatic compositions were played by Mandolin U Srinivas. Whenever I’m discussing music with a carnatic music rasika, who tends to be dismissive of IR’s music, I use this CD as the trump card. If the discussion were to happen in my vehicle when we are listening to IR’s music then what follows is almost predictable. I change to some carnatic vocal music (acknowledging my yielding to their opinion), switch to a carnatic-instrumental track and then slowly to mandolin’s carnatic compositions before going to “this” CD. The listener will be appreciative of the music, while still trying to place the composition (they will be unsuccessful because this is not composed by any famous carnatic composer). However they will reconcile this unfamiliar feeling by telling themselves that “carnatic music is an ocean” and it is very difficult to get one’s arms around it. Now that they’ve resolved the “unfamiliar” feeling, they will begin to listen to the music and once they start enjoying, they’d be curious to know more about the song and invariably the discussion would veer to its composer, when I beamingly would announce “Ilaiyaraja”. Depending on the maturity of the listener the discussion can end in a bitter fight or self-deprecating humor. Whenever it ended acknowledging human fallibility, we would discuss how much we rely on form/reputation to form our opinions rather than possessing the abilities to come to our own conclusions.
I was surprised when IR mentioned that he himself didn’t possess a copy of this rare CD. I guess he mentioned it only because I gave him 2 copies (with different covers) to be autographed. I was more than happy to give him one of those copies . While on rare IR music, I quizzed him about his performance as a carnatic-cutcheri performer in narada gana sabha in 1995. I told him I don’t possess that CD, when he told me that he wasn’t very happy with that experiment. He mentioned carnatic singers practice for anywhere between 5 to 15 years before getting on stage and that he was in no shape, while being busy at his film-composing, to pull it off. My friend Ravi got a little worried that I might have accidentally touched a raw nerve. If I had, IR didn’t make it obvious, on the contrary he appeared disarmingly honest, objective and critical of what he considered a failed-attempt.
I wanted to tell him about an anecdote I had heard about IR’s breathtaking speed in absorbing a new musical idea and presenting it with his unmistakable artistic stamp. On one of my business-trips I was returning from SFO via Kuala-Lumpur and Flute-Ramani, his wife, the mridangist Srimushnam Raja Rao, violinist Vaithi were also on the same flight. While at the waiting room at our flight’s gate, I quickly struck up a conversation with Violin Vaithi and within 2 minutes had informed Violin Vaithi that I’m a die-hard IR fan. I paused for a breath and mentioned to IR that I usually establish my die-hard-IR-fan credentials in no time and indicate that the conversation was going to be IR-centric and can continue if they’re fine with it. IR guffawed and remarked “Mudhalleyey adhai solliduveenga?”.
Yes I do. A small digressio from Violin Vaithi here. I mentioned how there was a discussion with one my customer’s (a pretty famous music label company) I told him that the Indian music that was marketed outside India was Sitar by Ravishankar, Maayamalava gowlai and more recently A R Rahman. This is so ingrained in the foreign minds that whenever you see a BBC or a Discovery channel program about India, they will show the Taj Mahal and play Maayamalava gowlai on Sitar and utter the words “exotic India” that is has become such a clichéd phrase. So I played Kalyanam Vaibogam (not found in YouTube) from Naan Mahaanalla to my customer. The piano preludes are played at a breathtaking speed. I remarked to my customer that the prelude was Chopinesque and so saying played the song to him. After waiting for the Janaki sections to start, he said “The female vocal didn’t sound Chopinesque". And when I related that anecdote to IR, IR replied to me saying I should have asked my customer “Why does it have to sound Chopinesque (IR pronounced Chopin as shopaan which is the correct pronunciation). For once I saw some anger in IR. I later asked IR if he was the one who played the prelude piano for Kalyanam Vaibogam and he replied saying he didn’t remember but it was quite possible.
Violin Vaithi mentioned that he too was a fan or IR and that his guru was T V Gopalakrishnan (I remembered reading somewhere that IR learnt carnatic music from T V Gopalakrishnan). Violin Vaithi then went on to tell an anecdote on how once IR had learnt the ragam “Bilahari” from T V Gopalakrishnan and that very same evening had composed a song in the same ragam, recorded the song and sent a tape to T V Gopalakrishnan. When TVG listened to the song he was happy that he was guru to such a phenomenally talented composer, because he couldn’t really believe that a person who learnt the ragam so recently could do something like this. When I narrated this incident to IR, he said broadly the events were right but the specifics were wrong and then went to narrate it correctly himself. He said TVG and he were returning from Guruvayoor and on their way back TVG was humming “Dorakuna Ituvanti Seva” a carnatic song in Bilahari, not to be confused with another song with similar first-line in the movie Shankarabaranam
Listening to this song on the journey back IR asked TVG what was this song and picked/learned the nuances of Bilahari from TVG by just listening to him. That evening IR was composing a song for the movie Balanagamma (song not found in YouTube), a period movie with Sharath Babu and Sridevi in a vittalaachariar setting – 7 seas 7 mountains etc. Since the movie was a period movie he could afford to compose a purely classical number and he chose “Bilahari” for Koondhaliley megam vandhu. IR then went on to say, how that day’s recording was even more special, since Chembai Vaidyanatha Bagavathar’s daughter and son-in-law were also attending that recording session. IR mentioned once he finished composing the song, he and KJY went straight to the recording room where IR would do a first take and then Yesudas would learn the song that way and then sing for the final take. Chembai’s son-in-law asked TVG, are they already ready with the song and was Jesu singing already without any practice directly from the notations, when he heard IR do the first take (implying he couldn’t differentiate IR and Yesudas’ voice).
IR was glancing sideways at the book “Multiple facets of Madurai”. He asked me what that book was about. I explained to him that it was a simple coffee-table book about Madurai with fantastic line-sketches made by Devadoss. He quickly glanced thru the pictures and got very excited about seeing various landmark like Aanamalai, the school where Bharathiyaar studied etc that he recognized. I offered him the book if he liked to read it. I told him I had brought the book nly with the intent of explaining to him how we were planning to come up with a similar book on IR’s music.
I mentioned to IR that he had tried a lot of innovative experiments and many of these are unknown to us. He nodded in the affirmative and said, if no efforts are made to tell them, then they could get diluted. Boldened by his encouraging words, I went ahead and expanded my idea by illustrating a few songs. The first song is one that comes when a good-natured-brute gets married to the female protagonist. The heroine would have just convinced the hero that he should give up rowdyism, drinking etc and when he tries doing that he is beaten up by the same rowdies who used to fear him while he was active as a rowdy. Realising the incompleteness of her advice the heroine would say, that she didn't want the hero to be a rowdy-for-hire, but it is stupid to not defend oneself. The first interlude in the song will beautifully portray the mellowing influence of the heroine in the hero's life from the recent past of this newly married couple. The starting of the first interlude will depict the hero’s old ways, and the second piece will show the entry of the heroine into the hero’s life resulting in a brief conflict, before the mellowing and sobering influence of the heroine is felt with the resolution by the strings section of the orchestra towards the end of the first interlude. I was telling IR that his usage of strings was unusually sober in this song, as the situation demands, where his usual tendency is to run amok with violent energy whenever he writes the score for the strings. He was looking at me and smiling amusingly. The song is “Unnaithaaney” from Nallavanukku Nallavan.
Next up was a very simple song from the movie Thai Pongal. I was hoping to give him atleast one song that he doesn’t remember and this song was supposed to be one of my attempts. I was disappointed when he immediately remembered and recollected the song. The song is Pani vizhum poo nilavil. The simple innovation in this song is the aspect of the chords leading the melodic lines (where usual practice is to play the chords along with the melodic line or trail it). You can observe it when Malaysia sings arumbey, sengarumbey thruvai malarvaai theyn (it goes “chords arumbey, chords sengarumbey, chords tharuvaai malarvaai theyn chords”). I told IR might have done several such songs, but I wanted this book to focus on some of his more esoteric songs like “pani vizhum poo nilavil” for his die-hard fans like me.
I was asking IR if he had complete artistic freedom in the preludes/interludes “Saar idhellam unga saamrajyam dhaaney” when he replied “Aamaamaam adhula ellam yaarum onnum solla mudiyaadhu”. We discussed the difference between IR’s compositions and Jugalbandhi. How in a jugal bandhi the fusion of disparate genres of music was at a surface performance level. The focus is on improvisation and a form of question-and-answer rather than an organic synthesis of different genres of music that way IR composes. IR replied saying jugal bandhila eppadi onnu serum. Adhu thani thani yaa dhaan irukkum. IR’s approach to composition is very different. He is not one who adds layers and layers of music to his composition. The composition comes to him in one go and then he divides this composition into multiple tracks for the different instruments. He is more of a sculptor who sees a form in a monolith and goes about chiseling the unwanted rock to arrive at this sculpture. This explains Ilaiyaraja’s breathtaking composing speed. He has done 50 movies in a year several years on the trot in the eighties, where he composes 4-5 songs a movie the entire background score and all this on an average within a single week for a movie. He doesn’t take the help of another assistant music director for any section of his song and he is not merely a composer, but he is his arranger and conductor too.
At this point I told IR, that I had observed how some of the other lesser music directors would find it a struggle to compose interludes, since the interludes were purely musical and abstract in nature and demanded the highest skill in orchestration from music-composers. This difficulty made them resort to simple orchestration like arohanam/avarohanam (Sa ri ga ma pa da ni Sa, Sa ni da pa ma ga ri sa), but in the few times that IR decides to use an arohanam avarohanam in his interludes, what all pyrotechnics he will adopt to camouflage the arohanam/avarohanam. It might be a 2-and-a-half octave climb-up or climb-down (2nd interlude of Aayiram thaamarai
Or it will be the culmination of a really fantastic piece as in 2nd interlude of naan thedum sevvanthi poovidhu
I was telling him that many fans like me understood the internal standards that he had set for himself and how we was trying his best to maintain it. I mentioned that like a story teller can captivate the attention of the readers, IR had the ability to complement a visual story aurally, by virtue of his vidwat and that he had raised the bar of musical-compositions and that other music directors have to exceed this bar before they can be acknowledged as a maestro. Unfortunately in India innovations and experiments in music done done by composers like Ilaiyaraaja in movie music is never acknowledged in musical circles, which tends to give a lot more importance to the context (where and for what was the music created/played) rather than its context.
IR beckoned one of his stewards to serve us mango juice. At this point Karthik Raja, his wife and his 2 sons were taking leave from IR’s house. I smiled and so did Karthik Raja. Karthik Raja’s son then bade goodbye “Poren” to his thaatha. Poren is an inappropriate way to take leave (like alvidha in hindi, kabhi alvidha naa kehnaa). IR quickly asked his grandson to come to him and told him to say “goodbye” instead of poren. Next up was mannil indha kaadhalandri. I mentioned how many Tamil-film-audience was aware of the breathless song in Keladi Kanmani because it was marketed well in the movie
Same with Kaliavaaniyey from Sindhu Bhairavi, one where IR uses arohanam for progressing up-the-scale and make non-avarahanam quantum jumps down whenever descending down the scale
I recollected to him how he in a TV interview in 1991 had downplayed the significance of the breathless keladi kanmani by saying he had done similar things in the past too – Thamthana (observe how a song featuring 1 heroine has been sung by 2 female singers)
And kanmaniyey kaadhal enbathu (observe how IR simplifies the song to make it easier for the singers to sing it) '
By now it was getting really late 10:10 PM and IR was beginning to tire, but I can go on and on for days together. The next song I took up for discussion was a song which was a superhit in Tamilnadu. In this song again the innovation was never marketed in the movie or outside of it. However IR, given his strengths, had imposed a heavy artificial constraint for this song but had still managed to pull it off brilliantly. This is almost like making sambhar without salt. The best part is people feasting on the sambhar and saying how tasty. If only they knew this Sambhar was made without salt their appreciation for the chef’s greatness will become higher. The song is “Raaja raajadhi raajanindha raja” from Agni nakshatram. In this song IR stays away from all his favorite orchestra instruments and uses just voices and percussion instruments. If you go back and listen to the song, you will realize how limited (compared to his other rich interludes) the interludes are. Owing to a combination of our interlude-deafness, breathtaking photography by P C, choreography and Karthik’s zeitgeist role we lapped this song ad nauseum.
It was 10:15 now and I told IR that it was probably getting late for him and I won’t ever leave unless he asks me to get out (Neengalaa kazhuthai pidichu veliye thalra varaikkum naan inge dhaan iruppen). To conclude the book idea I told him how there were many books on good compositions in the western classical music and pointed out the book “Eternal Golden Braid” and its reference to the “Endlessly rising canon” by Johan Sebastian Bach . The trick in this piece in one where Bach manages to create a perception where the song’s pitch, after a roundtrip of counterpoint, is seen to return to the starting key, but in reality he has actually raised it by half a pitch
By executing several such round-trips it is possible to be rising endlessly by raising the pitch by a half-step for every round-trip while aurally the song appears to be on the same key/pitch. I told how IR had casually demonstrated a somewhat converse idea in an obscure movie for the song Nilavondru kanden from the movie Kai Rasikkaran. Here he manages to give a feeling of persistent climb while actually playing the same tune in the same pitch. There is a constant supply of energy and a feeling of exhilaration while listening to the prelude of the song
IR asked us to come back with a sample treatment for a few songs and meet him next week. He asked me if this better done in Chennai (suggesting he was more of a face-to-face person) and both Ravi and I jumped and said we will come to Madras whenever we need to meet. As I write this blog I realize IR is busy this weekend in Mumbai and our meeting has been postponed to sometime next week.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Meeting with Ilaiyaraaja - Part 2
All the songs on the previous playlist “Women in Turmoil” were being played on my CD player with one hand on the wheel one hand on the CD player and my eyes taking frequent fleeting glances of IR who is seated on the middle row. IR is telling me to see the road and drive and I’m like “sorry no way”, this was my once in a lifetime opportunity to discuss my favourite music with its creator, and keeping my eyes on the road right now was my last priority.
I was telling IR that I constantly argued (and picked fights) with anybody who cared to discuss music and one of the aspects was how IR had used different ragams for a similar situation as in the “Women in turmoil” playlist and conversely how he uses the same ragam to explore its multiple facets in different situations. I didn’t have a playlist with me at that time, to illustrate my point, but luckily for me IR didn’t ask me to expand. Ravi jumped into the conversation and said how “Raghavan’s most recent argument was in an Infosys music-distribution-list” on a discussion about Charukesi. In a post to the Infy music-DL an author had taken up the ragam charukesi. Cutting and pasting that conversation here (since it is a mail-trail it might be better to read it bottom-up).
***********************************************************************************
Hi XXX,
Usually there is a very condescending attitude towards movie songs (the context unfortunately is such – dingchuk music).
However once in a while you will come across artists who transcend the medium (movie music) and do gymnastics that a more hardcore musician (???) wouldn’t dare to do. Strictly my opinion, rarely accepted and also rarely countered (typical).
I’d like to be countered on my opinion, rather than being told the varnashrama-dharma line of “untouchables are not allowed to enter the temple”.
Over to you! Let the controlled flame-war begin. I’m glad we’re not doing it in the full public glare of the music-DLs J
Raghavan Subramanian
From: XXX Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 10:46 AMTo: Cc: Subject: RE: Raaga of the Week - Charukesi
Hi All,
Basic idea of mentioning the cine songs is that we can get to that raga more easily. But I think this discussion is getting too much into cinema line. Isn’t it?
Thanks and Regards,
XXX
From: YYY Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 10:43 AMTo: Cc: Subject: RE: Raaga of the Week - Charukesi
Hi,
And “Aadal kalaiye devan thandhadhu” from Sri Raghavendra also Charukesi… ?
Thanks
YYY
From: Raghavan Subramanian Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 10:33 AMTo: Subject: RE: Raaga of the Week - Charukesi
Hi Raghu,
Nice compilation. There are a few more movie songs that I want to highlight, songs that somehow manage to escape the predominantly “karuna” rasa of Charukesi.
Disclaimer: The below content is more easily relatable for a Tamil-Film-Music (TFM) audience, but non-TFM music lovers might still be able to search these songs in YouTube and enjoy the musical aspect of the below observations.
1. Kaadhalin deepam ondru – Thambikku endha orru – Ilayaraja
2. Nandhavanam poothirukkudhu – Illam – Ilayaraja
3. Manamaalayum manjalum soodi – Vaathiyaar veettu pillai – Ilayaraja (Superb 1st interlude)
4. Sakkara katti Sakkara katti sandhana petti – Ulley Veliye – Ilayaraja
5. Thoodhu selvadhaaradi – Singaravelan – Ilaiyaraja
Almost all the above situations (except song 3 which is sung by the hero at his sister’s marriage) can be bracketed as “cute puppy love” situation and its associated rasa.
Manmadha leelayi is another song that escapes the Karuna rasa stereotype, while amma nee sumandha pilla (annai oru aalayam), Chinnanjiru kiliyey (Mundhanai mudichu), uyirey uyirin oliyey (En Bommukkutti ammavukku), Nalladhor veenai seydhen (Marupadiyum) all by IR and Udhaya Udhaya urugugiren (Udhaya – A R Rahman) all conform to the karuna-rasa stereotype.
Enjoy.
Raghavan Subramanian
From: ZZZ Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2010 2:00 PMSubject: Raaga of the Week - Charukesi
Dear Friends,
A raaga or melody in the Indian classical music (Scale as it is called the Western classical music) is the arrangement of groups of swaras or notes, which, by being rendered in a special way, gives the raaga it personality or swaroop or bhava. Without the raga bhava, the swaras or notes by themselves are ineffective in presenting the personality or edifice of the raaga. To get properly acquainted with the swaroop or bhava of a raaga, it is necessary that one should listen repeatedly to the raaga being rendered by great artists.
This week, we are discussing the Raaga Charukesi.
Raaga: Charukesi
Brief
· Charukesi is the 26th Melakarta raaga in the 72 Melakarta raaga system of Carnatic music.
· It is the 2nd raaga in the 5th Bana Chakra. The mnemonic name is Bana-Sri.
· Charukesi is known to incite feelings of pathos and devotion in the listener (Karuna Rasa).
· It is a sampoorna raaga - a raaga with the following ārohana -avarohana:
ārohaṇa: S R2 G3 M1 P D1 N2 S
avarohaṇa: S N2 D1 P M1 G3 R2 S
· It is the Suddha Madhyamam equivalent of Rishabha Priya
· Charukesi's notes when shifted using Graha bedham, yields 3 other major melakarta raagas, namely, Vachaspati, Natakapriya and Gourimanohari
· The equivalent name is the same in Hindustani as well.
***********************************************************************************
After listening to all this IR began to open-up for the first time. He said “Karuna rasam is relative and not absolute”. For a murderer, not killing is karuna rasam while for a sankaracharya it was completely different. He joked how the ragam mugari doesn’t cry and it is only when the listener listens to a rendition does it evoke crying. He was laughing out implying that the listener crying was an unintended side-effect, of the bad singing?. He said rasam was not buried inside the ragam. Rasam was waiting to be discovered. I couldn’t accept that opinion completely, so I replied saying that I had had similar discussions with a carnatic-musician and asked the carnatic musician to give me a happy song in Shubhapanthuvarali. Vaigarayil is one song in Shubhapanthuvarali that sticks to this raga-streotyping
I told IR that he had tried Shubhapanthuvarali for an unusual situation (love duet as opposed to complete sorrow) in the only Visu-movie for which he scored the music, Getti melam. The song goes “Dhaagamey undaanadhey” (Sorry this one is really rare and not available). I was telling IR that this song was not popular, but unfortunately we couldn’t discuss it any further as IR was on the phone with the hospital staff and we had almost reached there (While I write this blog I’m reminded of his Aayiram thaamarai mottukkaley which is Shubapanthuravali-Dhenuka and Alaigal midhakuudhu from Andha sila naatkal which is also Shubhapanthuvarali)
I parked the car and since I had child-locked my car, I had to come and open the door for IR to exit. Ravi and I were alone for the next 15 minutes and I was checking with Ravi and ensuring that I wasn’t doing anything stupid. Ravi said I was ok and that IR wasn’t getting irritated or anything like that.
IR comes back into my car and I start driving (with my eyes barely on the road) back. En Ullil engo was playing in the background and IR said that according to him this song was no less meditative than his many other songs which were composed for meditative-situations. I told IR that I had heard him attribute a Shankar Jaikishen song as the source of his inspiration for this song.
I also mentioned that my friend Rajkumar, schoolmate and college mate who now resides in Santa Clara, and I thought “Oru ganam oru yugam aaga” showed a lot more of the influence from that particular Shankar Jaikishen song.
I also mentioned that this was not featured in the movie like many other fantastic songs of his which explains why for both these songs there are no visuals. I told IR that we guys pay more attention to the prelude, 1st interlude and the 2nd interlude (the industry refers to these as BGM for back-ground-music) rather than the lyrics or the vocal sections. I was telling IR that my friend and I often compare our opinions, one that establishes the similarity and honesty in our tastes. We basically play a song and rank the interludes (I was overjoyed when IR completed my sentence by saying “varisai paduthuveergakla?”) and most of the times we rank it identically.
Before I discuss the next song, I request you to listen to the song aurally before seeing it visually (even on Youtube) to relate to what I’m saying. The context of the song is that of a police officer who is in love with the heroine of the movie. The policeman’s busy life comes in the way of him spending quality-time with his love. IR’s visualization for this song is stunning. The interlude begins with a cute love theme, which he abandons completely to take up a theme depicting a police-life (an almost business like tune). Having depicted these romantic and professional aspects of policeman’s life, the interlude will now proceed to counterpoint these 2 tunes to show the travails of a policeman in love. Listen to this a few times before you see the song-visualization.The song is “Pon maaney Kobam yeno” from Oru kaithiyin dayari. Both the director Bharathi Raja and the actor Kamalahaasan would have wasted the creative possibilities that have been explored by IR musically. I remarked to IR that visualization could have been as simple as a romantic beginning followed by routine police duties by Kamalahaasan followed by showing Kamalahaasan romancing Revathi wearing his police uniform. I was thrilled to bits when IR replied encouragingly.
My next remark was on how I have been able to detect a director’s favorites from IR’s compositions. Like the observation that director Sunder Rajan (Payanangal mudivathillai, udhaya geetham, vaidhegi kaathirundhaal etc) likes Abhogi and supported my claim by pointing out pagaliley oru nilavinai kanden (ninaivey oru sangeetham), indraikku enindha aanandhamey (vaidhegi kaathirundhaal), kaalai near poonguyil (amman koyil kizhakkale)
I also felt Sridhar liked Madhyamavathi
Bharathiraja liked Shanmugapriya where the latter song, while scored by Devendran, is definitely in the style of Ilaiyaraja.
IR smiled and said sometimes the directors were themselves unaware of their likings since they approached music from an intuitive perspective. My focus was not on driving at all. In all this excitement and positive acknowledgement from IR I took the wrong route and almost started ascending a flyover (IR is always used to being driven by a guy who know where he has to go, so it must be unsual with me). Anyway I rammed the brakes and took a sharp 80 degree turn (don't worry it was at a really low speed) to go from the flyover to the service road.
Next up was my remark on how IR was capable painting pictures using sounds. In this song again IR paints a fantastic visual imagery, one where in the start of the prelude he first makes a peacock spread its feathers and then make it sway its spread from left to right and back. I told him how I have discussed this and many other songs with my younger cousins/nephews (no nostalgia value for them, since they didn’t grow up with these songs, they have a purely aural value) and how they were able to observe the imagery achieved through orchestration. IR remarked “Neenga merattura merattallai avangalaala vera enna solla mudiyum?”. The song is “Mazhai varuvadhu mayilukku theriyum” from Rishimoolam (watch it from 1:16 seconds to 1:20).
Rest in my next blog.
I was telling IR that I constantly argued (and picked fights) with anybody who cared to discuss music and one of the aspects was how IR had used different ragams for a similar situation as in the “Women in turmoil” playlist and conversely how he uses the same ragam to explore its multiple facets in different situations. I didn’t have a playlist with me at that time, to illustrate my point, but luckily for me IR didn’t ask me to expand. Ravi jumped into the conversation and said how “Raghavan’s most recent argument was in an Infosys music-distribution-list” on a discussion about Charukesi. In a post to the Infy music-DL an author had taken up the ragam charukesi. Cutting and pasting that conversation here (since it is a mail-trail it might be better to read it bottom-up).
***********************************************************************************
Hi XXX,
Usually there is a very condescending attitude towards movie songs (the context unfortunately is such – dingchuk music).
However once in a while you will come across artists who transcend the medium (movie music) and do gymnastics that a more hardcore musician (???) wouldn’t dare to do. Strictly my opinion, rarely accepted and also rarely countered (typical).
I’d like to be countered on my opinion, rather than being told the varnashrama-dharma line of “untouchables are not allowed to enter the temple”.
Over to you! Let the controlled flame-war begin. I’m glad we’re not doing it in the full public glare of the music-DLs J
Raghavan Subramanian
From: XXX Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 10:46 AMTo: Cc: Subject: RE: Raaga of the Week - Charukesi
Hi All,
Basic idea of mentioning the cine songs is that we can get to that raga more easily. But I think this discussion is getting too much into cinema line. Isn’t it?
Thanks and Regards,
XXX
From: YYY Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 10:43 AMTo: Cc: Subject: RE: Raaga of the Week - Charukesi
Hi,
And “Aadal kalaiye devan thandhadhu” from Sri Raghavendra also Charukesi… ?
Thanks
YYY
From: Raghavan Subramanian Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 10:33 AMTo: Subject: RE: Raaga of the Week - Charukesi
Hi Raghu,
Nice compilation. There are a few more movie songs that I want to highlight, songs that somehow manage to escape the predominantly “karuna” rasa of Charukesi.
Disclaimer: The below content is more easily relatable for a Tamil-Film-Music (TFM) audience, but non-TFM music lovers might still be able to search these songs in YouTube and enjoy the musical aspect of the below observations.
1. Kaadhalin deepam ondru – Thambikku endha orru – Ilayaraja
2. Nandhavanam poothirukkudhu – Illam – Ilayaraja
3. Manamaalayum manjalum soodi – Vaathiyaar veettu pillai – Ilayaraja (Superb 1st interlude)
4. Sakkara katti Sakkara katti sandhana petti – Ulley Veliye – Ilayaraja
5. Thoodhu selvadhaaradi – Singaravelan – Ilaiyaraja
Almost all the above situations (except song 3 which is sung by the hero at his sister’s marriage) can be bracketed as “cute puppy love” situation and its associated rasa.
Manmadha leelayi is another song that escapes the Karuna rasa stereotype, while amma nee sumandha pilla (annai oru aalayam), Chinnanjiru kiliyey (Mundhanai mudichu), uyirey uyirin oliyey (En Bommukkutti ammavukku), Nalladhor veenai seydhen (Marupadiyum) all by IR and Udhaya Udhaya urugugiren (Udhaya – A R Rahman) all conform to the karuna-rasa stereotype.
Enjoy.
Raghavan Subramanian
From: ZZZ Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2010 2:00 PMSubject: Raaga of the Week - Charukesi
Dear Friends,
A raaga or melody in the Indian classical music (Scale as it is called the Western classical music) is the arrangement of groups of swaras or notes, which, by being rendered in a special way, gives the raaga it personality or swaroop or bhava. Without the raga bhava, the swaras or notes by themselves are ineffective in presenting the personality or edifice of the raaga. To get properly acquainted with the swaroop or bhava of a raaga, it is necessary that one should listen repeatedly to the raaga being rendered by great artists.
This week, we are discussing the Raaga Charukesi.
Raaga: Charukesi
Brief
· Charukesi is the 26th Melakarta raaga in the 72 Melakarta raaga system of Carnatic music.
· It is the 2nd raaga in the 5th Bana Chakra. The mnemonic name is Bana-Sri.
· Charukesi is known to incite feelings of pathos and devotion in the listener (Karuna Rasa).
· It is a sampoorna raaga - a raaga with the following ārohana -avarohana:
ārohaṇa: S R2 G3 M1 P D1 N2 S
avarohaṇa: S N2 D1 P M1 G3 R2 S
· It is the Suddha Madhyamam equivalent of Rishabha Priya
· Charukesi's notes when shifted using Graha bedham, yields 3 other major melakarta raagas, namely, Vachaspati, Natakapriya and Gourimanohari
· The equivalent name is the same in Hindustani as well.
***********************************************************************************
After listening to all this IR began to open-up for the first time. He said “Karuna rasam is relative and not absolute”. For a murderer, not killing is karuna rasam while for a sankaracharya it was completely different. He joked how the ragam mugari doesn’t cry and it is only when the listener listens to a rendition does it evoke crying. He was laughing out implying that the listener crying was an unintended side-effect, of the bad singing?. He said rasam was not buried inside the ragam. Rasam was waiting to be discovered. I couldn’t accept that opinion completely, so I replied saying that I had had similar discussions with a carnatic-musician and asked the carnatic musician to give me a happy song in Shubhapanthuvarali. Vaigarayil is one song in Shubhapanthuvarali that sticks to this raga-streotyping
I told IR that he had tried Shubhapanthuvarali for an unusual situation (love duet as opposed to complete sorrow) in the only Visu-movie for which he scored the music, Getti melam. The song goes “Dhaagamey undaanadhey” (Sorry this one is really rare and not available). I was telling IR that this song was not popular, but unfortunately we couldn’t discuss it any further as IR was on the phone with the hospital staff and we had almost reached there (While I write this blog I’m reminded of his Aayiram thaamarai mottukkaley which is Shubapanthuravali-Dhenuka and Alaigal midhakuudhu from Andha sila naatkal which is also Shubhapanthuvarali)
I parked the car and since I had child-locked my car, I had to come and open the door for IR to exit. Ravi and I were alone for the next 15 minutes and I was checking with Ravi and ensuring that I wasn’t doing anything stupid. Ravi said I was ok and that IR wasn’t getting irritated or anything like that.
IR comes back into my car and I start driving (with my eyes barely on the road) back. En Ullil engo was playing in the background and IR said that according to him this song was no less meditative than his many other songs which were composed for meditative-situations. I told IR that I had heard him attribute a Shankar Jaikishen song as the source of his inspiration for this song.
I also mentioned that my friend Rajkumar, schoolmate and college mate who now resides in Santa Clara, and I thought “Oru ganam oru yugam aaga” showed a lot more of the influence from that particular Shankar Jaikishen song.
I also mentioned that this was not featured in the movie like many other fantastic songs of his which explains why for both these songs there are no visuals. I told IR that we guys pay more attention to the prelude, 1st interlude and the 2nd interlude (the industry refers to these as BGM for back-ground-music) rather than the lyrics or the vocal sections. I was telling IR that my friend and I often compare our opinions, one that establishes the similarity and honesty in our tastes. We basically play a song and rank the interludes (I was overjoyed when IR completed my sentence by saying “varisai paduthuveergakla?”) and most of the times we rank it identically.
Before I discuss the next song, I request you to listen to the song aurally before seeing it visually (even on Youtube) to relate to what I’m saying. The context of the song is that of a police officer who is in love with the heroine of the movie. The policeman’s busy life comes in the way of him spending quality-time with his love. IR’s visualization for this song is stunning. The interlude begins with a cute love theme, which he abandons completely to take up a theme depicting a police-life (an almost business like tune). Having depicted these romantic and professional aspects of policeman’s life, the interlude will now proceed to counterpoint these 2 tunes to show the travails of a policeman in love. Listen to this a few times before you see the song-visualization.The song is “Pon maaney Kobam yeno” from Oru kaithiyin dayari. Both the director Bharathi Raja and the actor Kamalahaasan would have wasted the creative possibilities that have been explored by IR musically. I remarked to IR that visualization could have been as simple as a romantic beginning followed by routine police duties by Kamalahaasan followed by showing Kamalahaasan romancing Revathi wearing his police uniform. I was thrilled to bits when IR replied encouragingly.
My next remark was on how I have been able to detect a director’s favorites from IR’s compositions. Like the observation that director Sunder Rajan (Payanangal mudivathillai, udhaya geetham, vaidhegi kaathirundhaal etc) likes Abhogi and supported my claim by pointing out pagaliley oru nilavinai kanden (ninaivey oru sangeetham), indraikku enindha aanandhamey (vaidhegi kaathirundhaal), kaalai near poonguyil (amman koyil kizhakkale)
I also felt Sridhar liked Madhyamavathi
Bharathiraja liked Shanmugapriya where the latter song, while scored by Devendran, is definitely in the style of Ilaiyaraja.
IR smiled and said sometimes the directors were themselves unaware of their likings since they approached music from an intuitive perspective. My focus was not on driving at all. In all this excitement and positive acknowledgement from IR I took the wrong route and almost started ascending a flyover (IR is always used to being driven by a guy who know where he has to go, so it must be unsual with me). Anyway I rammed the brakes and took a sharp 80 degree turn (don't worry it was at a really low speed) to go from the flyover to the service road.
Next up was my remark on how IR was capable painting pictures using sounds. In this song again IR paints a fantastic visual imagery, one where in the start of the prelude he first makes a peacock spread its feathers and then make it sway its spread from left to right and back. I told him how I have discussed this and many other songs with my younger cousins/nephews (no nostalgia value for them, since they didn’t grow up with these songs, they have a purely aural value) and how they were able to observe the imagery achieved through orchestration. IR remarked “Neenga merattura merattallai avangalaala vera enna solla mudiyum?”. The song is “Mazhai varuvadhu mayilukku theriyum” from Rishimoolam (watch it from 1:16 seconds to 1:20).
Rest in my next blog.
Meeting Ilaiyaraja – Part 1
I met Ilaiyaraja at his residence on 8th May from 8:30 PM to 9:15 PM. Ravishankar, an Infosys friend of mine and someone who knows Ilaiyaraaja, had managed to secure this meeting. Initially the meeting was going to be at the recording studio in the forenoon and then it became a 7:00 PM meeting at his residence before we zeroed at 8:30 PM at his residence.
Once I became aware that this meeting was on a week back, I had started preparing for it diligently. What songs to play, what topics to discuss etc etc. I had created playlists, synched them with my iPod and took a battery-powered iPod player. I had taken a few books about Ilaiyaraaja that I wanted him to autograph. I also took some of my engagement photos (photos on whose background the big IR portrait on my house is visible). I wanted to gift him something and a book on counterpoint was the best that I could think of (Counterpoint http://www.amazon.com/Counterpoint-Polyphonic-Vocal-Sixteenth-Century/dp/048627036X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273511098&sr=8-5 ). I had also taken a few music-books on English to illustrate the scholasticism with which the western world approached their cultural treasures (http://www.amazon.com/Godel-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273511147&sr=1-1-spell and http://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Instinct-Works-Cant-without/dp/1847920888/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273511183&sr=8-1 ). I had wanted to propose a concept of a book on IR’s music and to illustrate that I had taken a book on Madurai http://www.amazon.com/Multiple-Facets-My-Madurai-Illustrated/dp/8188661627/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273511218&sr=8-1 . I had taken 2 copies of a very rare CD, Ilaiyaraja’s classics played by Mandolin Srinivas.
Armed with all these I thought I was well prepared to meet Ilaiyaraja, when just before leaving for my meeting, my daughter Krithi threw a tantrum. She said I shouldn’t go anywhere or I take her too with me. It was beginning to get late already and I was desperately trying to convince her. She reluctanctly agrees to let me go. We started driving towards the direction of IR's house, with Ravi's broad hints that it is near T Nagar, Raghavendra Mutt, Murugesan street. We somehow managed to find his residence from this sketchy memory.
Only upon reaching IR's residence do I realize that in all this last-minute drama with my daughter I had left my laptop bag at the homestay where I was staying with my cousin and nephew(my iPod was inside the laptop bag). I was almost shell-shocked, that all my preparation was coming to this. But I consoled myself saying atleast I will get a photo-opportunity with IR, while waiting at IR's residence's gate. Then Ravi and I watched an Innova go inside his residence. It was IR that went past us and he SMSed Ravi asking us to coming in. He was dressed in his characteristic white dhothi white kurtha. I quickly bent and touched his feet to receive his blessings. He blessed me and I took all the books/CDs that I had brought with me and placed them on the coffee-table. He quickly mentioned that he had a slightly frozen shoulder and that he was supposed to go to the hospital and wondered if I’d be able to drive him to the hospital, since his driver was on leave. I thought wow, this was terrific. Firstly I get to drive IR, secondly I get to make him sit in my vehicle, and thirdly I have a good collection of CDs in my vehicle (to cover my laptop goof-up). Just when I was about to pick my books/CDs he said we could leave them there since we were anyway going to return to his house. Wow. Wow.
So I took the wheel and IR and Ravi sat on the middle row. Ravi was wondering how to break the ice when I decided to adopt a high-risk-high-payoff gambling strategy with IR. I had a collection of songs on my CD which was titled “Women in turmoil”. All these songs were featured in a rhetorical context when a women is seeking pleasure outside of the socially-sanctioned modes. A safer strategy would have been to go for his really popular numbers agni/sindhu/Janani Janani, but I was afraid he might think I’m the regular run-of-a-mill fan. With my high-risk strategy I was afraid he might think I am some sort of a perverted mind, but fortunately for me, he understood the principle behind my playlist rather than its premise. I hope the readers of this blog will also extend me a similar courtsey.
I told IR that I had selected a few songs from his vast repertoire, songs that fitted this situation and told him how he had avoided falling into a formulaic trap. I illustrated that by playing 5 songs each of which are different ragams and bearing a different treatment. The first song in my playlist features Lakshmi and Prabhu. In this movie Lakshmi is a widow and Prabhu in a drunken stupor mistakes Lakshmi for his lover Radha. Lakshmi doesn’t discourage Prabhu when he makes his advances. It is for this context that IR chooses Sivaranjani to portray Lakshmi’s emotions. Listen to the 2nd interlude when IR whips up the conflicts faced by the Lakshmi character using musical imagery.
“Yaarai Kaettu neer dhaan” from En Uyir Kannamma )
Second song on this playlist is one where the female protagonist starts fantasizing on her now deceased husband’s younger brother. This song is from the movie “Netru nee indru naan” featuring Lakshmi and Sivakumar. This movie was produced by Major Sunderrajan and when I mentioned that aspect, IR was quick to point out the movie name correctly. This song is composed in the ragam “Gowri Manohari”. Gowri manohari is a very mangalagaramaana raagam. Remember Paattum naaney from Thiruvilayaadal or Gowri Manohariyai kanden from Mazhalai Pattaalam. To score this complicated song, it is quite amazing that IR should choose Gowri Manohari, but he pulls it off adroitly. The song is “Pon vaanam panneer thoovudhu inneram”. This song is a little less esoteric than the previous one. The lyrics on the song is a give-away. The use of naadhaswaram kind of gives it an overtly mangalagaramaana feeling. The use of naadhaswaram can be explained by the fact that Lakshmi wants Sivakumar as her husband (not just a lover) though he is much-married. In this song IR communicates the innuendos mainly through the accompanying music, chords and bass guitar.
Ponvaanam Panner thoovudhu from "Netru nee indru naan"
The next song on this playlist is based on the ragam Revathi. This is an out and out depressing song. This song is a rhetorical song sung by an unmarried rape-victim, wondering what is the meaning of chastity in her life. IR will absolutely harp on the depressing intervals of Revathi to extract the sadness and rhetoric. The song is “Kanavu ondru thondrudhey” from Oru Odai Nadhiyaagiradhu
“Kanavu ondru thondrudhey” from Oru Odai Nadhiyaagiradhu
The next song on this playlist is one sung by a widow lamenting that her youthful widowed life was an unbearably miserable existence. IR uses Chandrakauns for this situation. He can do some seriously fast-paced compositions when it comes chandrakauns. Listen to the first interlude of “Velli chalangaigal” from Kaadhal Oviyam
Velli chalangaigal from Kaadhal Oviyam
In this song he gives one of his chorus-singers, Raghavendar, father of Harish Raghavendar, a slightly more prominent signing role. Raghavendar is the nattuvanar father of his widowed daughter who is a dancer. Raghavendar acts and sings this part, in which he has to die while singing the tail-piece of the song. The song is “Azhagu malaraada” from “Vaidhegi Kaathirundhaal”
“Azhagu malaraada” from “Vaidhegi Kaathirundhaal”
IR’s prominent usage of strings and an almost chendai-like percussion instrument aptly highlight the emotional context of the song. The song is soulfully rendered by Janaki.Tamil-film-music has a precedence to a similar chandrakauns song, “Maalai pozhudhin mayakkathiley” (apparently an IR favourite)
The next song is one where a beautiful girl is unable to come to terms with the fact that she is married to a naïve village brute. This results in her fantasizing on a more handsome young man and wanting to live a life outside her marriage. The song features “Deepa” and Sivachandran from the movie “Rosappoo ravikkaikaari” and starts “En ullil engo”. The song is a tad too clean for such a transgressional situation and Vani’s style of singing doesn’t help one bit. I think this song still manages an almost careless transgression-angle rather than the intense rebellious or a situationally-thrust frustration from its peer-group.
En ullil engo from Rosappoo ravikkaikaari
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Rest in my next blog.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Ilaiyaraaja and strings
I was recently listening to "Gana Gana gana vena kanavinai vidhaikkira mazhaiyey mazhaiyey". This is one of the innumerable beautiful rain songs that IR has composed. There are the famous rain songs like oho megam vandhadho from Mouna Ragam, vaan megam from Punnagai mannan, Aathadi ammadi from Idhayathai thirudathey and then there are the not so famous ones like Ponnaana meni from Meendum kokila, Pothukkutt oothudhadi from Paayum Puli to which we could add Gana Gana. I couldn't find Gana Gana in any public domain, so you'd have to either hunt it yourself or be satisfied with your memory of the song, if you've heard it, and my blog.
The songs starts of with a fantastic signal of the onset of rains, before the strings join the party at the 6th second and starts celebrating the wonderful downpour. IR uses repetition, one of the key aesthetic principles, beautifully from the 10th to the 12th, where he manages to take a small 4-note motif and repeats it 8 times within 2 seconds. I've seen many lesser directors make an absolute mess of trying to repeat a small motif. They'll most likely tune a motif which is complete by itself, and then when repeated, it sounds awry. IR's simple rule in all such aesthetic repetitions is to pay special attention to the beginning and the last note, the 1st and 4th note here. The first note will be somewhere after the beginning, and the last note slightly before, where they were supposed to begin and end respectively, had they been featured in a non-repetitive motif. Composed this way, the repetition never tires the ear and is able to progressively build on the momentum generated by the repetitive motif.
I will try to find examples of good publically available IR's aesthetic repetitive motif and other examples of poorly composed repetitive motifs.
The songs starts of with a fantastic signal of the onset of rains, before the strings join the party at the 6th second and starts celebrating the wonderful downpour. IR uses repetition, one of the key aesthetic principles, beautifully from the 10th to the 12th, where he manages to take a small 4-note motif and repeats it 8 times within 2 seconds. I've seen many lesser directors make an absolute mess of trying to repeat a small motif. They'll most likely tune a motif which is complete by itself, and then when repeated, it sounds awry. IR's simple rule in all such aesthetic repetitions is to pay special attention to the beginning and the last note, the 1st and 4th note here. The first note will be somewhere after the beginning, and the last note slightly before, where they were supposed to begin and end respectively, had they been featured in a non-repetitive motif. Composed this way, the repetition never tires the ear and is able to progressively build on the momentum generated by the repetitive motif.
I will try to find examples of good publically available IR's aesthetic repetitive motif and other examples of poorly composed repetitive motifs.
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