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.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Photo frames
I finally managed to pull myself out of my lazy couch and get my cherished memories framed. I had picked photographs from old photo albums.
I tried relating to the differences in my behavior as a consumer towards photographs over a 30-year time period. I've been a user of multiple technologies, photos taken by my dad's 128mm kodak camera, 35mm minolta camera, my first camera a 35-180 mm minolta, my first SLR - Canon EOS and a multitude of digital point-and-shoots and my most recent Canan D350.
Back then photos were memories, not aesthetic expressions. Most of the old photos that I've chosen for printing are ones that were taken during official occasions school functions, class photos, studio photos etc. Then there are pictures taken by my dad using his 128mm Kodak. Amazing photos. He must have had a lot of zest for life then. I cherish some of the prints from my film-SLR cameras. I had a ratio of 1 good picture for every 10 pictures shot. Good by my standards, which I'm sure is a lot more lenient than many amateur photographers might consider.
With the advent of digital cameras, one had instant feedback of the result. This should have improved the good-pictures to the pictures-shot ratio, but I haven't developed the merciless objectivity that is required in deleting all bad photos. Also I find it easier deleting photos that don't involve people, because the act of deleting a photo with someone you know is so difficult it is almost like tearing a photograph. Result, I have a huge collection of digital pictures that I can't peruse with the same happiness as I do for my limited print-photographs. Which makes me wonder, is this a legacy of the "Raj-era" (an era in India where a constrained supply artificially created a higher demand).
Happy shooting.
I tried relating to the differences in my behavior as a consumer towards photographs over a 30-year time period. I've been a user of multiple technologies, photos taken by my dad's 128mm kodak camera, 35mm minolta camera, my first camera a 35-180 mm minolta, my first SLR - Canon EOS and a multitude of digital point-and-shoots and my most recent Canan D350.
Back then photos were memories, not aesthetic expressions. Most of the old photos that I've chosen for printing are ones that were taken during official occasions school functions, class photos, studio photos etc. Then there are pictures taken by my dad using his 128mm Kodak. Amazing photos. He must have had a lot of zest for life then. I cherish some of the prints from my film-SLR cameras. I had a ratio of 1 good picture for every 10 pictures shot. Good by my standards, which I'm sure is a lot more lenient than many amateur photographers might consider.
With the advent of digital cameras, one had instant feedback of the result. This should have improved the good-pictures to the pictures-shot ratio, but I haven't developed the merciless objectivity that is required in deleting all bad photos. Also I find it easier deleting photos that don't involve people, because the act of deleting a photo with someone you know is so difficult it is almost like tearing a photograph. Result, I have a huge collection of digital pictures that I can't peruse with the same happiness as I do for my limited print-photographs. Which makes me wonder, is this a legacy of the "Raj-era" (an era in India where a constrained supply artificially created a higher demand).
Happy shooting.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Humility is an effort
I was having a discussion with a musician friend about artists and how much they begin to appeal to us if they come across as humble and easy. We began to wonder whether humility was was an inborn trait or a habit acquired through effort. I wanted to have a better understanding of "humility". Let's start with what is humility. Wikipedia defines humility as "the quality of being humble: modest, not proud, self-abasing. Humility, in various interpretations, is widely seen as a virtue in many religious and philosophical traditions, being connected with notions of transcendent unity with the universe or the divine, and of egolessness; by contrast, some schools of thought are sharply critical of humility" . I would extrapolate and interpret it as the ability for a person, who has achieved a lot in relation to his peers, to not be boastful of it. Fine so does humility translate to an advantage and/or the lack of it into a disadvantage. Let's see how humility is an advantage.
I guess the true belief that one's achievements, however significant they are in comparison with peers in their lifetime or across lifetimes, are insignificant, gives one the ability to be constantly on the look-out to learn. I can think of Ramayana's Vaali's boon, that he get half the strength of his opponent, as a mythological equivalent of a humble person (atleast when aquiring the boon). This boon would be useless, if Vaali, thought the strength of his opponents were miniscule compared to his. This means that a humble person is always on the lookout for learning. He may come across fools in his life and he may have to suffer them gladly. Or like big artists do, surround himself with a coterie of folks, who are responsible for filtering the fools, such that he can be truly humble with people that qualify beyond the fool-filtering process. Also there are artists who are capable of being self-deprecative of their achievements, if the occasion is one where their achievements are being felicitated. If the artist truly believed this, then they should have declined the felicitation, rather than falsely belittling their achievements in the felicitation-acceptance speech.
On the contrary anyone that is not humble, has to essentially be a trail-blazer, because he is treading a path, without publicly assimilating the collective wisdom of the geniuses/artists in their field. Whether or not they succeed as a trail-blazer, is for history to judge, but they atleast start their journey intending to be trail-blazers.
I didn't intend to talk about people that are not humble, but appear to be humble, or people that are indeed humble, but tried to come across as arrogant to show they have some attitude. There are enough well known examples of personalities belonging to both categories.
What to do you think?
I guess the true belief that one's achievements, however significant they are in comparison with peers in their lifetime or across lifetimes, are insignificant, gives one the ability to be constantly on the look-out to learn. I can think of Ramayana's Vaali's boon, that he get half the strength of his opponent, as a mythological equivalent of a humble person (atleast when aquiring the boon). This boon would be useless, if Vaali, thought the strength of his opponents were miniscule compared to his. This means that a humble person is always on the lookout for learning. He may come across fools in his life and he may have to suffer them gladly. Or like big artists do, surround himself with a coterie of folks, who are responsible for filtering the fools, such that he can be truly humble with people that qualify beyond the fool-filtering process. Also there are artists who are capable of being self-deprecative of their achievements, if the occasion is one where their achievements are being felicitated. If the artist truly believed this, then they should have declined the felicitation, rather than falsely belittling their achievements in the felicitation-acceptance speech.
On the contrary anyone that is not humble, has to essentially be a trail-blazer, because he is treading a path, without publicly assimilating the collective wisdom of the geniuses/artists in their field. Whether or not they succeed as a trail-blazer, is for history to judge, but they atleast start their journey intending to be trail-blazers.
I didn't intend to talk about people that are not humble, but appear to be humble, or people that are indeed humble, but tried to come across as arrogant to show they have some attitude. There are enough well known examples of personalities belonging to both categories.
What to do you think?
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Ilaiyaraaja - A Phenomenal composer
On some rare occasions an award’s reputation is enhanced by virtue of its recipient.
In the year 1921, the Nobel prize committee was desperate to award the Prize to Einstein, nervous that it had already taken too much time in honoring a man whose fame had spread far and wide for his special-theory of relativity. The Nobel committee, while never in doubt about the longevity of Einstein’s phenomenal IQ and the legacy it was going to leave behind, was not so sure of the longevity of the validity of the special theory of relativity. So they looked at the man’s past accomplishments and awarded him a safe Nobel prize for his work on photo-electric effect, something that was done way back in 1905.
More recently, the Indian government enhanced the reputation of the Padma Bhushan award by granting it to one of the most phenomenally talented musical-maestros of our times, Dr Illayaraja. Music has been variously classified as classical and Pop (popular?). Music that stands the test of time and one that pushes the musical boundaries is considered classical. Music that has a much more immediate appeal, but a shorter shelf-life is classified as Pop-music. There is very little audience for the hits of the 1960s, while there is a growing audience for the 1700/1800s. Needless to add there is a big craze for the music of the now and here.
IR took it as a challenge to make his music instantly appealing at an intuitive level, while still allowing it to unravel slowly in repeated listenings over multiple layers for discerning ears. Raja’s phenomenal ability to transcend his folk/carnatic/western-classical musical upbringing and cinema-music medium to produce music that stands upto to the highest form of classical musical scrutiny, is unparalleled. IR, the sensitive artist that he is, has betrayed a strong sense of insecurity on whether his music will be acknowledged for its contribution to musical-evolution. There is no knowledgable musicologist who has endeavoured to do a technical analysis of IR's music. To Ilaiyaraja's credit, he never let the context of his work, namely Tamil Film Music (one that can be firmly classified as popular music), deter him from experimenting or pushing the boundaries of music.
He needn't worry. His musical legacy has been recorded for posterity. And when the brouhaha surrounding the here-and-now dies, unbiased minds will listen to music for its intrinsic worth and appreciate IR's efforts. I wouldn't be surprised if keen students of classical music study IR's style of taking an Indian-melodic-raga, backed by folk/classical rhythms and orchestrating it with baroque and contrapuntal style of music, to produce music that is the very best of the advanced musical civilizations. Very soon, we’ll have IR re-packaged and delivered to us (with a pronounced foreign twang).
In the year 1921, the Nobel prize committee was desperate to award the Prize to Einstein, nervous that it had already taken too much time in honoring a man whose fame had spread far and wide for his special-theory of relativity. The Nobel committee, while never in doubt about the longevity of Einstein’s phenomenal IQ and the legacy it was going to leave behind, was not so sure of the longevity of the validity of the special theory of relativity. So they looked at the man’s past accomplishments and awarded him a safe Nobel prize for his work on photo-electric effect, something that was done way back in 1905.
More recently, the Indian government enhanced the reputation of the Padma Bhushan award by granting it to one of the most phenomenally talented musical-maestros of our times, Dr Illayaraja. Music has been variously classified as classical and Pop (popular?). Music that stands the test of time and one that pushes the musical boundaries is considered classical. Music that has a much more immediate appeal, but a shorter shelf-life is classified as Pop-music. There is very little audience for the hits of the 1960s, while there is a growing audience for the 1700/1800s. Needless to add there is a big craze for the music of the now and here.
IR took it as a challenge to make his music instantly appealing at an intuitive level, while still allowing it to unravel slowly in repeated listenings over multiple layers for discerning ears. Raja’s phenomenal ability to transcend his folk/carnatic/western-classical musical upbringing and cinema-music medium to produce music that stands upto to the highest form of classical musical scrutiny, is unparalleled. IR, the sensitive artist that he is, has betrayed a strong sense of insecurity on whether his music will be acknowledged for its contribution to musical-evolution. There is no knowledgable musicologist who has endeavoured to do a technical analysis of IR's music. To Ilaiyaraja's credit, he never let the context of his work, namely Tamil Film Music (one that can be firmly classified as popular music), deter him from experimenting or pushing the boundaries of music.
He needn't worry. His musical legacy has been recorded for posterity. And when the brouhaha surrounding the here-and-now dies, unbiased minds will listen to music for its intrinsic worth and appreciate IR's efforts. I wouldn't be surprised if keen students of classical music study IR's style of taking an Indian-melodic-raga, backed by folk/classical rhythms and orchestrating it with baroque and contrapuntal style of music, to produce music that is the very best of the advanced musical civilizations. Very soon, we’ll have IR re-packaged and delivered to us (with a pronounced foreign twang).
Better late ...
So this is my first blog. I guess it is a shame that I took this long to write my first blog. In my defence, I can say, I have always had good listeners as audiences, and have thus never felt the discomfort of "being unheard", to have gone ahead and written my thoughts in a blog. However I now realize, that the above aspect is one small aspect of blogging. There are a lot many more things possible in a blog, circle of interactions is not restricted by space/time, recording for posterity, introspection and growth etc. So here I take my plunge.
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