Music Review of Guru-Malayalam movie-Ilaiyaraja

In 1997, Maestro Ilaiyaraja composed music for a malayalam film called “Guru.” It had malayalam superstar Mohanlal in the lead role. The music of this movie was simply scintillating to say the least. The unique thing about this movie was that the orchestration was played by the famous Budapest Symphony Orchestra. So most of the songs were recorded in Hungary. This made the music even more magical. It had the following 5 songs:
1. Thatharam-This is my favourite song from this movie. It is sung by M.G.Sreekumar & Chorus. It starts with a beat sound created by a unique instrument and gradually becomes a full-fledged symphony song. the tune and the background music are just what a genius like Ilaiyaraja would compose.
2. Aruna Kirana Deepam-This song is considered to be one of the best songs ever in Indian cinema in terms of it’s mind boggling orchestration. It is sung by Padmashree K.J. Yesudas. Ilaiyaraja has used so many instruments in this song that when you hear them in unison, you will be transported to some other world.
3. Guru Sharanam-This is a classical based chorus song which is very melodious and it grows on you after continuous listening. It is sung by Venugopal & Chorus.
4. Devasangeetham-This song is another masterpiece composed like a symphony. It is sung by Yesudas & Jyotsna.
5. Minnaram Maanathu-This is a very melodious song sung by Sujatha. It has excellent violin pieces.
The best thing about this album is that each song is very different and covers almost all the genres like western classical, classical, light music etc. Though Ilaiyaraja has composed 3 songs in Western classical orchestration, each of them is different and great to hear. Any fan of music should not miss this soundtrack, after all it is composed by Ilaiyaraja.

Song Discussion

Today, I would like to discuss 2 songs both of which are Tamil songs.

1.Velli Nilave-This song is composed by Maestro Ilaiyaraja for the movie Nandavanatheru. It has been sung by the magical singer Shri. S.P.Balasubramaniam. It is an amazing song, very different from the normal run-of-the-mill stuff that we hear. The unique feature of this song is the wonderful tune and the combination of instruments that Ilaiyaraja uses. There is a continuous off-beat kind of bass strumming which I have never heard before. The talent of composers is shown when they do something radically different, it can be something very small but its effect will be big. That’s called genius and Ilaiyaraja shows through this song why he is one of the best composers ever in India. Mention must be made about the wonderful singing by S.P.B. the emotions he brings to his voice is unbelievable. Please don’t miss this one-of-a-kind song!!!

2. Ennuyir Thoziye– This song is composed by another genius A.R.Rahman. This song was not noticed much because the movie-Kangalal Kaidhu Sei, vanished in no time. It is sung by Unni Menon & Chinmayi. It is set in predominantly in Raag Aarabhi. It’s so melodious and soothing with the piano counters. According to me this is one of THE best songs composed by ARR, but sadly it did not get the accolade it deserved. The tune in the charanam is so innovative that first you would feel you are listening to some other song. Added to that Chinmayi’s ghatkas before the 1st paragraph are too good.

These 2 songs are great in their own ways and they just show what legendary composers are made of. Ilaiyaraja and Rahman are the 2 doyens of Tamil Music (of Indian music itself!!), whose tunes are timeless.

Mohd. Rafi-Legend Beyond Compare

In the 1950’s Hindi music was fortunate to be served by a voice which was sheer magic-the voice of Mohd. Rafi saab. There were many factors which made Rafi saab a legend.

Firstly, he had a voice which was so melodious, which was purely God’s gift to him. Secondly, he was also fortunate to be born in a family which was into music. He was trained by his father or uncle (I am not sure of it) in Hindustani classical music. Owing to this he had a very versatile voice. Whether it was a classical song, a fast song, a romantic song or a sad song, Rafi saab would do absolute justice to it. When he sang, you could feel the emotion so clearly, such was his involvement in the song.

Rafi saab once held the record for the most number of songs sung in Indian Cinema by a male singer (about 25,000!!! ). The greatest quality of Rafi saab which is spoken about even today by his contemporaries like Lataji, Ashaji was his remarkable humility. It seems he has sung many songs even free for producers, who did not have the money to pay him. Such was the magnanimity of the man. The music dirs who utilised his voice brilliantly were Naushad, Roshan, Madan Mohan, O.P. Nayyar and Shankar-Jaikishan. To pick out the best songs of Rafi saab is an impossible exercise because there were too many.

Today’s legendary singers like S.P.Balasubramanian, Yesudas, Sonu Nigam look up to Rafi saab as their eternal inspiration. They have openly declared their respect and love for his voice and songs. Rafi saab passed away in July 1980 but his voice is heard even today if you switch on the radio-it was the golden voice and his time was one of the golden times of Hindi Music. May Rafi saab live in our hearts forever.

Evolution of Tamil Music-Part 2

I am blogging again after a month owing to continuous travel. But its great to be back. Here I would like to speak about more music directors who have created memorable melodies in Tamil music.
1. A.R.Rahman-He is the obvious choice after the legendary Ilaiyaraja. Rahman burst into the Tamil music scene in 1992, composing for “Roja.” Man what an explosive debut it was!! He took the nation by storm. Until then, we had not heard such a sound that Rahman created for Roja. After that till today, Rahman has clearly shown that he is another maestro. When people compare Rahman & Ilaiyaraja, I just say Raja is like Bradman and Rahman is like Sachin. Both have their unique class. Besides being a fan of Raja, I am a fan of Rahman too. Some say that Rahman has lost his touch but I beg to disagree. He is much better than some 2nd rung composers who keep composing fast songs all the time, delivering nothing but trash. Rahman has created so many magical melodies that, we need another blog to discuss them. Besides his music, what I admire about him is his remarkable humility. If you go to www.rahmantimes.com, you can read his life story, which is so poignant and touching. He has faced so many difficulties to become what he is today. He definitely deserves this and more. I just pray that he keeps giving us great music all throughout his career.
2. Vidyasagar-I feel he is one of the most low-profile and underrated composers of today. His music is a wonderful combination of the orchestration of Ilaiyaraja and the techno-melody of Rahman. Vidyasagar has given amazing music not only in Tamil but also in Malayalam and Telugu. What I like about him is that his fast songs too are quite catchy and melodious unlike theother noisy ones. His melody songs are a class apart. I saw an interview of Vidyasagar in Asianet during Onam and was impressed with his simplicity. Many of his melodies are classical and they still appeal to the common man. Like Ilaiyaraja, he has also taken classical music to the masses. His Malayalam melodies are quite different from the Tamil ones and they show the other side of this great composer. He has the unique skill of having Carnatic keerthanas with wonderful orchestration in many of his movies. I still wait for every music release of Vidyasagar, as I feel he is another genius.

A Brief Snapshot of the Evolution of Tamil Film Music-Part I

It is my personal opinion that Tamil music is one of the technically better ones in the overall Indian Music Industry. I say this because many geniuses and maestros have left their mark here and have created some astounding melodies ever heard in Indian Cinema. I would like to trace the growth of Tamil Film music in this way:
1. One of the earliest stalwarts were K.V. Mahadevan and M.S. Vishwanathan (who composed for many films individually and along with Ramamoorthy). MSV is till today, the composer who has composed for the maximum number of films in India, over 1000 movies!! In Hindi, I recently read that Laxmikant-Pyarelal held the record with about 450 movies. (Thats a mind-boggling 550 short!!!). This is what I know about these composers, who were the earliest trend setters.
2. Tamil cinema in the mid-70’s was blown over by a phenomenon called Ilaiyaraja. What can I write about him?? From that time till today (he is still going strong with about 4 projects in hand at the age of 63), there is no branch of music where Ilaiyaraja has not shown his class. Last year in Chennai I attended his concert “Andrum Indrum Endrum”, where I was surprised to see his colossal fan following. Morever, what really stunned me was that most of the crowd were people in the age group 20-40. Ilaiyaraja’s music contains almost all the elements that one can think of: Western classical, carnatic raga-based songs, jazzy songs with great beats, folk songs etc etc. The achievement of Ilaiyaraja is very great also because most of his great music came in an era when there was live recording and he has done unimaginable things in spite of the constraints of live recording. Apart from redefining Tamil music, Ilaiyaraja also set a new benchmark in the film background scores. Even today, I feel there is nobody in the Indian music scene who has surpassed that benchmark, though some individual BGM’S of movies are very good. Today, Ilaiyaraja is a legend. His music has become immortal-even today people listen to his songs and feel the same freshness. IR’s biography makes a staggering read-I would just focus on one thing that he is a gold medallist in piano and guitar from Trinity College of music, London.

I leave this post here and will continue about the other geniuses in the next part.

Talented Music Directors not getting their due

There have been a lot of music directors, who I feel have not got the chances they deserved. The first one who comes to my mind is Ismail Darbar who composed great music for Hindi movies like Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Devdas. There are not many movies to his name as he did not get many opportunities. His music for both the mentioned films were awesome. He treaded a path which many modern Hindi film composers did not-classical music. His classical numbers like Albela Sajanwa(HDDCS), Silsilsa yeh chahat ka, Bairi piya, Hamesha Tumko Chaha (all from Devdas)were wonderful.

The second composer is the extremely talented Sharath, who has composed for a few malayalam movies and one Tamil movie. His songs were technically brilliant and the orchestration was too good. Still, he has only a handful of movies and a couple of albums to his credit. His tamil song in June R, Mazhaiye Mazhaiye (an amazing rendition by Hariharan) still haunts me. Harish’s blog has a very thoughful post on Sharath.

From the Tamil music industry, Ramesh Vinayagam has not got the respect he deserves. He has composed great melodious numbers (some Hindustani classical ones too like Kasturi Manirame in Azhagiya Theeye). Some of his good songs apart from the former one were Vizhigalil Aruginil (Azhagiya Theeye), Enna idhu (Nala Damayanthi), Nenje Thullipo (University) and En Swasathil (Jery). All these are wonderful songs and Ramesh also has a nice music style (not Rahmanish; I don’t mean Rahman’s style is bad, its just that some composers sound just like him, I too love Rahman). Ramesh’s songs have an Indian sound apart from having good percussion and bass guitars.

In retrospect, what I felt especially in the case of Ismail and Ramesh is that they got lost because of the overemphasis on “dance-based songs.” Directors want popular and peppy numbers which don’t have much melody but only loud music. In Tamil, there is a craze for “gaana” songs, having 1 or 2 gaana songs is fine but almost all the songs fast. The solitary slow song is dull, boring sad number(where the hero cries for his mother or lover).

The trend is slowly changing today. Music directors like the legendary Ilaiyaraja, Rahman and Vidyasagar are putting their foot down saying they would want to compose more melody-based numbers. They have every right to say that because they should be the ultimate decision-makers as they are the creators of the music, though the situations are given by the directors. There are innumerable numbers of these 3 genius music directors which are very melodious and yet satisfy the situations.

My only wish and prayer is that we get to hear more melodious music than the fast-paced ones.

The power of music

With prayers to Lord Ganesha, I begin my first post. I would like to write in this post what would I be blogging about. I will be discussing about great Indian music directors, many rare songs (songs that get lost becoz other songs were given a lot of publicity). I would be mainly covering Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam music(becoz I listen a lot of these only). My constant focus would be to publicise and write about uncommon aspects of the various facets of music and its people. I welcome additional comments and discussions from all lovers of music. For me, music and its contemplation is life…………..