Two songs

One for dad - his favorite:

 

 The other by and for mom:

Matthappoovu from Michael Madana Kamarajan- Cover

Here's a cover of a lesser known song composed by Maestro Ilaiyaraja and sung by Chitraji. I recorded this two years ago but didn't get around to posting it here.

Vedanta Desika Suprabhatam

Here's the Desika Suprabhatam tuned as a ragamalika:

Lesser Known Gruhabhedams: 2X4: A Typology of Gruhabhedams| Rasikapriya, Dharmavati, and more

Here's the last video in the Lesser Known Gruhabhedam series:

Meghame Meghame - Cover

Lesser Known Gruhabhedams: 2X2: Charukesi vs. Gowrimanohari

Lesser Known Gruhabhedams: Lalitha

Here's the third in the Lesser known Gruhabhedam series.

Lesser known Gruhabhedams: Nattakurinji

Here's the second in the Lesser known Gruhabhedam series.

Medley of Evergreen Hits - IndianRaga

Raga Behag has always been a personal favorite and I absolutely loved working on this with these fabulous musicians - check it out!

Lesser known Gruhabhedams: Rageshri

First of a series of videos on relatively lesser known gruhabhedams in classical/ film music.

Bahudari and Friends

Bahudari has been one of my first loves in Carnatic music for as long as I can remember. In fact the very first post in this blog was on Bahudari - I had posted a varnam I'd composed well over a decade ago now. (I've had the wisdom to restrain myself from composing anything in Carnatic over the years, but didn't know any better back then. As they say in Tamil, "aaruva kOLAru".)
Anyway - the raga and its ilk have always fascinated me, and here's a long-pending attempt at bringing together some of my favorite film songs in scales close to Bahudari, along with the piece de resistance: Thyagaraja's Brova bharama. I've concluded with a brief thillana-esque piece that I came up with, along with some improvs. This is probably the first time I've also really tried to do harmonies with some of the film song lines. The video was shot at one of the beaches in Malibu, CA.

Here goes -

What were you thinking Rahman?

I've been meaning to do this for a while now: compile a list of Rahman songs we all adore, BUT for those few cringeworthy moments in them. Some cringes in life die down. Some, you learn to live with. But there are others which just won't leave you. The cringe is magnified manifold particularly when the song as a whole makes for a great listening experience and when you just want to forward/ mute out those few seconds.

A few notes: 1. I was a diehard Rahman fan up until the early 2000s and I'm most familiar with his work until then. So this (teeny tiny) list doesn't contain many songs post 2002/ 03. 2. I'm only talking about musical cringeworthiness, not w.r.t lyrics/ pronunciation stuff. (I imagine the latter would generate a much longer list.) 3. Obviously this isn't meant to be an exhaustive list - these are (according to me) few of the most obvious ones, and this list might continue to get updated. 4. Rahman, I still love you.

So without much ado... presenting to you the "What were you thinking Rahman?" moments (going roughly from most to least egregious):

1. Dil se re: Okay, this is inexcusable. Anupama and Anuradha mouthing the wrong swaras? Why Rahman? Why? "Sa sa sa sa ri ri ni ni sa ri ma ma pa pa ri ri sa sa sa ni" wouldn't have sounded any less "cool".
2. Thee thee thitthikkum thee: What a remarkable song and vocals. Why oh, why those swaras (ma pa ni sa ri sa...) in that first interlude? "Drishti"? Just. Doesn't. Fit.
3. Anjali anjali: Again, a brilliant song. Not a fan of the third flute interlude. Simply doesn't go. Random major scale/ hamsadhwani/ mohanam notes following a lovely (mishra) maand? Why?
4. Bol sajni: a) Kavitha's voice. Me no likey, sorry. b) That go-up-the-cliff-and-drop effect in the humming in both interludes. :( :( What a gorgeous song otherwise!
5. Poovukkul olindhirukkum: Seriously, what's with those interludes again? Both of them. What is usilampatti penkutti doing in here?
6. Alaipaayuthe kanna: Anupallavi doesn't start on beat! Mixing guy, this one's on you. Despite the "ting" to indicate samam!
7. Snehithane: Not a fan of the first three lines of the charanams. Call me old fashioned, but I can't get over these musical digressions.
8. Kannathil mutthamittal: Same as above. The charanam beginnings are a little too random for me.
Addition as of 05/16:
9. Avalum naanum: Nice, breezy (albeit very simple) pallavi - but what's with the post violin part of the interlude and ugh, the charanam start??
10. Yeh rishta kya kehlata hai: Again, the charanam. Aargh. (Not that I love the rest of the song too much, so this one's kinda okay.)

Anyone got more?

malargaL kEttEn - Cover

Here's a cover after a while: malargaL kEttEn from the film OK Kanmani. A beautiful melody by AR, it was rendered inimitably as always, by the one and only Chitra. I've tried to "Behag-ize" it a bit more than the original. Disclaimers: no karaoke track here, just a drone; and this was recorded on an iPhone (and enhanced a bit with GarageBand).

Gruhabhedam and Ilaiyaraja - again

Gruhabhedam as a musical phenomenon can never cease to amaze. Gayathri's (of Ranjani-Gayathri duo) brilliant, awe-inspiring Music Academy lec-dem on the topic has recently generated a lot of interesting discussion in the Carnatic music circles, and prompted me to write this long-pending post.

But this post is not about Gruhabhedam in Carnatic music. It is about Ilaiyaraja. Again. (Here and here are articles I've written on Raja and Gruhabhedam in the past.) In my view, just like in Carnatic music, there are good and bad ways of doing Gruhabhedam in film music. I'll get to the bad at the end, but here's the good - or rather, the really, really good. The song I have in mind is aasai adhigam vechu from the film Marupadiyum: http://mio.to/album/Marupadiyum+%281993%29

Gruhabhedam in Sindhubhairavi has been handled exquisitely by stalwarts in Carnatic music - check out this piece by Tanjore S. Kalyanaraman for instance, and then there's of course Lalgudi's legendary swarajathi. But this song - aasai adhigam - is a brilliant case of gruhabhedam from Sindhubhairavi in the film music context. It seems like an innocuous song at first glance but on closer listening you see the beast unleashed in the first interlude and go on to wreak havoc till the end. What a masterpiece! Let me say at the outset that this is not a traditional gruhabhedam involving two "ragas" per se. The song is predominantly in Sindhubhairavi but what it morphs into via gruhabhedam is not really a raga: it's more a scale, or rather parts of a scale - the major scale, roughly speaking.

UPDATE: See this video where I discuss this song.

It starts out in straightforward Sindhubhairavi and continues to be so until half of the first interlude. Then at 1:35 you see it happening. There's a departure from Sindhubhairavi and you hear a more fun and upbeat few seconds there from 1:35 to about 1:42. For a long time I didn't think it was anything special - it just seemed to be a normal change of notes/ modes/ moods. But on closer inspection I found that those notes should really still just sound like Sindhubharivai - 1:35 - 1:43 the notes should be nnnn rr rsss... Why do they sound different? Because there are background chords there that have changed the shruthi! If you listen closely you'll hear a pa-sa bass in the background that makes the nnnn rr rsss sound like rrrr mm mggg. And that's where it starts - taking the Sa of Sindhubhairavi as Ga. And then there's a superbly seamless transition back to Sindhubhairavi around 1:43. And then back to major scale (ish) again in the charanam from 1:53 - 2:09. And then back to Sindhubhairavi at 2:09. What's this man made of?

The charanam beginning ("chinna poNNu naa...") sounds like gpgss... ns rr npp... Why? Again, because he's made us subconsciously move the shadjam. The corresponding Sindhubhairavi notes for that line would be sgsdd... pd nn pgg. But we don't hear it as Sindhubhairavi because of the way Janaki sings it - long, plain notes, and a landing on the da of Sindhubhairavi on the word "naa" making it feel like sa. Here's a short demo I did, singing these lines as in the original, and in a slightly different way if we want to retain Sindhubhairavi. With some very slight modification to the rendering, the feel can be changed back to Sindhubhairavi: with some small gamakas and highlighting the pa. (The singing isn't great - Janaki's shruthi is insanely high for me and the corresponding lower pitch too low.)





So it looks like by simply highlighting the pa and not fixating on da, you get a Sindhubhairavi feel rather than the "fun-n-frolicky" major scale feel. But why remain in plain old Sindhubhairavi when you can come up with genius stuff like this? The second interlude again goes back and forth between major scale (ish) in the instruments and Sindhubhairavi in Janaki's humming. I think for me this song will go down as one of the most incredible gruhabhedams done in film music.

There's of course a lot more the song has to boast about: the tune, the singing, and the instruments all brilliantly capture the state of mind of the woman singing it in the movie and the context couldn't have asked for a better song.

That was about the brilliant stuff. And as promised, here's the bad stuff:
Ilaiyaraja fans, please forgive me but I think nanna neenu gellalare - the 80s Kannada song - is a particularly mundane way of doing Gruhabhedam: 2nd song here. It could serve well to initiate someone into the very basics of Gruhabhedam but beyond that I find it quite shallow and in-your-face. It is too overt and the mood doesn't change along with change of ragas and I find the song to have little musical value. In fact I think the ragas don't change really - all that's happening is that the singers are mouthing different swaras.

Edit: While I think the song is musically flippant objectively speaking, friends have made me realize that it is unfair to evaluate it in a vacuum, stripping it of its context - I acknowledge that the song is set in a particular milieu and reflects the image of the iconic "Dr. Raj" of the 80s. And the context/ film in which this song occurs was probably flippant to begin with. Hat tip to Chaya Rao and Madhusudhan Rao.

Anyway - this was just an e.g. to illustrate a specific point. Needless to say there's simply way too much awesomeness to take from Raja's music - and that's that.

yaaradhu sollamal nenjalli povadhu

9 years of Octaves! Despite the overwhelming presence and influence of social media, microblogging, and social music sharing platforms like Soundcloud, good old blogging still feels like home. Shame that I haven't been able to devote much time to it lately, but hope to update this space more regularly in the coming months.

Here's a cover song after a while - the evergreen and lilting yaaradhu sollamal composed by Shankar-Ganesh from the 1983 film Nenjamellam Neeye. The original is by none other than the formidable Vani Jayaram and of course, this doesn't come even close. I'd learnt and recorded this over a decade ago for a few friends, and got reminded of it today when Youtube suggested the video for me. Thankfully I couldn't find my old recording (I don't know if I can bear to revisit it now - it was probably one of my silliest renditions) but decided to put myself through the bitter-sweet experience of attempting it again. Part of me kept wondering if I could do any justice at all to Vaniji's impeccable voice and masterly rendition. Anyway, greed got the better of me and here's the result.

Anumane

After a long hiatus, here's something thanks to my mom: a composition by her. She composed this several years ago but I never got around to learning it until now. It's a ragamalika in Tamil that's musically pretty simple, with focus on the words: what's lyrically interesting and special is that most of the words as you'll see are in alphabetical order.
We look forward to hearing what you have to say!

"anumane"
Composer: Vijayalakshmi Bhakthavatsalam
Ragas: Kapi, Hindolam, Mohanam, Tilang, Ahir Bhairav

Lyrics:

anumane anjanai maindane
aNNal raamanin aaruyir anbane
illALai pirindhu idaruRRa eeshanai
udanirundhu kaathu ookkam aLithanai
eththanai idargaL ellaam kadandhanai
Evalpurindhu ERRam peRRanai
aiyyan raamanudan aikkiyam aayinai
oppuvamai illaa Oridam sErndhanai
audadham peranee sylam peyarthanai
akdhinai koNandhu iLavalai kaathanai

kavinoru kaanagaththE kishkinthaiadhanil
keerti peRRa kaviarasan vaali vadham adaya
kurangarasan avan thambi sugreeva rAjan unnai
koovi azhaikka thaavichendru kadal kadanthaai
kedudhikku kEdizhaiththu kamalaikku kai koduththai
kokkariththu kObiththu kottam ellaam muriyadiththaai
kaushikan sangadam sadudhiyil theerthavanai
saamaanyamaanavanaai saadhikka vandhavanai
sindhaiyil poottivaiththu sheelathhtil nee uyarndhaai
siru piLLai paruvaththil sudum enRu aRiyaadhu
sooriya pazham pidikka seeri parandhanai
selvamE, sEdanE
sainiyaththudan Eezhathai veezhthinayE

sokkanE sOrvinai pOkkidum soundarya roopane
nyAlam pORRum nyAniyE
thalaivan thAL paNindhu thinmaikku thee vaiththAi
thunbam thudaiththu thooyOnai kAththittAi
thenilangai kOmAnai thEsu izhakkachedhAi
thaiyyalai kAththu thollayai thOrkacheidhaai
thauvvaithanai naliyavittu nANiyOda cheidhiduvaai
nilam neer engilum nuNugi nee nooru seivaai
nekkurugi nErthi seidhaal naindhurugi nalam tharuvaai
nondhuvandha uLLamadhil nOvinai neekkiduvAi

paraman aruginil paangudan nee irundhaai
piranmanai kavarndhOnai peezhaiyil veezhacheidhaai
pundhiyil sirandhu nindraai poovayai kandu vandhaai
pemmAn rAmanai pEsuvOrai nee chendru
paiyyavE pAliththu pozhivaai ninnaruLai
pOrkaLathil pourushaththaal polindhu nee nindraai
manginaar maandaar maaruthi unaikkandu
migundhilar meendilar munvinai payanaal
moodaravar madhikkettu meimayai kandilarE
mEnmai nee kondaai maiyyal tharum ezhilkondaai
moikkindraar maandhar un mOhana rUpam kandu
mounamai maram kaatti mannavarai malaikkavaiththaai

yaman yaandum thuNivu koLLAn chiranjeevi unaikkoLLa
yukti ilan yoogithilan yOgi unnai edhirkoLLa
youvvana raajan nee vanjagarai vagirndhadhellaam
vaan pugazh vil veeran vegundu unnai vEndiyadharkE
vaiyyam vandha deivamadhai vouvvi neeyum uyarvadaindhaai
vaanaramaai vandha vaayumaindhane pORRi
agaramudhala ezhuththellaam hanumanukkarpaNikka
arivili aasai kondEn aazham ariyaamale
eengeendu iyambivittEn ichchaikondu ivvaNNam
vaayumagan pizhai poruththu vinai theerthu aruLattum

Thooli Adidudho

"Thooli Adidudho" is a beautiful lullaby for baby Krishna, composed by Vijay. It was in 2009 that we first started work on this. After many a roadblock over 4 long years, I finally decided to publish this here. The orchestration couldn't be finished, nevertheless, just the simple backing track that Vijay Narayanan has created carries the song through so very gracefully. Thanks Vijay, for trusting me with this lovely melody. Hope I've done some justice. Thanks Vijay. N for the track, and thanks Karthik Nagarajan for rendering it with me - you've done a beautiful job as always.

Oh, and Octaves completes 7 years! Thanks people, for visiting. Thanks for keeping this going.

Composer and lyricist: Vijay S. Aiyar
Backing track: Vijay Narayanan
Vocals: Karthik Nagarajan and Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam



Lyrics:

thooLi AdidudhO, kaNNA thookkam dhaan varudhO
lAli pAdidudhO, mannA thAyin thaen manadhO
neela vaNNA, bAla kaNNA, neeyum thoongida thAyum aengida
thooLi AdidudhO...

pArkkum pArvai pARkadal, mazhalai mozhi pullAnkuzhal
kannam rendum kanirasam unthan uthattil vadivadhu madhurasam
ulagin seyalgaL unakku theriyum
uRangum pozhudhilum nadaththa theriyum
mAyavA, manadhu mayangida

nyAniyE nee thoongida thAlAttu geetham pAdinEn
nALaiyE un geethaiyai indha ulagum vizhiththida pAdu nee
nyAniYE nee thoongida thAlAttu geetham pAdum thAi
nALaiyE un geethaiyai indha ulagum vizhiththida pAduvAi
uRangum vizhikkuL ulagam suzhala
yugangaL siladhundhan kanavil malara
thooyavA, thazhaikkum thavamena

thooLi...

Song for documentary on Shri S. Rajam

Today, Chennai saw the release of a DVD production on the life and works of Shri S. Rajam, renowned painter and Carnatic musician. It is directed by Lalitharam and Kaanthan Balakrishna Shastri, the music is composed by Murali Venkatraman, with lyrics by Hari Krishnan. All of their efforts are commendable and I urge you all to buy the DVD from kalakendra.com. Since Rajam was an unabashed proponent of Vivadi ragas - which back in the day were considered ominous for some reason - Ram requested Murali to compose most of the songs in Vivadi ragas as a tribute to the man. Here is a song that I have sung in the raga Maararnjani.

I had to fight hard with the beastly self critic in me to post this but oh well, here it is anyway, for the record.



The rest of the compositions are wonderful, in ragas including Gamanashrama, Suryakantham, Gangeyabhushani, and a Gruhabhedam from Mohanam to Kamaprabha; and sung by some amazing singers including Adithi Devarajan, Karthik Nagarajan and Murali himself and are all available on youtube. Please do check them out as well.

Kannodu Kaanbadhellam: Revisiting after a decade

Kannodu Kaanbadhellaam was the first film song I covered. Ever. On a casette, with the help of the "karaoke" button on the music system that would suppress the original voice (the casette was then supposed to go to ARR - but ah, well that's another story). That was ten years ago, but the memories are still fresh. "Jeans" had released a couple of years ago and although a ludicrous movie for the most part, it was a laugh riot in our family and we all loved it. In fact if I remember right, we watched it multiple times in the theatre. I was at the peak of my ARR craze then and every time I would see his name appear in the credits on the screen, with the ni-sa-ri-sa track playing in the background, I would melt. We loved the songs so much and I almost damaged the casette by playing it too many times. And my uncle would joke that his car just wouldn't move if he didn't play Jeans songs =) Ah, those were the days...

This song, kannodu, surprisingly wasn't a favorite at first. It was Nithyasree's first film song and I found it.. er.. funny - for lack of a better word. The visuals were hilarious and that added to the comic factor. But it slowly grew on me and as the influence of the movie waned, I started seeing the classical richness of the song. And then in 2001, something came over me suddenly and I wanted to explore that "karaoke" button on our music system (although we'd had the system for a while before that) and kannodu was the first that came to mind. Everything was simpler back then - from the process of recording to my process of thinking. It was a more naive, carefree mind, not super intent on self-nitpicking. And I surprise myself every time I think of how I recorded back then: the whole song done at a stretch (coz you see, I couldn't cut-copy-paste on a casette).

Fast forward to 2011. The spontaneity, the unbridled enthusiasm, the uninhibited singing - all muted. I like to call it maturity - to keep my sanity. But there's also one other huge difference now: "cooler" gadgets and recording softwares that seem to mock you and exaggerate the smallest flaw. And these things only make it that much harder to achieve complacency.

Anyway... I've had this karoake track for quite sometime now and I somehow never wanted to try recording it- I just wanted to be content with my decade-old recording and not venture into it again. But venture I did, and here's the result. I wanted to sing some actual "kalpana" swarams at the end but the karaoke track had an annoying loud flute sound playing the original swarams, so I couldn't sing anything else there, hmph.

So here goes...

Song: Kannodu kaanbadhellaam
Film: Jeans
Music: A. R. Rahman
Lyrics: Vairamuththu
Singer: Nithyasree Mahadevan



And here's the old one (which I'd posted here some years ago) again, for the record (I think the tempo got increased somehow as a result of which my voice is kinda distorted, but anyway)

Sanga thamizh kaviye

To me, sanga thamizh kaviye is a song in which KJY and Chitra epitomize the ultimate immaculateness of rendering classical based songs. Every nuance in every briga and every sangathi seems to have been ever so carefully sculpted and delicately put in place. Of course, maestro Ilaiyaraja's magic is seen through and through - in the choice of ragas (Abheri, Sriranjani, Sumanesaranjani), the structure of the interludes, the talam which seems to have a seamless gathibhedam, alternating between tishram and chaturshram; and so on. But I feel the rendition itself is so integral to the song that I wonder if it would have sounded as good if anyone else had sung it (and excuse my bias- can't help saying, "especially Chitra" :) ) Although not a big fan of the lyrics, I simply love this song for the music and the voices.
Here's my "unplugged" version of the song. I haven't ventured into trying any modifications or improvisations- I simply didn't want to. So here's a modest attempt of the textbook version.
Thanks for listening!

Song: sangaththamizh kaviye
Film: manadhil urudhi vendum
Music: Ilaiyaraja
Lyrics: Vaali
Singers: K.J.Yesudas; K.S. Chitra