Cover of Shreya Ghoshal's chalo tumko lekar

I've always been a big fan of this song. Shreya who had just entered the industry was (and still is!) all the craze and sounded ethereal. My first take was on a casette with a karaoke track, back in the early 2000s soon after the film (Jism) had released. After all these years I got on Smule and this was one of the first songs I wanted to sing. Here goes - hope you like it.

 

Cheeni Kum

Yet another song where Shreya is at her best. Although I prefer the Tamil original mandram vandha thendralukku from Mouna Ragam any day, I can keep listening to this song just for Shreya's voice! And that is the power of Raja's music- more than 20 years and the tune is still fresh.

Recorded this quite a few months back...
So here goes my version :)

Song: Cheeni Kum
Movie: Cheeni Kum
Music: Ilaiyaraja
Lyrics: Sameer-Manoj Tapadia
Singer: Shreya Ghoshal



Hope you like this. Do drop your comments.

And oh, 5 days to go for BlogSwara-V5!!

Elangaathu veesudhey with Jo

Elangaathu veesudhey was a very different kind of melody- a haunting tune. One of my favourites in recent times.
I consider myself to be "lyrically challenged" - when I listen to a song the tune sits in my brain bang on, but the lyrics just refuse to! It takes some extra effort for me to absorb the meaning of songs. Blame it on my incompetence in Tamil/ Hindi (the two languages most familiar to me and in which I most frequently sing)or my subconscious resistance to take in the lyrics. I don't know. But somehow, one particular line in this song caught my attention and I found to be really beautiful- and it felt so good to be able to appreciate it:
"vaLaiyaadha moongilil rAgam vaLanchi Odudhae"
-translates to: (how is it that) music meanders through the flute that is rigid/ linear...
I remember when I said this to a friend, in response she said something like "logic is so far removed from poetry and it is precisely this that makes poetry beautiful!". Reminds me of "kavidhaikku poi azhagu" :)
Joseph Thomas needs no introduction in the audiobloggers' circuit here. Its been a long pending idea to do a duet with him and here it is, finally. Was a pleasure singing this with the very talented Jo. Hope you all enjoy this!
Again recorded this with a not-so-good mic. How I miss my Shure SM 57!! :( (Some software issues are preventing me from using it) But thanks to Jo for his efforts in mixing.

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Song: elangaathu veesudhey
Film: Pithamagan
Music: Ilaiyaraja
Lyrics: Pazhani Bharati
Singers: Sriram Parthasarathy and Shreya Ghoshal

When recording meant nothing more than singing...

It was only recently that I learnt about cool music softwares and what they can do to your voice and how powerful tools they are. Of course I knew about their existence even before, but somehow never really felt upto it to try my hand at using them... Blogging etc. never really crossed my mind. I was a happy listener and visitor to others' blogs.
So until some months back, my recording exercise consisted of just one thing- singing. No amp, no reverb, no normalising, no pitch benders or scale changers... nothing. And most importantly, no mixing! Just pop in the original casette or cd into the music system and another empty casette, hit the 'karaoke' button and just start recording, singing along with the original singer, trying drown her voice hehe...(wasn't even aware of karaoke cd's being available in the market!)
Actually in a way recording that way was great fun. 'Ignorance is bliss' so holds here.
Since I would record on a tape, there was obviously no cut-copy-paste or anything, so even a slight slip here and there, and the entire song would have to be redone, right from the beginning! There have been so many instances where I goofed up something towards the very end of the song and felt so frustrated about having to start all over again!
Although modern softwares and recording on the computer gives one a lot of flexibility and luxury, recording on tapes was a challenge in itself and the satisfaction it would give me after the completion of a song was immense. Especially after singing some of them atleast 5-6 times (the entire song, that is! ) !
I was just thinking of those good old days...and felt like blogging those old recordings, however bad the recording quality is (I trust it aint too bad, since they're all now made up and enhanced with....ahem....softwares (again! sigh)...

Some old recordings- done 6 years back :
Kannodu Kanbadhellam:

Jhoola bahon ka:

Konjum Mainaakkale:

Boondon se baatein:

More recent ones: Thathiththom:

Manam Virumbudhae:

Sowkkiyama:

Snehidhane:

Kannamoochi:

Chalo tumko lekar chalein (Jism)

pal pal hai bhaari (Swades)

Dil mera ek taara (December 16)

Mausam ki sargam ko sun (with Deepthi Krishnamurthy)

Jahan piya wahan main (Pardes)