Music And Movies

The ragamalika in carnatic music post that I wrote had quite a few people talking to me and giving their feedback. The feedback was good so I thought I will follow up my own post with some more details. My good friend of mine told me that the article did not feature Dikshitar Ashtotra shata raaga taala malika . It features 108 raagas . I had known about this mammoth composition of Dikshitar but I have never heard it. So I did not put it in the article. He also mentioned about the Dasavathara Ragamalika of Swathi Tirunal , ' kamalajasya '. He mentioned that M D Ramanathan has sung this. I have heard this only once and that is why this did not occur to me when composing my post. Another good friend Shaila had replied to me asking me on why the ragamalikas of Purandaradasa were not mentioned. She mentioned krithis like ' devaki nandana ', ' rama rama ' etc. Honestly my knowledge on Purandaradasa's compositions is weak. From what I gather, ma

(Anil Biswas) 'Midnight masala' is the only thing you get on various TV channels nowadays late in the night. During 80s and early 90s, when Doordarshan was the only channel, we used to get some classic movies during the late night hours. One such movie which I watched during one of my innumerable trips to Calcutta was 'Kismet'. One aspect which ensured that I watched the movie were the songs. (As it is, the movie is a nice one.) 'ab tere siva kaun mera' was a song I had heard earlier and liked. Added to it, I was taken in by the charm of 'Dheere Dheere Badal' tune as well as its picturization. Anil Biswas was the music directors who provided us with these gems. I later read in RMIM newsgroup that Anil Biswas was one of the pioneers in 'modernizing' Hindi film music. If you listen to this song you will understand how true that statement is. I was surprised to learn that this was a 1943 movie. The tune does not sound like that at all!! For one, th

One of the great lyricist of Telugu film music, Veturi Sundararamamurthy, breathed his last on Saturday (22nd May 2010) evening. For many of us, who grew up in Andhra Pradesh during the late 70s and 80s, Veturi's songs are an integral part of our life. Some of us may not even realize that the songs we loved so much were written by Veturi. He was a versatile poet who could satisfy the needs of various 'rasikas'. May his soul rest in peace. Instead of writing an elaborate post on him, let me point to this three part article about Veturi, where in the writer, Srinivas Kanchibhotla, does a very good job of analysing Veturi's work in Telugu films. I am sure I could not have written something as exhaustive as this. Those interested in Telugu poetry need to read this article. http://www.idlebrain.com/celeb/realstars/veturi.html From my side, I present to you some of Veturi's creations below. The best homage we can pay to an artist is getting involved in his art. So do lis

(Rashtrakavi Kuvempu) One of the first things I did when I shifted to Bangalore a dozen years back was to visit a cassette shop nearby and to look out for some good old Kannada film albums. I had no clue on Kannada films but one tape cover caught my eye. It was titled 'Dhoni Saagali' and the cover said that these were poems penned by literary giants of Karnataka and were tuned and used in films. The names mentioned included Kuvempu, Da.Ra.Bendra, DVG, Narasimhaswamy. I couldn't resist picking up the tape immediately wanting to see how the music directors have risen to this challenge of tuning some literary masterworks. Luckily for me, each music director had risen to the occasion and the tunes were outstanding. (Later I had queried an RMIM member who knew about Kannada songs as to which tapes I should buy, stating that I already had 'Dhoni Saagali'. He replied back saying I have already picked t

In my rather muted BTech classmates discussion forum, a link to Illayaraja's program aired by a radio station in US, provoked discussions regarding music. I have long been contemplating writing about some of the amazing songs of Indian film music that I have heard. My friend Sachin urged me that I should start now and so here goes the series which I have titled 'One song at a time'. I mean, in this very hurried world, people may not have time to listen to more than one song at a time!!! (In case you are interested, here is the link to Illayaraja Radio program, a nice one which came about due to the efforts of one Mr. Madhan, whom the presenter thanks in the program. ( http://dvdverdictpresents.com/ ) My intention in this series is twofold. One, to try and showcase some of the lost / forgotten or 'unheard by many' gems. Second, to showcase some well known gems in languages which are probably alien to many of those who read my blog. (Honestly, I don't ha