Music And Movies

There were two ways to get to my school, St.Mary's, from Secunderabad Railway Station. One was the straightforward way crossing SPG school, taking right at Manohar theatre, crossing St.Francis School and taking left to reach my school. The other was a short cut. Who in his youth can resist a short cut? This was through a very very narrow lane behind SPG school, in the Regimental Bazar area.  The lane had enough width for a couple of scooters to pass each other, or maybe not. The house on both sides had the traditional raised platform and very low roofs. The door size was such that any adult, whatever his height, had to enter respectfully. The houses were a two room affair and each house was joined to its neighbors at the hip. There was no gap between the house and after around 15 to 20 houses, the perpendicular road would provide the break, after which the house again stretched holding each other. There was no space for a compound wall and if an house did not have the platform ou

(Johnson) Malayalam Music Director Johnson passed away recently. I knew about Johnson, had watched him on TV where he was judging a singing talent hunt show. Also knew that he had got two National awards and he was well known in Kerala for both his songs and his background scores (for which he had received the National Award.) Unfortunately I had heard very less of the songs he had composed. Once I happened chance upon a HMV collection of 15 of his songs titled, 'Nostalgia' and bought it. I was impressed with  all the songs in that CD. Added to it I had heard a few more on youtube but overall my exposure to his music has been limited. I  anyway had  'moham kondu njan' listed in my internal database as a song which I should feature in this series. So I thought I will put it up today in honor of Johnson. As I said earlier, I had not heard enough of him to get an idea of his individuality. All I could observe is that his best songs were melodies, based on diff

When I first saw the young Shammi Kapoor on Chitrahaar, I refused to believe it was Shammi Kapoor!! For the Shammi Kapoor we knew growing up was a huge man with a beard, who acted in elderly roles. This person dancing and prancing around was hyperactive and did not look anywhere like the Shammi Kapoor we knew. It took some time for me to realize that they were both one and the same. So drastically had Shammi Kapoor changed over the years. (I had this same confusion when I saw a young Prithviraj Kapoor. I thought he was Sashi Kapoor!! The resemblance is very strong.) During that dark era, where there was only one TV channel, all of us used to crowd into either my aunt's place or at my cousin, Padmini's place, to watch Chitrahaar on a weekday (was it Wed or Fri?) and Rangoli on Sunday morning. While each one had his or her own preference of actors and songs, everyone felt happy when a Shammi Kapoor song was screened. It didn't matter if you thought he wasn't a great act

(O.P.Nayyar) Trend-setters in any field disrupt the prevailing order, bring in new ideas and keep the field vibrant. Hindi film music has had many trend-setters starting from C.Ramachandra. One such well known trend-setter was O.P.Nayyar. Nayyar brought in lilting rhythm into Hindi film music. He clashed with the established order of those days, also known as Lata Mangeshkar. He never did a single song with Lata and yet succeeded. He was responsible for the growth of Asha as an artist. A very outspoken person, he gave many hits which are now part of Hindi film music's folk lore. To a certain extent, Rahman reminds me of O.P.Nayyar. Not from the personal characteristic front, in which he is the opposite of Nayyar, but from a musical sense. The initial Rahman rode of foot tapping rhythm, the judicious choice of ragas for his melodies, new recording techniques and new voices, providing a new attractive sound. He took on the established order and paved a new path. Both Nayyar and Ra

(Devarajan) An important aspect for which music is used in films is to create a 'mood'. While most of the time, the mood is an emotional one, sometimes a temporal mood is sought to be created. Our classical music has mapping of ragas to both emotional moods and temporal moods. By temporal mood, I mean the ragas ability to evoke images of a particular time of day. For me, this mapping has been problematic. I believe lot of this mapping is culture specific and in many cases your mapping may not agree with the traditional mapping. For example, no one would have a problem if Subhapanthuvarali is mapped to sadness. But to what mood would you map Kalyani or Thodi? Many say Bhairavi is a raga of sadness but I find it one of joy. S.R.Janakiraman, after singing a Mukhari song asks, "Where is the sadness in this?" He was referring to the oft repeated assertion that Mukhari is only fit for crying!! If emotional mapping can be so problematic, you can be sure the temporal mappi

Having covered some of the gems that R.D.Burman provided for Lata in his earlier guest post , my friend Ravi Natarajan now explores the synergistic relationship between R.D.Burma and Asha. I would also urge you to check out Ravi's blog, Raja, The Genius , wherein he has started a very nice series on the usage of chorus by Illayaraja. I am sure you will enjoy it as well. Needless to say, I am very much obliged to Ravi for this post. R.D.Burman and Asha The 60s were defined by a bunch of composers from India – SJ, SD Burman, Madan Mohan in the North and MSV in the South. The 70s was defined by just one man – Pancham. It is very easy to list the top three songs of the 70s – no prizes for guessing – all were by RD. ‘Dum Maro Dum’ from Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1972), ‘Churaliya Hai’ from Yadon Ki Baaraat (1974) and ‘Mehboobha’ from Sholay (1975). These three tracks had a worldwide impact. Unfortunately, TIME magazine/BBC was not including any world music in their lists and the RD fa