Music And Movies

Long back I had written a few posts on ragamalikas in Carnatic music and promised that I will write about ragamalikas in films soon. So here is the post, though it is not 'soon' now. (My posts on 'Ragamalikas in Carnatic music Part 1 , Part 2 & Part 3 ) There are many situations in which ragamalikas are used in films. Today I will concentrate on ragamalikas in bhakthi films. In essence I am going to speak about two things which have almost disappeared from films. Bhakthi films and ragamalikas. In an earlier era, we have seen a stream of bhakthi and mythological films hit the screens in South India, especially in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh (I think it was the case in Kerala and Karnataka too.) With the changing demographics of the viewers the bhakthi and mythological films lost their allure. In earlier days, film watching was a family exercise. The number of films watched with parents in those days was more than those watched with friends. The mythologies wer

(The Corrs) Let me first confess that the title is not rigorously valid. The first song I am going to post is not exactly Devamanohari but gives that flavor when it starts. The second one is not a 'modern' Kedar but rather a standard Kedar with 'modern' arrangements. Cut me some slack here because sometimes you need a catchy title to get people interested. The first song is by an Irish group called 'Corrs'. Mostly made up of talented females. I watched 'Corrs' first on a MTV Unplugged show. I was very fascinated, especially by the drumming. I had forgotten all about them until a Tamil movie called 'Sakkarakatti' arrived. It had a song called "Elay" and there was a discussion on a bulletin board about the violin section in that song being taken from 'Corrs'. That made me revisit the 'Corrs' and I keep hearing this song often. This is an Irish folk song and I see from youtube that lot more folks have covered it

Rajesh Khanna, the first 'super star' of Hindi films, passed away recently. He was responsible for the pleasant memories of a whole generation. As expected, his passing away made people sad. At the same time it made them nostalgic for those innocent days, when the music was melodious, the singers were titans and then there was the charm and charisma of Rajesh Khanna. There have always been Director-Music Director, Actor-Music Director combinations which have given great music. RajKapoor-Shankar Jaikishan, Vijay Anand - S D Burman, Hrishikesh Mukherjee - R D Burman in the Dir-MD combo and Dev Anand-S D Burman, Shammi Kapoor - Shankar Jaikishan in the Actor - MD combo come to mind immediately. Similarly Rajesh Khanna - R D Burman - Kishore is what comes to mind immediately when one thinks of Rajesh Khanna. While this trio gave us some extraordinary music, I feel Rajesh Khanna inspired other music directors as well to give him the best. Unlike Raj Kapoor or Dev Anand, Raje

(Rajan-Nagendra) External intervention is sometimes required to boost  the sagging spirits. It happens in life and it also happens in film music. Like how Rahman's Tamil film songs gave a new direction to Hindi film music in later part of 90s, even before Rahman himself entered the fray in Hindi. The same thing happened to Telugu film music in the late 70s and early 80s. To me the Telugu film music of late 70s and early 80s was a bit stale. Giants like Rajeshwar Rao and Pendyala were slowly fading away and the music scene was dominated by Chakravarthy, whose music was mediocre, if I have to put it lightly. K V Mahadevan's music was bright in patches. The music was outstanding when he did movies with directors with an artistic bent of mind like K.Vishwanath and Bapu and had a tired feel when he had to do the normal 'masala' movies, where he had to compete with Chakravarthy. Ramesh Naidu and Sathyam came up with good tunes now and then but they were not 'c

(Kalyanji Anandji) There are some songs which almost everyone likes in the first listen and then continues liking even after a long time. Some songs catch our attention in the first listen but we slowly lose interest in it after multiple listens. Some songs catch the attention of only a few people while some songs, (massive hits when released) are slowly forgotten after a certain period of time. There are only a few songs which remain as fresh as when they were released and which are even now loved by everyone. To this category belongs the song of today, 'chandan sa badan'. I saw and heard this song for the first time when the movie 'Saraswathi Chandra' was screened on Doordarshan. Those were the days when every movie screened on TV was watched as TV was still a novelty. Saturday and Sunday evenings were reserved for movie watching on TV, irrespective of the quality of the movie screened. When I heard this song the first time I was fascinated. Mukesh used to

(Bombay Ravi) Last week, one of the famous music directors, Ravi, passed away. He had two names, Ravi while in Bombay and Bombay Ravi, while in Kerala. I like Bombay Ravi more than the Ravi without the qualifier.  Ravi composed many Hindi songs which are everlasting. Songs such as 'Chaudvin Ka Chand', 'O Meri Zohra Jabeen', 'Baar Baar Dekho', 'Dil Ke Armaan', 'Neele Gagan Pe Tale' : to give a few samples. The saying is, "To the dead we owe only the truth." So let me confess that I have never been a great fan of Ravi's work in Hindi films. Yes, I like some of the songs listed above but overall I have never been too fascinated by the songs he composed in Hindi. Somehow I couldn't relate much to the big hits like 'Neele Gagan Pe' or 'Chalo Ik Baar'. The tunes did not hold much fascination for me and the fact that Mahendar Kapoor was involved made it even more difficult to appreciate the song. In essence, t

Some carnatic ragas have inherent resistance in adapting to film music. They cling to their carnatic character tightly. Ragas like Begada, Sahana, Bilahari, Kedaragowla, Surati, Anadabhairavi, Bhairavi etc. are examples. (I have spoken about this in a earlier post as well.) Film music has its own set of genius music directors who were able to adapt such 'tough' ragas to film music successfully. We have earlier in this blog discussed Dakshinamurthy Swamy's adaptation of Begada , S.Rajeshwar Rao's adaptation of Bilahari and Illayaraja's take on Todi . Today we will talk about one more such 'tough' raga: Natakurunji. This raga also clings tightly to its carnatic character. The added challenge is the fact that it is easy for this raga to stray from this raga into other ragas under the flimsiest of pretexts. (Whenever I try singing Natakurunji I stray easily into either Shankarabaranam or Neelambari!!! Ofcourse that says more about my singing ability than

(Ganesh Kumaresh) Given my work commitments it is becoming difficult to keep posting regularly. Yet sometimes something happens which makes you drop what you are doing and jot down your thoughts. A good friend sent me a youtube link of Kumaresh (of Ganesh - Kumaresh duo) giving a TED lecture cum demonstration at NIT Suratkal (as per the video.) This set me thinking. I wanted to jot down my thoughts. First, here is the  youtube video: It is a nice video. Do listen to what he says and also listen to his playing of Begada ragam. I am sure you have heard what he said but just in case you skipped (or are behind a firewall which doesn't allow youtube), here is the crux of what he spoke. Instrumental music is very different from vocal music. In Carnatic music all instrumentalists play the krithis. While the words of the krithis are good for vocal music, they are not necessary for instrumental music. So they (Ganesh and Kumaresh) play pieces where they explore a raga wit

(Hirabai Barodekar) "What is the Hindustani equivalent of Carnatic Aarabhi?", asked a friend on twitter. With confidence ignorance instills, "There is no Aarabhi in Hindustani", I replied. Doubts started seeping in after I replied and I started my search and hit this song on youtube. It is Hirabai Barodekar singing what appears to a Marati Natyageet and the title says it is Aarabh. The song sounds close to Aarabhi. At the same time I also hear a lot of Suddha Saveri in it. So it may not be an exact equivalent to Carnatic Aarabhi. Yet I don't hear it as straigh Durga, which is the Suddha Saveri equivalent. In Carnatic music, Aarabhi, Suddha Saveri, Devagandhari and Saama are close to each other based on the notes they use. I believe Aarabahi and Devagandhari have the same set of notes. They differ in the way the notes are sung. S.Ramanathan, in one lec dem, demonstrates how Aarabi and Sama share the same notes and yet differ in the nyasa swara used.