Music And Movies

Long back the Hindu critic, N M Narayanan, during a December season wrote, "With Balamurali not singing this year, it was left to M D Ramanathan to add some color to the music season". Very apt words, since Balamurali added a lot of color to Carnatic music. He showed a different facet of Carnatic music to the world. Carnatic music in his hands was innovative, vibrant and witty. His approach ruffled many feathers but to his talent was so phenomenal that even his life-long critics had to grudgingly concede that he was one of a kind. Balamurali was an artist with his own unique vision. An artist who did not want to walk the standard path. According to him, in each of his compositions he has incorporated something new. Many a times artists revolt against current trends and practices but only a few succeed. The ones who succeed are the ones who have immense faith in their vision and the ability to implement the vision. Balamurali was one such artist. He had his own aestheti

The close association of Indian film music with classical music and musicians in its formative years meant that a lot of classical ragas came to be used in film music. Very traditional ragas like Kalyani morphed themselves admirably to film music requirement. Universal ragas like Mohanam became natural candidates for film songs. In midst of all the classical ragas there seems to be one raga which is born for film music. In Carnatic music, Sivaranjani is not featured very prominently even in the tail end tukkada section. Ragas like Sindhu Bhairavi, Mand, Revati and others dominate that portion of the concert. In film music, though, Sivaranjani has been used extensively and effectively by various music directors. It is easy to associate Sivaranjani with pathos but the music directors were talented enough to take it beyond that emotion and were able to infuse a sense of joy into the raga. The first Sivaranjani that I remember hearing was a song of pathos, from the movie, 'M