Music And Movies

Many of my friends who read the tribute to Dakshinamurthy Swami wrote to saying either that the number of songs included were less or I had missed some important song or the other. It is impossible to list all the great songs that Swami had composed but bowing to my friends demands I am including a few more songs here. My aim here is to highlight the way Swami used Carnatic ragas in his own unique way. We start with a very Carnatic raga, Neelambari, which is generally used in 'laali' songs. It is the raga which is used to put the Lord to sleep and Tyagaraja has composed some lovely songs in this raga including 'lali' songs. That is a separate track. Let us look at how wonderfully Dakshinamurthy Swami construct a film song based on Nilambari ragam. Ofcourse, we cannot say that the song sticks to Neelambari all the time but that is OK as far as I am concerned, since the song is a lovely one. Swami uses the raga  to create a tender song. He avoids the standard app...

"We called other music directors as Master but Dakshinamuthy was always a Swami for us. He knew what we all wanted and gave it us. He has given us so many boons in music. That is why it is apt to call him Swami" Thus spoke Gangai Amaran in a Malayalam singing competition program in which he was a chief guest. He continued,"Everyone in our family: my kids, Yuvan, Bhavadharini, everyone, were sent to him to learn music. Even if they didn't learn music well, we were happy if he tapped them a few times on their head."  When Illayaraja released his magnum opus, 'Tiruvasagam' he insisted that Dakshinamurthy be the chief guest. Illayaraja in his biography writes that even after he became a music director, he went and played guitar for Dakshinamurthy Swami's recording as a sessions musician, which surprised a lot of people. Such was the respect of Illayaraja's family for music director, V.Dakshinamurthy, known popularly in music circles as Dakshinam...

Our festivals and music are highly interlinked. One cannot miss the festival music, even if you want to. For, the nearby temple will be blaring out the songs from those tinny loudspeakers. Ganesh Chaturthi is one festival where you get to hear songs in most parts of India. In Hyderabad, along with Ganesh Chaturthi, we have the Mahakali jatra time. The Mahakali festival itself stretches over more than a month. During this time every small Mahakali temple will celebrate and you get to hear songs day in and day out. Especially during the weekend, as the festival will be celebrated on Sundays. Added to these loud speakers, you also have the 'potha raju' and the famous live 'teen maar' of Hyderabad. All I have to do is type, 'dha dhanakur dhan' and the rhythm will immediately start playing in any true Hyderabadi's mind. So embedded is this 'teen maar' in our mind. ( I have not analyzed it but I have a feeling that 'teen maar' probably is equ...

(V. Dakshinamurthy Swamy and K J Jesudas) In Indian film music, one of the biggest challenges for the music directors of yesteryear was how to tune in classical ragas for film music. In early days, they didn't try changing the classical flavor much and the old Tamil songs for example, are almost like classical krithis. When film music turned more 'modern', the music directors put in an effort to modify the raga, to make it more 'lighter', give it a different flavour so that it can reach a larger audience. This is probably easier said than done for not all ragas are equal in this respect. Some, like Mohanam and Kalyani, are eminently suitable for this modification as innumerable songs based on these ragas prove. Some others like Begada, Bilahari, Yadhukula Kambhoji do not shed their classical cloak easily and it requires a genius to transform their image to suit the film music needs. And in V.Dakshinamurthy or Dakshinamurthy Swami, as he is called now, Malayalam...