Music And Movies

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...

The noted Malayalam film music director M G Radhakrishnan passed away recently. This edition of 'One song at a time' is a tribute to him. The first time I encountered M G Radhakrishnan's name was when I wanted to find out who was the music director for 'Manichitratazhu' (which was later remade as 'Chandramukhi'). I stored the name in a corner of my mind and did not encounter the name for some more time. Then, when I was watching an interview of the popular Malayalam playback singer M.G.Sreekumar, I came to know that M.G.Radhakrishnan was his elder brother. Much later I came to know that the noted Carnatic musician, Omanakutty, was their sister. I first saw M G Radhakrishnan on TV screen as a judge for one of the singing shows. He had come in as a 'guest judge'. From the way he passed comments you could clearly make out that he was a very simple and unassuming person. (There is generally lot of 'simplicity' and 'humility' in the m...