Music And Movies

One day while driving my car to office I tuned into a Kannada FM channel heard this song. Right from the first flight of violins I knew that this was definitely an Illayaraja song. As the song progressed, I would have wagered my salary on it. I wanted to know which movie this song was from. Unfortunately by the time I reached office I had forgotten the lyrics. Given my inability to sing even the simplest of the tunes, all I could tell my colleague was, "It was a wonderful song and it went like..lalala lalala". She smiled, probably thinking that this was one mystery which even Sherlock Holmes would be hard pressed to solve. Then I saw this song on TV but as is their wont, they did not put up the film name!! One day I saw a cassette of the movie 'Pallavi Anupallavi'. Knowing it was a Raja - Maniratnam combination movie I immediately picked it up. And I was pleasantly surprised when this song played. We will listen to this song today. If you observe Maniratnam's mo...

It is always interesting to compare and contrast two versions of the same song sung in different languages by different singers. I am not talking about dubbed movies but where the songs were made in each of the language with the same intensity and was a hit in each of these languages. Rafi's "chal ud jaa re panchi' from Bhabi can be contrasted with Ghantasala's rendition of the same song in Telugu, "payaninche o chiluka". (If fans of respective singers are involved in this comparison business it can lead to bloodshed. Just check out the youtube comments for this Telugu song!!)  A movie which moved everyone to tears and made Rajesh Khanna almost a legend was 'Anand'. Other than Rajesh Khanna's acting, Hrishikesh Mukherjee's direction, the film is also known for its superb music. How many films can boast of songs like, 'maine tere liye hi saat rang ke sapne chuni', 'naa jiya laage na', 'zindagi kaisi hai paheli' and the...

(Ghantasala) While the classical music purist frown when ragas are mixed, especially down south, we need to accept that sometimes this mixture does produce great music!! The mix happens in two ways. One by the introduction of alien notes. Second by mixing two ragas. Carnatic music is familiar with the introduction of alien notes into a raga, while mixing of two ragas is not looked at favourably. In Hindustani mixing two ragas is quite common.  Basant Bahar and Bageshree Kaanada come to mind. In Hindustani music they call it jod-ragas. The song that we will hear today is one such mixture.  I am not sure if this raga exists in Hindustani music or it was creation of the music director, Pendyala. The raga takes Kaanada in its upward movement and Chakravaham in its descent.  It sounds lovely and this is a very popular song in Telugu. Music, as noted earlier, is by Pendyala, lyrics of Malladi and sung wonderfully by Ghantasala.  This is one song in which yo...

(Naushad) "Bhairav is so fundamental to Indian tradition that its impaction on the nation's musical soul can never be overstated. Even the unlettered in the land is familiar with its germ in some form or the other. The overlay of Bhairav strains on an early, bucolic Indian morning affords a purifying experience like no other. Verily, it falls to the lot of the noblest of rAgas, deserving of renewal and reflection in the portals of the mind every single day." Thus wrote Rajan Parrikar in his article for SAWF titled "Bhairav - The Primordial Sound"  . He was talking about the Hindustani Bhairav whose Carnatic counterpart in Mayamalavagowla. Mayamalavagowla has been used a lot in Tamil film music. An old gem that I heard is in the movie 'Pattinathar', which starred T M Soundarrajan as the hero. The song was, "nilave nee oru sedhi sollaayo" and was tuned very similar to the Tyagaraja's famous krithi, "thulasi dalamulache". Then we h...

(Shyam) Each of us has a gripe about what is missing in film music these days. Lack of melody, lack of good poetry, lack of good voices, lack of natural instruments and much more. While I too miss all of these, one thing which I miss, especially in Hindi and Telugu film songs is the sense of ordinariness in song picturisation. In earlier days, there were lot of songs whose picturisation was nothing but a capture of the ordinary lives led by its protagonists. This would come as a nice relief against the running around the trees and frolicking type of songs. Think about the picturisation of songs in movies of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar, Basu Chatterjee and others and you will immediately understand what I say. Nowadays this aspect has completely vanished from Hindi and Telugu movies. Every song is lavishly mounted. Even if you have to cry, it will against a backdrop of half a dozen dances wearing colour coordinated skimpy dresses. The music accordingly has become very loud and only h...

(Shankar Jaikishan) Given the A/C room bound lives that many of us lead, we have forgotten that every day has its own seasons. The winter of the mornings, the summer of the afternoon, the spring of the dusk. Of these, it is dusk which I miss nowadays, either being stuck in my job or in traffic!! I still remember fondly the evenings my friend Bala used to walk  from Boiguda via Secunderabad Railway Station all the way to Paradise to have a burger at Universal Bakery. The walk inevitably happened during the time when the day started preparing itself to meet the night. The sound of the birds in tree lined road leading to station, the dim light on the horizon and the vehicles slowly switching on their headlights. A strange feeling comes over you at that time. A feeling that cannot be described in words. For lovers, it is that time of the day to be with their beloved. If your beloved isn't around, the pain of the separation hits them hard during this hour. I have read man...

(Khayyam) Tuning for pre-written lyrics was the norm in the olden days of Indian film music. Most of the music directors followed this path, be it Anil Biswas, MadanMohan, Roshan, Khayyam or people like Rajeshwar Rao and K V Mahadevan down south. Ofcoure it was not a hard and fast rule. It is known that most of the songs of Vishwanathan-Ramamurthy and later MSV were written first by the poet, mostly Kannadasan, and were later tuned. There are known instances where the tune has been set first and then Kannadasan writing the lyrics to the tune. Music Directors like K V Mahadevan, if what I hear on various shows is correct, never ever set the tune first. They would always insist on the lyrics first and then the tune would flow. Salilda was one exception of those time, insisting, against the trend, that he tune first and then the lyrics be written. If you observe the way Salilda's tunes twists and turn, you can easily guess that tune would have come first. After Illayaraja appeared on...