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Raja
Web page dedicated to analyzing the
music of Illayaraja
Musical Philosophy of
Raja – Part 4 : Rhythm
is emotion
Posted onSeptember 26 by raaga_suresh
(Raja with the Hungarian Jazz drummer, Ferenc Nemeth, who played
drums for NEPV)

‘Sruthi Mata, Layam Pitha’ is the saying. Sruthi being the mother
and layam being the father. In Indian film music, as in music of
many parts of the world, rhythm plays an important part. At the
same time, in our film music, rhythm has mainly been used mostly
to keep the interest intact. Rhythm is probably the easiest way to
capture a layman’s attention and various rhythmic patterns get
used to ensure the listener is immediately hooked to the tune. Some
music directors also experiment with the thalam, using different
rhythmic cycles in their songs. Yet, I would say not many have really
explored the possibility of rhythm being part of the emotion. Raja
explored this the most. His philosophy seems to be that in certain
cases, rhythm carries as much emotion as the melody does. The
rhythm instruments are used to convey as much emotion as the
strings, wood and brass instruments.

Let me first start with the way Raja uses rhythm to convey passion.
Ofcourse there have lot of songs of passion in Indian film music.
‘roop tera mastana’, ‘masaka masaka cheekatilo’ and so on. When it
concerns passion, Raja ensures there is no steady rhythm. This is to
reflect the turmoil in the heart. Passion makes people lose their
equanimity and this is reflected in the rhythm. Additionally Raja also
chooses an asynchronous ‘nadai’ for these songs, like the kanda
nadai, where the beat is broken not into a steady rhythm of 4
syllables but as 2+3 syllables.
Here are a few examples. The first one, ‘ponmeni urugudhey’ from
‘Moonram Pirai’

Not only the rhythm very unsteady, you have the rhythm being
shared by two different instruments, adding to the unsteadiness.
The whole rhythm pattern is like the heart beat of the woman who is
singing.

You can hear a similar pattern in a later day song. ‘vennilavu


kodhipadhenna’ from ‘Chinna Mapillai’

The tune pe se flows smoothly but the rhythm is like the palpitations
of a passionate heart, totally unexpected and unsteady.

You can go on giving more such examples for this. the famous one
everyone would talk about would be ‘om namaha’ from ‘Geetanjali’
(Telugu)

Compared to other songs, this was probably a more obvious one but
Raja give such a wonderful tune along with outstanding
orchestration that the song doesn’t become gimmicky but becomes
a classic.

At the same time, observe how Raja induces a sense of fun/comedy


is this faux passion song. ‘sivarathiri’ from ‘Michael Madana
Kamarajan’.

The tune per se, conveys passion but the rhythm here doesn’t
become unsteady. Rather the way it is played, you know that
something funny is going on. A lot of the fun aspect of this song
comes from the rhythm.

Next we will look at how Raja deals with unrequited passion. ‘azhagu
malar aada’ from ‘Vaidhehi Kaathirundal’
While the choice of ragam and Janaki’s superb singing give you the
pathos needed for the situation, it is Raja’s choice of the kanda
nadai which enables to complete the emotion. The sadness of the
tune is married to the passion of the rhythm and that ensures the
emotion of the situation is perfectly conveyed to us.

At the other end of the spectrum, here is Raja using rhythm to


convey tender love. ‘kalvane kalvane’ from ‘Megha’

In this song the rhythm talks to us almost in a whisper, as if it is the


‘kalvan’ (thief) mentioned in the song. Along with the other
instruments, rhythm also conveys the delicate nature of early love.

Not only love, Raja generates a sense of anticipation and suspense


using rhythm. ‘yarugaagi aata’ from ‘Barjari Bete’

Once again, not the ‘unsteadiness’ in the beat, generating the


required tension in this song. The whole asynch between the tune
and beat is what makes this song.

Raja is a master at conveying more than one emotion in a song.


Here is a situation where two friends are separated due to a
misunderstanding. The song needs to convey both the sadness and
anger simultaneously. Raja does this brilliantly by employing a
strong rhythm. This ensure we feel the intensity of the situation
perfectly. The anger in the rhythm and the sadness in the tune.

Raja is a master of conveying more than one emotion in a song, a


point I made in my earlier posts of this series. I had already written
about this aspect earlier.You can check my post here, Parallel
Processing of Raja
Raja not only uses rhythm to enhance emotions but also to balance
emotions. In this ‘Virumandi’ song, ‘madavilakke’, the tune is highly
charged and emotional. In order to ensure the overall effect is not
too sloppy, Raja has a very strong rhythm which counterbalances
the tune. And is also in keeping with the character of the hero.
Virumandi is a rhythmic delight. We can write one post for each
song. There is so much in rhythm in this movie.

Not only sadness, Raja doesn’t want to overpower you with melody.
So he counters it with a strong rhythm. In ‘alli ilam poove’ from
‘Mangalum Nerunnu’. No one would think of using a harsh
instrument for a lullaby. Except Raja that is.

The rhythm instruments include mridangam and a bit of chapu. Not


the ideal sound to accompany a lullaby but it works wonderfully
here to counterbalance the sweetness of the tune.

On the other hand, it is rhythm again that conveys an overflowing


joy. ‘devaram’ from ‘Rasathantram’

You don’t even have to hear the tune. The starting rhythm itself tells
you that whoever is singing is bubbling with joy. The rhythm
throughout this song conveys so much joy.

When joy can be conveyed, can’t rhythms convey anger? Ofcourse


they can. Here is the title song from the unreleased
‘Marudhanayam’.

Anger and sadness combine in this song and the rhythm adds so
much emotion to the song.

You can understand the joy of Raja when he is asked to convey valor
through rhythm. ‘aala madanga’ from ‘Pazhassiraja’

Even for standard love songs, Raja comes up with some superb
rhythmic arrangements which adds to the emotion of the song.
‘poongkatru’ from ‘Vetri VIzha’. The rhythm of the song takes the
joy to a different level.
Let me close with this simple rhythm which comes slowly and
contributes its mite to this delicate sad song. ‘nal veenai nadham’
from ‘Bharathan’

The rhythm usage in Raja songs is a PhD thesis. In fact someone can
do a thesis only on Raja’s strategy of using rhythms to enhance
memory. For the effort Raja has put in the rhythm section, he
deserves such a thesis.

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Musical Philosophy of
Raja – Part 3: One idea
per song
Posted onAugust 29 by raaga_suresh
I wrote about this aspect in detail when I wrote about MSV’s works in
my other musical blog. It is worth repeating here because it makes a
lot of sense. Here is what I wrote in my MSV’s article:
“Illayaraja, who entered Tamil film music through ‘Annakili’
represents the biggest discontinuity in Indian Film Music thought.
This may be difficult for people to accept. R D Burman or Rahman
may come to your mind whenever people talk about a discontinuity.
So let me put forth my hypothesis on why I consider Raja as a
discontinuity and a break from our Indian film music tradition,

We have already seen how both Hindi film music and South Indian
film music both depended on Classical music of North and South
respectively in their formative years. One of the important features
of Indian Classical music is the centrality of the singer /
instrumentalist. There have been some great accompaniment artist
but even they are subservient to the main artist. This spills over into
film music as well and for long the tune and the singer were of
importance. The music director was basically a person who could set
some wonderful tunes. They did not expect the music director to be
well versed in orchestration. Orchestration was left to assistants.
(Anil Biswas talks about one such talented assistant of his. It is also
well known the Pugazhendi did most of the orchestration for K V
Mahadevan). This meant that the major musical ideas resided in the
tune and hence the singer of paramount importance. That is why we
had singers who dominated their industry pushing even the music
directors to shade. Lata dominated Hindi film industry, Gantasala
dominated Telugu film industry and Jesudas was the king of
Malayalam film song. Even when R D Burman arrived and the
orchestration got a new fillip, the tune and rhythm were still the
king. Kishore’s and Asha’s voices were central to R D Burman’s
songs. I want to look at this phenomenon from a different angle and
say that all the music directors gave their best musical ideas to the
song (which ofcourse includes the rhythm of the song). The ideas
embedded in the orchestration were limited. Secondly we can say
that in true Indian music tradition, the orchestration was present to
‘support’ the tune and hence it was enmeshed with the tune.

Raja’s thought was different. His idea of a song was more akin the
idea of symphony of western classical music. No, I am not
suggesting that Raja’s songs are symphonies or some such. Just that
Raja’s conception of a film song closely mirrored the ideas of
western classical music. If you listen to a symphony you will notice
that while there is a central melody, the symphony is not just the
melody. There are multiple harmonic strains either running in
parallel with the melody or supplementing the melody. None of the
threads can be discarded without affecting the overall effect. In
essence, in the symphony there was no central instrument.
Everyone had a part to play: some more and some less, but it was
just a part. No one was the pillar. Second, the symphony was viewed
as an organic whole. In the sense that musical ideas were spread
throughout the symphony unlike Indian music where the ideas were
more in the tune. Raja thought of his song as an organic whole while
many of us thought of it as tune and orchestration. In Raja’s songs
the ideas were spread throughout of the song and the quality of
ideas for the orchestration was in no way inferior to the quality of
ideas embedded in the tune”

Let me expand on the thought a bit and explain in detail. In days


before Raja came to screen, the preludes and interludes were
cursory, not having many musical ideas in them. They were more
used as a bridge between pallavi and charnam and vice versa. It
also gave time for heros and heroines to run around trees. In most
cases the same interludes were repeated or one of the interludes
was a minor variation on the other one.
Let’s listen to one wonderful song from ‘Chitchor’, the evergreen hit,
‘gori tera gaon bada payara’.

You can hear the characteristics of what I spoke. Just think for a
minute. Does the song lose much if it loses the orchestration?

Here is one more popular song, ‘gangai yamunai’ from ‘Imayam’.

Once again check the prominence of the tune and also think how
much the song loses when it loses its orchestration. I have heard
this when it was first released. It used to be played often on radio.
Till date the tune is etched in my heart but I don’t remember the
orchestration at all. It is the same with the Chitchor song as well

I chose these songs since they appeared in the year Raja made his
appearance. Ofcourse the interludes have become slightly more
elaborate than the earlier years but still they were not taken very
seriously either by the music director or the listener. As I said that
was because the tune was of prime importance.

Raja was well trained in WCM and his approach is closer to WCM
wherein the complete song is a single idea. It is as if a single idea is
built using multiple ideas, none of which seem to stand out in
isolation. They all serve the cause of building that musical idea. So
in Raja’s case talking about prelude, interlude and postlude would
only display our ignorance. Raja thought more holistically. These
were not separate parts. The song was a continuous whole.

Let us take a song from Raja’s initial years. I am deliberately picking


a tune which many mistake to be a MSV tune. This is for the Sivaji
movie, ‘Deepam’. ‘anthapurathil oru maharani’.

First check the prelude. Observe how it is built by multiple ideas and
how some phrases are expanded. I would say there are atleast 4
distinct musical ideas in the prelude itself. And the prelude naturally
flows into the pallavi. In the pallavi itself, there is a shift when Janaki
sings, ‘samanthi pookal’. Yet it remains within the overall idea. The
way the interlude picks up makes you feel they are just expanding
on the pallavi and once again the way it flows into the charanam
gives you the feeling of being entrapped in a single domain. The
second interlude has very different ideas but it never goes away
from the central idea. And once you have heard that flute in the
interlude you definitely feel that if you remove the orchestration, a
lot would be lost.

Let me take another wonderful melody to highlight this aspect.


‘mounamelanoyi’ from ‘Sagara Sangamam’

Once you have heard the strumming and humming of the prelude, is
their any way you can hear the song in your own mind without that
humming or the strumming? The strumming and the humming of
the prelude setup the mood for the whole song and every
instrument or voice that plays has only one job, to maintain the
mood. Be it the flute, be it the bass guitar, the keyboard, SPB or
Janaki or the tune. Everything is an extension of that prelude. This
song probably gives you a very clear idea of what I meant that Raja
composes the song holistically and not as tune, interlude and
prelude. If you didn’t think of all these simultaneously and try to
stitch disparate ideas together, you will not get such an organic
sound or mood.

Let us look at a song of more recent vintage. ‘satru munbu’ from


‘Nee Dhane En Pon Vasanatham’

This is an outstanding example of a single thought and mood being


executed. The tune is just one part of the grand scheme. The
harmonies and countermelodies add so much to the tune that you
just cannot hear the tune in your own mind without those
harmonies. This is a sort of pinnacle of what Raja does: the tight grip
on the mood, the amazing orchestration which creates the mood
and the tune which maintains that mood.

The first one was a love song, the second one a tragic love breakup
song. For Raja it doesn’t matter which song it is. He uses the same
philosophy in all his songs. Every note in my song has value. It is not
to just extend time. It is to extend ideas. Here he is with this
amazing tune and orchestration for ‘poovar senni mannan’, the
Tiruvasagam verse. The mood is in great contrast to the other. Here
Manikavasagar urges people to move towards the feet of the Lord. It
is time to shed off the mortal coils and ascend the path towards
Paramasiva.

The first sound of the drum creates a feeling of dread. This is the
final journey of human life. Once that is established, everything else
falls into place. Every drum beat, every flute piece, every trumpet,
every violin plays the same idea in different tune.

You can pick up your favorite Raja songs and analyze them and you
will realize that whatever I said here holds from them as well.

This is one of the reason why in Raja’s reign, while we had some
legendary singers, they were never able to dominate the industry.
That was because Raja dominated the industry and in his songs,
voice was just one more instrument.

I say this explicitly because till the time Raja came on to screen it
was either the singer dictating the industry or an actor dictating the
industry. Here I mean music industry. In Bollywood it was Lata who
dominated for a long time. She fought with lot of music directors:
Anil Biswas, S D Burman, O P Nayyar, C Ramachandra to name a
few. She also had her tiff with people like Raj Kapoor. Yet, none of
this affected her popularity. Later R D Burman became a name to
reckon with but Kishore too was an important factor during those
says as he was seen as the voice of the superstar Rajesh Khanna. In
South, the Telugu film music industry was dominated by Gantasala.
It was never a Rajeshwar Rao song or a Pendyala song. It was
always a Gantasala song. It was the same with K J Yesudas in
Malayalam. It was Yesudas song first and foremost. Then only it was
a Baburaj song or Devarajan master song and so on. In Tamil film
industry, even though MSV was the undisputed king amongst music
directors, songs were generally seen as Sivaji songs or MGR songs.
After Raja came in, it became Illayaraja songs. It didn’t matter who
sang them or in which language, the song was an Illayaraja song.
This was due to two reasons; One, Raja put his stamp on every song
he composed. Second, his song was not just the tune (by extension,
not just the voice).

Musical Philosophy of
Raja-Part 2 : Believe in
the listener
Posted onAugust 19 by raaga_suresh
One of the most discussed subject for any artist is whether he/she
should create for the sake of creation or should they create
understanding what their audience needs. I don’t think a conclusion
has been reached on this yet and will probably never be reached.
There are some who create because they believe in their creation
and then there are those who create keeping their audience in mind.
Raja, in my opinion, was slightly different. He created what he
wanted but he was very sure his audience would like it.

Sometimes when you are discussing a topic with a friend or


explaining a concept to a student, you get sudden illumination. The
same happened to me when I was discussing about Raja’s music
with my friend, Arul Selvan. Expanding on some aspect of Raja’s
music (I forgot what it was), I suddenly made a statement. “Raja
believes in us more than we believe in ourselves, musically”. I was
startled by my own discovery. Later I read an interview which Raja
gave to Prem-Ramesh. In that he says, “How can I give you music
which is not already inside you?”.  That has been his main
philosophy, the music you give will resonate with the listener. So
believe in the listener.

In order to understand why this is a major shift in perception as far


as film music is concerned, you need to understand how Tamil films
and film music in particular, approached their audience. There is an
interview of S P Muthuraman, the Tamil film director. He was once
working as an assistant to Devar, whose films involved lot of
animals. (Devar films were known for their devotional films and
animal based films). The movie in which S P Muthuraman had a
scene wherein an elephant does ‘abishekam’ to a Siva Lingam. One
person observing this on the screen says, “Aha. The elephant is
doing abishekam”. S P Muthuraman asked Devar, “Will the audience
not know that the elephant is doing an abishekam?”. Devar replied,
“You are an educated person. Those seeing our films come from all
strata of the society. We cannot take it that they will understand.
We need to be explicit”. That was an era when Tamil film makers
had to explain everything, and I mean, every.single.thing, to the
audience.
It was the same in music industry as well. M S Vishwanathan is well
known to have sung his tunes to tea-boys and if they frowned on a
tune, he would replace it with another one. And would do so till the
tea-boy approved. S D Burman is supposed to have told Jaidev that
he must stop giving complex tunes if he wanted to become more
popular. I have heard people say that Raj Kapoor had the knack of
knowing which tune would be a hit with rickshawallas and choosing
the tune accordingly. In other words, in those days, the chai wallas
and the rickshawallas represented the unwashed masses. People
with not enough sophistication to understand complex music. People
to whom you gave music in the most simplified form. I would
postulate that Raja’s greatest contribution to society is that the fact
that he made people realize that there are no unwashed masses as
far as music was concerned. If you knew what you were delivering
and if you had the ability to deliver that perfectly, every individual
will feel the effect of the song. They may know zilch about the
technicalities but they will be impacted by what the technicalities
set out to do. This extraordinary belief in the listeners ability to
perceive complex systems is what makes Raja stand out. For in it, it
also contained an extraordinary self belief that he can deliver music
that would go and strike a chord deep inside the heart of the listener
and would reside there.

Art, of course, had lot of personalities who have innovated and


expanded its boundaries. You can give examples from painting,
sculpture, music and so on. So it can be argued that Raja was not
unique in this case. In one way, that would be correct. Tyagaraja in
Carnatic music, Picasso in painting and so on can be shown as
examples of innovators. If you look at it from another point of view,
Raja’s challenge was unique. Tyagaraja, for example, composed for
people who understood Carnatic music, Picasso also had a learned
audience. In cases of some other artists, it took time for their art to
be appreciated, like the Impressionists. Raja on the hand had to
please everyone. And I mean everyone. And he didn’t have the
luxury of time. If the songs of a movie were not a hit, you didn’t to
compose for another movie. There have been other music directors
like Sajjad Hussain, Salil Choudhary and Jaidev who had composed
complex music and had reached the masses, but to a limited extent.
They never became the ‘hit’ composers. The complexity they
brought in was quite forward looking for those days but Raja took
this to an altogether different level.
Raja’s philosophy seems to have been, if a tune/orchestration that I
think of, creates a certain feeling inside me, it will create the same
feeling inside the listener. It doesn’t matter if the listener is a PhD in
Physics or a humble rickshawallah. This was the greatest insight
Raja must have got during his tryst with composing and that belief
made music more democratic. This belief enabled Raja to use every
technique he knew in order to produce the intended emotion with a
precision and depth, which was unheard of earlier. As I stated in Part
I of this series, Raja’s aim was to create a certain emotion. And in
doing so use all the tools in his toolkit. This was possible because he
believed that whatever be the technique, if he got the emotion right,
it would impact the listener. This is what has revolutionalized music
learning in South India. Now you can hear so many people talking
about WCM techniques, ragas of carnatic music and so on. This was
the side effect of the belief Raja had in his listeners.

I will try and give you a few examples of this.

When no one knew about counterpoints, Raja came up with this


counterpoint melody and it was in the early stages of his career.
This is a very well loved song even today. You would love it even if
you didn’t know what counterpoint but the song’s effect on would
diminish if there was no counterpoint in the song.

Vivadhi ragas are not encouraged much in Carnatic music, expect


by a few artists. Instead of getting all technical and explaining what
Vivadhi raga is, let me just say that these ragas contain some
portions which are dissonant, which means some note combination
in these ragas sound harsh to our ears. Chalanatai is one such
ragam. It has two pairs of dissonant notes. Given this, most music
directors would shy away from this raga. One, the raga is dissonant.
Two, carnatic music does not have too many compositions in this.
(It’s janya ragam, Naatai, has many compositions though). This is an
unheard of melody even to people trained in carnatic music. Given
these aspects, it is no surprise that we didn’t have any film
composition in this raga. Last thing any music director wants to do is
to set a tune to an unknown melody, especially if you want to give a
superhit song.
Raja, not being just any music director, goes ahead and sets a song
in this raga. This demonstrates the two aspects I spoke about: Raja’s
belief in himself and his belief in us. That enables the creation of a
super hit ‘pani vizhum malar vanam’ from ‘Ninaivellam Nithya’.
Almost every small town troupe in distant corners of Tamil Nadu
wants to play this song. The reach of this song is phenomenal. It
would not have happened if Raja had believed in the ‘chaiwallah’
being musically ignorant.

I will give you another example of a vivadhi raga being used


effectively. Similar to Chalanattai, Kanakangi is a raga which had
two pair of dissonant notes. Raja uses various techniques to ensure
this dissonance is not felt by us. We only feel exactly what the
protagonist feels here. ‘mogam ennum theeyil’ from ‘Sindhu
Bhairavi’

It is not just about carnatic music. In everything he did, Raja never


held back. Before his time, the preludes and interludes were treated
in a very cursory manner. In most cases the same interlude would
repeat between the charanams. The implicit bias was towards the
tune. The logic being that the tune affected the listener the most,
why complicate it with more music in the interlude. Instead let there
be just a quick bridge connecting the stanzas. This can be repeated
again as the listener would be aware of the music and it would be
easy to relate to. Raja changed this. His interludes became more
elaborate, they became more complex than the main tune and he
had different interludes between the stanzas, so much so, that fans
fight as to which interlude is better in a particular song. I need to
point out once again that this was possible because Raja believed in
all of us and our ability to grasp his musical ideas. And all of us did.

Here is a song from his early years, ‘en vanile’ from ‘Johny’.

Let us assume that Raja had created mainly the tune and had not
concentrated much on the interludes. Maybe he just gave a simple
interlude. I would postulate even then the song would have been a
hit. The interludes take it to a different level and they stay put in our
consciousness.  Every note that Raja uses, the bass, the
counterpoint melodies in the interludes, the rhythm. Each of them
enables the song to anchor deeply in our ears and then we cannot
hear the song without the interludes, even when we are singing to
ourselves. Our ears slowly starts to hear all the layers, the piano,
the violin, the flute, the bass guitar.

Connected to this philosophy of believing in the listener is one more


characteristic of Raja, his work ethic. When I say he believes in us, it
automatically means that he will not dilute anything but put in his
best effort in every song. This is not easy. As someone who has
been teaching for a living the past half a decade, I can tell you the
temptation to give ‘just enough’ is very high. It could be because
you believe the audience will not ‘get it’, or you could be tired or
you may not be ‘in mood’ and so on. So sometimes you end up
giving less than your best. That never happens with Raja. His work
ethic is such that he cannot give us anything but the very best.

Let us now see how Raja’s music, with all the effort he puts, impacts
the people. I am going to give an example before closing this post.

From Tiruvasagam, here is Raja singing ‘umbarkatkarase’ from his


album, ‘Tiruvsagam’

You can hear how Raja uses WCM to enhance the tune. The words of
Manikavasagar have their own beauty but when Raja supports them
with his music, it opens a new dimension and takes us into the heart
of Manikavasagar himself. Every note harmoniously supporting the
main idea such that it will never leave us for a long long time.

Now listen to how this has affected the actor Mayilsamy. As he


himself says, he is musically illiterate but see how wonderfully
Raja’s tune has seeped into him. His voice can easily be classified as
bad as can his singing. Yet, with all those handicaps, he brings out
the emotion inherent in the song. Though he sings only the tune
without the orchestration, I postulate that the tune would have not
seeped so deeply into him had it not been for the music. We
ourselves may not realize it but Raja knows. This singing of
Mayilsamy is a clear demonstration of how Raja’s dedication ensures
that his music reaches every corner of each person’s heart.
I can keep on going about this aspect but I am sure Mayilsamy has
convinced you. One of the major reasons why so many people in so
many states love Raja is not just because his music touches their
heart, it is also because he is one of the few who believes in them
deeply.

Will meet in the next post, hopefully soon.

Musical Philosophy of
Raja – Part 1 : It
is emotional
Posted onAugust 17 by raaga_suresh

I have tried to take up a very onerous task: trying to understand the


musical philosophy of Raja. This is an attempt to understand the
workings of a genius mind, which I know is impossible. So this
obviously this will not fully capture (or even pretend to capture) the
mind of Raja but rather expose our own perception and weak
understanding of Raja’s music.

This series will not be technical in nature, for my understanding of


various genres of music is very limited. I am neither a performer nor
a student of music. For technical analysis of Raja’s music, the best
places are:

1. Youtube channel of Violin Vicky, where he demonstrates lot of


Raja pieces and tell you the intricacies associated with that
piece. https://www.youtube.com/user/violinvicky
2. If you know Tamil, then head to Bala’s (@bchidam)
blog https://munpin.net/  Bala analyzes Raja’s music from a Western
Classical Music template as well as for an Indian music perspective.
An extremely ambitious project. If you seriously interested in music,
I would suggest you follow this blog.
Also since this is about musical philosophy, you will find lot of
written words here. So if you are only looking for song links and
song recos, this is a wrong place. I want you to read, ruminate and
respond. That’s the idea of this series.

Having got the disclaimers out of the way, let me go and give you
my first assertion. This is my understanding of Raja’s philosophy.
The assertion is, “The primary aim of music must be to evoke
emotions”. In this regard, I would like to bifurcate music into one
that is purely interested in the possibilities of sound and one which
is interested in conveying the emotional content inherent in music.

Let me explain this in detail. Let us take the concept of raga. Raga
as such is nothing but experimenting with the possibilities of sound
in a structured fashion. According to me, the main concern of all
classical music: Western, Carnatic and Hindustani, is the same.
Explore the possibilities of sound. Western classical music tries to
explore the possibilities of sound in terms of harmonies and Indian
classical music explores it in terms of melodies and micro tones. The
aim though remains the same. To extrapolate, when a musician is
singing Kalyani, he/she is exploring the sound with certain
restriction and giving ‘shape’ to it. He/She is not aiming for a certain
emotion. A raga alapana need not worry about conveying a
particular emotion. It is about conveying a ‘color’ of the raga.

You can argue that an artist can make alapanais emotional. You can
further argue that some ragas have certain emotions inherent in
them, like Subhapanthuvarali being sad and Aarabhi being happy
and so on. While it is true for a small set of ragas, the general
concept is to establish a ‘color’ for the raga which is not ’emotional’
in the standard sense of the word. For example, in case of grand
raga like Todi or Kambhoji, you cannot really establish a particular
emotion in its development. Yes, you can develop Todi in such a way
that you bring out a certain emotion out of it, but if you want to
show the fully scope of Todi, you cannot afford to focus any one
particular emotion.

If ragas and scales are not emotional in themselves, then how is


some music so emotional. This comes about in multiple ways. In
Carnatic music, depending on the raga, you may only show one
aspect of the raga to get a particular emotion. Added to this are the
words and the way words are intoned. The same goes for Hindustani
music. In Western Classical Music (WCM) it is more about how
harmonies are used and how various instruments are sound, which
gives you the required emotion. Because of its polyphonic nature,
WCM is much more suited to evoke a large range of emotions, which
Raja effectively leverages.

Not just the concept of ragas and scales, there are music composers
who have compositions which are experimental in nature and they
explore the possibilities of harmonies, fusion and so on. These
pieces may not evoke any strong emotions but give you an idea on
what directions music can take. (The music itself may not evoke
emotions but these experiments do evoke strong emotions in form
of protests)

According to me, Raja sees music through the emotional prism. For
him, music has to serve the emotional need. He has never
advocated experiment for the sake of experiment. All his
experiments have an emotional bias. Raja has only three
‘independent albums’, of which only two are really independent:
‘How to Name It’ and ‘Nothing but Wind’.  You can argue that even
these evoke lot of emotions in you and you don’t hear them as mere
academic exercise in fusion.

So once Raja approaches music from an emotional point of view,


every form of music becomes part of his tool kit. Whether it be
Indian classical, WCM, folk, older Indian film music, jazz or rock. He
doesn’t care for the genres. He just uses them to get the exact
emotion he is looking for. His experimentation with genres is
probably not an experiment at all from his point of view. He is just
using the genres to get the right effect.

This is one reason why his ‘fusion’ doesn’t sound like fusion at all.
He is not looking at various genres of music as different from each
but rather he is looking at them as a part of larger toolkit of sound.
(I will try and expand this thought in a later post in this series with
examples. ) Ofcourse this requires an extraordinary understanding
of music forms. Not only that, it requires a genius brains to look at
commonalities beyond the apparent differences. Raja is one of the
very few minds in world music (maybe even the only one) who can
look deep into music as well look at it from far above.

Let us now look at all these with some examples.

I start with the emotion of joy. ‘ananda ragam’ from ‘Paneer


Pushpangal’

Right from the prelude you can see how Raja generates joy. He uses
both Western Classical Music, the violins playing the counter melody
to the flute on one hand. On the other hand he uses
Simhendramadhyamam ragam to convey the joy. Not to mention
the shenai piece in between. Add to it the way rhythm is used,
especially in the charanam. The gait represents the beating of the
heart in joy. So a lot of techniques, genres go into giving us the
intended emotion. Even if the person has no clue on where the song
was used in the movie or does not understand Tamil, it will clear to
the person that this is a song of joy. The music alone tells us this
fact.
Now let us shift to the diametrically opposite emotion: a sense of
despondency and anger. This is from the movie, ‘Merku Thodarchi
Malai’, ‘andharathil thongudhamma’.

You will notice that in this song Raja doesn’t use the WCM much.
Rather he uses the more modern drum machine and loops as well as
the synthesizer. Ofcourse the tune captures the anger and
helplessness perfectly. The synthesizer and loops are generally
applied by most music directors to give ‘item numbers’ or ‘dance
numbers’. Here Raja uses it to deepen the darkness inherent in the
lyrics. Once again, play the way without the lyrics and you would
know what emotion the song is trying to convey

Let us now take up a humorous song. ‘vel murugannuku’ from ‘Puyal


Padum Paatu’

Here you hear Raja employing some rock and roll techniques initially
to get the fun mood going. Another interesting point (which I want to
write as a separate post later) is the usage of Mohanam for
conveying fun. Mohanam is generally used for melodious songs.
Raja uses it for a fun song. So here you see a combination of
carnatic ragam with rock and roll to create a sense of fun. Once
again, and sorry for repeating it, the song conveys the emotion
without the lyrics.

You don’t always need to get multiple genres together to create an


emotion. Sometimes you can create the required emotion in a
minimalist way.  From the movie, ‘Achuvinte Amma’, ‘endhu
paranjalum’

The single violin with the keyboard in the background creates the
mood, which is sustained by the tabla and the flute which peeks in
occasionally. This song shows how to create the required emotion
with only a few instruments and yet make it look like a large
orchestra was playing !!

Generally most songs you hear are pegged to a single emotion: joy,
sadness, anger and so on. What if you need to convey multiple
emotions in a song. Not like one stanza being happy and another
being sad but the full song itself being a melange of emotions. Raja
has done this in more than one occasion and nothing can convey
this than the song from ‘Nee Dhane En Pon Vasantham’, ‘mudhal
murai partha nyabagam’

A bit of explanation here. The song is not ‘sung’ by the heroine in


the traditional sense of the word, as in the actor is not lip syncing.
The plays in the background and more like you hearing the soul of
the heroine. This song is a combination of self hatred, nostalgia and
anger. The heroine is getting the feeling that she is losing her lover
and that throws her heart into a turmoil. She blames herself for the
impending loss and at the time recollects the wonderful time she
had with him. This complexity of the heart about to break up with a
loved one has to be conveyed and honestly they are myriad
emotions in such a heart. Raja captures those emotions perfectly in
this song.

To get the required emotion, Raja uses different techniques: WCM in


case of the strings, jazz drumming, an aggressive bass and a filmi
chorus. And suddenly a single violin to get that sadness. I honestly
cannot find any song in Indian film music which conveys so many
emotions and with such intensity. The counter melody that the
strings play in the charanam when they accompany the voice adds
an extraordinary depth to the song.

Finally, I will give you a type of song which has been in Indian film
music for a long time now, the philosophical song. Raja once again
uses all his musical prowess to convey the intended emotion.

From the unreleased movie, ‘Thandavakone’, the amazing ‘neeral


udal kazhuvi’

Here Raja uses a sythesizer to convey the philosophical import of


the song. It is an extremely different soundscape that Raja evokes.
A friend mentioned that he has the CD on when he was driving from
Chennai to Bangalore and it was night time. When this song came
on, he heard a few lines and was so scared that he stopped playing
the song. Another friend remarked, ‘hearing the music made me feel
as if I was in the cremation ground’. A syntesizer, a few drum beats,
a mandolin and Punnagavarali create this extraordinary mood.

Be it Carnatic music, WCM, Rock-nRoll, Jazz, Synthesizer or any


other form, in the hands of Raja they become instruments to convey
an emotion or multiple emotions.

Will end the first part here. And a final disclaimer. I don’t have any
specified schedule to post these. I will do than whenever I get time
and whenever I am in a mood to write. So kindly bear with me.

Recent Female Solos


of Raja
Posted onAugust 6, 2017 by raaga_suresh
No music director has given so many superb female solos like Raja
has. Yes, there have been great combinations like Madanmohan –
Lata and Baburaj – S Janaki which gave us some everlasting
melodies but no one was able to provide the width and depth that
Raja provides in the female solos. From the sensuous to the sublime
(are they really different?) Raja has covered the whole gamut of
human emotions via the female solos. If you collate only the female
solos given by Raja, that itself would be enough to establish Raja as
the greatest music director Indian Film Music has ever seen. Such
has been the scope of female solos in his oeuvre.

I will discuss some of the recent female solos that were given by
Raja. All of them are very melodic. Many of them happen to be in
Telugu and Malayalam. In recent movies that Raja has been
involved in, the number of songs have been limited (maybe 2 songs
in a movie) or no songs at all (like Onayum Aatukuttiyum, Kutrame
Dhandanai). Even with the 2 song limitation or short song (to be
played in the background) limitation, he has come up with some
lovely melodies.

Let me start with this amazing melody in Bhavatharini’s voice. Even


those who are not fans of Bhavatharini will like this melody. A touch
of melancholy pervades this melody. The orchestration is top notch.
‘nannu neetho’ from ‘Gundello Godari’ will make your day. The WCM
first interlude enhances the melancholy aspect and as with a lot of
Raja orchestration, then are sudden shifts which surprise us and
enhance the listening experience. The charanam too has his
patented shifts and the way he joins back to pallavi is Rajaesuqe. I
love the second interlude and the sense of calm it brings with it.

The next song has a philosophical tone. Nice words from


Na.Muthukumar. The song is in montage and the small challenges of
life. The tune and orchestration are such that they convey the
overall picture and at the same times the tune digs deep into your
heart affecting you deeply. Shreya does a great job with her
melodious voice

‘kalaiyile malai vandhadhu’ is from ‘Chittiraiyil Nilachoru’ directed


by R.Sundarrajan. Raja has always been partial to Sundarrajan and
this film was no exception. This song is an experimental one with
the main classical line being countered with synth beats and
keyboard. There is also veena and nadaswaram which appear as
guests. The interlude brilliantly marries classical music to pop
sound. This is a very different Abheri. As usual, the bass does a
fabulous job. Some may have wanted a more standard orchestration
for this but if you know Raja’s way, this is very enjoyable.

We will now shift to Malayam and listen to a breezy song. I had


written earlier about how Raja creates movement in his music. This
song is about the breeze and here too Raja creates the movement of
the breeze. There tune and orchestration are so constructed as to
provide the required dynamism to the song. This is from the
Malayalam film ‘Dafedar’ and sung by Alka Ajith, who became
popular after having won the singing competition, ‘Super Singer’, on
Vijay TV. Watch out for that lovely AnuPallavi. I have heard Malayalis
call it ‘tundu pallavi’

I spoke about short songs being used a BGM. Here is one such song
for ‘Amma Kanakku’. The tune and orch bring out the sensitivity of
the situation. This is not a situation for experiementation. Raja
keeps everything minimal and enhances the scenes.

We get back to Telugu again. From the movie, ‘Abbayitho Ammayi’.


The start itself is terrific. The acoustic guitar strumming followed by
the lead guitar which plays what sounds like a Middle Eastern sound.
The bass does its superb job when accompanying the pallavi. The
beat structure and the pallavi structure are unique. A song which
could only have been constructed by Raja.  Or as we informally say,
‘Only Raja Possible’. Also notice how the orchestra interacts with the
tune in the charanam.

He followed this up in Telugu with this superb beauty in the recent


movie, ‘Kathalo Rajakumar’. ‘na kathalo yuvarani’. One more
amazing melody against his name. This is trademark Raja of modern
times. Merging the melody with newer sounds and being at peace
with it.
Let us now move from these gay songs to a poignant one. ‘vaa vaa
magale’ from ‘Enga Amma Rani’. Rajshri Pathak delivers the song.
The prelude paints the mood of desperation and the tune latches to
it to increase the sense of dread. Based on one of Raja’s favorite
Raga, Mayamalavagowla, it is a master class on how to use a raga
for your purpose. No one delivers this lecture better than Raja and
that too when Mayamalavagowla is the example he is talking about

We will now move to a grand composition from ‘Rudrammadevi’,


‘punnami poovai’. The orchestration is keeping in line with the
magnum opus that Gunashekar tried to make. Observe the vocal
harmony in the first interlude and the counterpoint of the vocal with
the orchestration. Similarly in the charanam when the tune changes,
observe the countermelody between the tune and the bass which
plays. An outstanding construction which is grand and delicate at
the same time.

If ‘punnami poovai’ was grand, then this Shreya Ghoshal song from
the yet to be released Malayalam film ‘Clint’ is very intimate. Melody
is the key for this song and Shreya’s voice aids in this aspect. There
is a joy which spreads when you hear this song

All the attributes that I mentioned above for the ‘Clint’ song are
present in this superb melody from ‘Sneha Veedu’, ‘avani thumbi’.
Once more it is Shreya. I love this song to bits right from the starting
prelude.

I will end with the superbly innovative ‘chengkadhir kaiyum veesi’


from ‘Snehaveedu’. This song is set in Misra Chapu thalam, which is
a 7 beat cycle. Raja brilliantly keeps shifting the ‘eduppu’, starting
point, in the charanams thus giving the song a bit of asymmetry
which makes it interesting for the listener and a challenge for the
singer. Also, observe the hand beats in the second interlude. This is
one ‘Raja Only Possible’ song. Chitra, as usual, does a wonderful job.
She is anyway known for that.

Hope you loved listening to these songs.


 

Rajavin Ramanamalai
Posted onJuly 22, 2017 by raaga_suresh

Recently, ‘Rajavin Ramanamalai’ was released. This title could


cause some confusion as a title named ‘Ramanamalai’ with Raja’s
tunes had been released earlier. As it stands, we have two
Ramanamalais. I am going to write my opinion on the second
Ramanamalai.

This album has a total of 10 songs, 8 of which are tuned by Raja and
2 of them tuned by a person called KVS and orchestrated by Raja.
Let’s have a look at the songs.

Except for the Bombay Jayashree song, ‘arunagiri ramanan’, all


songs start with a small speech of Raja, wherein he talks about
Ramana Maharishi. I am including samples of some songs. You can
buy the album
here: http://bookstore.sriramanamaharshi.org/index.php?
main_page=product_info&cPath=180&products_id=6679
‘thirunalum‘ – Sung by Raja. This is a wonderful tune. Very simple
and touching. I am not sure which raga this is based on. Is it Pahadi?
If you know, let me know. The song has a lovely bass line. The
orchestration in all songs in kept simple. The chorus adds to the
beauty of the song and keeps up the bhajan mood of the song.
‘arunagiri ramanan’ : Sung by Bombay Jayashree and
chorus. This is the simplest song of the album. It is meant for group
singing with very little in the way of twists and turns in the tune.
That is compensated by the interlude. The first interlude is a gem.
‘annamalai saralile’ : Sung by Sriram Parthsarathy. Based on
Saranga Tharangini ragam. It sounds very close to Hamsanadam. I
was told it was not so I am writing Saranga Tharangini. If it sounds
like Hamsanadam to you, you are in the same boat as me. A gentle
melody with some nice interludes. The soft touch is maintained
throughout and Sriram does a nice job.
‘idayathai eduthukkondan‘: Sung by Sriram Parthasarathy. This
song will appeal to you almost instantly for it is based on
ReethiGowla. Once again some lovely interludes and a charming
charanam.
‘yaar arivar‘: Tune composed by KVS and sung by Shankaran
Namboodhri. A light classic tune. Shankaran Nambhoodri sings it
well.
‘edhai adaya‘: Another KVS composed tune sung by
Shankaran Namboodhri. Based on Gowla. Once again a classical
sounding composition.
‘vedhamum vilakkadha unnai’ : Sung by Bombay Jayashree. A
lovely tune based on Shanmukhapriya. It becomes better in the
charanam. Jayashree’s singing adds lustre though sometimes there
is a bit of confusion between la and La. The way the tune reaches
high in the charanam and then effortlessly joins the pallavi is typical
Raja.
‘arputham arputham‘: Sung by Raja. What a charming melody. So
delicate and delicious. Based on Sudha Dhanyasi.
‘ennaiyum thaan ennum‘: Sung by Sriram Parthaarathy. It is
difficult to select one song as best but if I need to, then I will choose
this melody. A complex melody with a superb rhythm structure.
Sriram once again does a nice song. A lovely amalgamation of folk
and classical without being obvious.
‘eesan enru sollavo‘: Sung by Rajashri Pathak. The most
aggressive tune of the lot. Based on Mayamalavagowla. One more
variation to Mayamalavagowla. Raja comes up with so many
variations in this raga that it is mind boggling. The volume of this
song is very low on my CD. No idea why.
This album pack also has a DVD. In that you have the video of Raja
singing two songs, Sriram Parthasarathy singing one song and
Bombay Jayashree singing one song. You can buy the album for this
video alone. In the video, there is a place where Bombay Jayashree
finishes a line and then like a small kid asking if she has sung right,
she smiles and looks up. Priceless. So are the parts where Raja is at
the console and singing along with the singers.

Overall, a top class devotional album. Very simple and sweet. Gives
a very peaceful feeling. Go buy it.

Despair of
the dispossessed
Posted onJune 13, 2017 by raaga_suresh

The most recent song from ‘Merku Thodarchi Malai’ had me thinking
about some songs of Raja wherein Raja tunes to voices of the
dispossessed. Some of these have a striking similarity in the way
Raja approaches them.

In our film music, we generally hear sad songs sung by the


dispossessed or we hear revolutionary songs of the people who are
trampled underneath. In the case of some Raja songs, you hear the
sadness of the person singing and also hear the anger inherent in
the situation. The song, though sad, is supported by vigorous
orchestration. They rhythm is a bit harsh for a sad song but that is
what adds to the overall sadness of the situation.

Here is a song from ‘Koil Kalai’. ‘thaai undu thandhai undu’

Right from the beginning, the rhythm is strong. Very rarely will you
hear such a rhythm played for a sad song but here it makes perfect
sense. The strong rhythm also serves another purpose. It balances
the song. In the sense that it ensures that the song doesn’t become
maudlin. The extreme self-pity in the words, the grief inherent in the
tune balanced by the drums, thus ensuring equilibrium. The strong
drumming also ensures we understand the turmoil of the man
singing the song.

Another song which shares similar characteristics with the Koil Kalai
song is ‘kannil parvai’ from ‘Naan Kadavul’. The tune here is more
melodic and is not as harsh as the previous one but this is also
suffused with self-pity. Raja once again balances the sadness part
with the vigorous drumming with seems initially at odds with the
nature of the song but slowly you realise that the orchestration
perfectly captures the turmoil of a blind beggar girl who has no
possessions.

Some months back a song from ‘Marudhanayagam’ was released. It


is a vigorous song, revolutionary in tone but if you hear the words
they are suffused with sadness. It is the sadness of people who are
victimised and have no hope of obtaining justice. All they know that
it is their blood that will flow. Hidden in this sadness are the seeds of
revolution. And the tune and orchestration imply the same.
That such sadness and injustice lead to revolt is spoken more
explicitly in this song from  ‘Avatharam’. The song starts off as a sad
one with the drumming foretelling a revolt. Slowly the song reaches
a climax with the singer urging the hero to perform the ‘samharam’.

I spoke about the latest song from ‘Merku Thodarchi Malai’ in the


beginning. This is another song in the same mould. The sadness of a
displaced person. Once again, Raja uses excellent drumming to
convey the internal turmoil. The tune also helps us in understand
the helplessness of the singer. The song is a sad song but
everything about the song is energetic. Raja shows us that sadness
itself has many shades and how deep the despair of the
dispossessed is. Listen to this very disturbing song.

In Indian film music, there have been many revolutionary songs and
sad songs of the dispossessed but I have never heard music
directors approach it the way Raja does. Raja’s combination of
energy and sadness to represent the state of internal turmoil is
unique in Indian film music.

 
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