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Friday, May 25, 2007

Barse Badariya - Meera Bhajan - My composition rendered by Swati Kanitkar

Song : Barse Badariya
Singer : Swati Kanitkar
Lyrics: Meera Bhajans
Composition : Murali Venkatraman
Special Thanks : Sanjeev Ramabhadran




It has been almost 5 yrs or even more..since I have known Swati Kanitkar (Kaushiji). The very first tamil song I composed on Krishna - "thendrale en kaNNananai" was inpired by her voice in yahoo chat, although the ragas or scales of thendrale and the song which 'inspired' it were completely different. In fact I do not even remember the song which supposedly inspired it. So I guess it was just her voice.

After some initial dabbliing with tamil songs, I decided to compose a meera bhajan and this is what I did:

(1) Did a search in internet for meera bhajan lyrics
(2) Picked up the first one I saw
(3) And composed the tune.

In this process I deliberately avoided listening to or knowing about how meera bhajans had been composed earlier. I composed two songs like this - Barse Badariya and Aisee laagi lagan - only to come to know later that they had already been tuned by some great composers too. Barse was composed by Hridayanath Mangeshkar and has also other versions in raga Megh and ragamalika whereas the song aisee laagi lagan had been immortalized by Anup Jalota.

No wonder when I started composing my first hindi song, I wanted Swati to grace it.
And grace it she did, with unmatched elan that I had seen none doing earlier. The song was originally conceived with two voices - Sanjeev Ramabhadran and Swati Kanitkar - in mind, but later I wanted a vocals only version given my impoverished graduate life and lack of musical equipment. And what you hear is the version that Swati infused life into. Special thanks to Sanjeev for participating in discussions pertinent to this song.

And this was composed 5 or 6 years ago and is one of the many songs (another one is alankruta )that I have lost patience with since I am never going to get to orchestrate these. Please let me and Swati know how you all like it.

26 comments:

  1. Leaves a feeling as fresh as it did when I first heard it years back. Some things are evergreen. This sure is one of them.
    No words can do justice to this composition and rendition!

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  2. Anonymous5:30 AM

    Awesome composition. Excellent rendition. Looks like you gave her a tough task to accomplish and she has handled it with such aplomb.

    Ms. Swati has a very traditional "North Indianness" about her voice. The moment I heard her voice, the association was done. I am unsure if the voice->N. India or if it was because I saw her surname to be Kanitkar prior to listening. Immaterial anyways. The initial humming/aalaapanai is splendid.

    rc.

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  3. Hi Murali,

    awesome renderation by Ms. Swati.it was gr8 hearing Meera bhajan.the clarity in voice is marvellous. gr8 work done by u ppl. keep gving us more & more good music. the show must go on & on murali. good work.....

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  4. Wonderful composition murali, and swati was awesome in her flaw less rendition, but felt it was little too high in places, may be you should have gone for one step low in the pitch.

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  5. Extremely good composition and a divine rendition by Swatiji....I've been a fan of her voice ever since I heard Dayaghana.....but I did feel the pitch could have been slightly lower for her in certain places....excellent team work :)

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  6. Murali, glad to see this posted.. hope you get around to completing the music soon :)! Its great work by both of you!

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  7. Murali ....excellent composition and very well sung by Swati. Just that I thought that Swati was straining to reach the high notes...I agree to one of the comments above...could have slightly lowered the pitch.

    Great job !!

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  8. Excellent composition and swati rendered it very well.

    Murali, Why dont you sing this composition :)

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  9. though i am not tat fluent wit raga s n stuff! very soothening rendition!! hats off to u guys!!:)

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  10. Very nice composition and very well sung.
    Hope to hear more from you.
    Jothi

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  11. nice composion.the tune is very good.good singing

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  12. Long time..Hope u r doing good..
    Composition & rendering..both are awesome!
    Great voice you have Ms.Swati.
    Beautiful work Murali.

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  13. Anonymous8:03 AM

    Murali, very nice!

    I have one more neyar viruppam in addition to Pen Maane,

    Kaatrin Mozhiye from Mozhi

    --Vijay.

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  14. Very good attempt. Wonderful composition and very well sung. Keep posting more songs :)

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  15. Anonymous2:56 AM

    A Good attempt of Meera Bhajan.... Hats off to you...

    Sri

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  16. Anonymous2:57 AM

    Keep posting more...

    -Chulpuli...

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  17. Awesome composition and sung superbly by Swati

    Deblina

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  18. Anonymous9:14 PM

    Mahati says...

    Song has a very filmy and rahmanish kind of feel in composition - I can't think of this song in the league of your alankrutha sundara roopam which was truly classical kind while this one is filmy - singer was melodious, skilled in perfecting with notes arranged with all kinds of surprising turns.

    Note that being filmy is not a bad comparison but a compliment by itself - Hridayanath mangeskar's composition of this song is very jovial yet a classical in all possible ways and lataji's rendition is too great - your song was so pleasantly different.

    You don't need to orchestrate much for this one, simple tambura and tabla will do wonders. Any decent tabla guy can play nice meters for this composition, so sing and record as is...unless you want to add some electronic sounds for any bad reasons...so don't wait to complete it!

    All the best for both of you!

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  19. Awesome truly professional composition..
    Look forward to more Ghazals and Bhajans from you..!

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  20. very well sung....
    keep up the good work..
    kala aunty

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  21. beautiful rendition, but i'm keen to know what raaga this is based on! kindly inform me. thanks =)

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  22. Anonymous6:01 PM

    I concur with other blogger that it has filmy touch. Sadly the emotions of bhajan are not captured at all to say the least. moving around from jog to gaud malhar to yaman to piloo etc. won't do the justice to Meera's work. yes, it's entertaining and nice voice though.

    Pl. listen to original work in meera CD at sonarupa.co.uk, I think it's Jayant malhar and superbly rendered/composed.

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  23. Very good composition.
    beautifully sung by Swati.

    I feel addition of just tabla and sitar or tamboora will enhance its beauty.

    thanks,
    with best wishes

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  24. I appreciate you for this stunning effort. It was very refreshing. Congratualtions. I came across this site while browsing for Meera bhajans.

    Keep it up!!!

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  25. omg.. Awesome composition n nice rendition by them..

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  26. Anonymous10:21 AM

    I love this song!

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