Song : Ooradangum SaamaththilE
Movie: Pudhuppatti ponnuthaayi
Singers : Swarnalatha, Uma Ramanan
Composer : Ilaiyaraja
Performed by : Sindhuja Bhaktavatsalam, Meera Manohar
Karaoke by : Murali Venkatraman
Ooradangum saamathilae | Music Upload
It is a regularity for IR to produce songs of high melodic strength in movies that have the least probability to survive for even three days after their release. Some excellent examples include:
1. Songs from Eeravizihi kaaviyangaL (this was released in the morning and ran successfully till afternoon)
2. Songs from Koyil puRa
3. Geetham Sangeetham from Kokkarakko
4. siruponmaNi asaiyum from some sudhakar movie
Pudhuppati Ponnuthaayi - was another movie which he chose to lavish with some great numbers. Two of those numbers include : Ooradangum and azagaana nam paaNdi naattinilE. Swarnalatha was absolutely velvety in her vocals in Ooradangum and this received a lot of air time in the TV (apparently and mistakenly christened as a Midnight-Masala song although it had nothing masala about it). It was featured in dhool:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dhoolsotd/message/302
I had been thinking of bringing some of my favorite blog singers together for some of my compositions. But then I remembered that this Ilaiyaraja song was an easy number to make a karaoke for. Once I had made the Karaoke, I sent it to Meera (a self-procalimed Swarnalatha aficionado :) ) and Sindhu to see if they could sing and they did.
It was really awesome to listen to both their voices with equal singing importance. Look for some very good expressions by Meera ("thoongaama vaadurEne") and Sindhu ("karpooramaattam urugi urugi"). I do believe that many of the blog singers are serious contenders for professional recordings. And Meera and Sindhu, are certainly among those strong contenders. Please let us know how you all feel about it.
Introduction and Announcements
New Original !
Aankhon ko - आँखों को
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Sharath - The Musical Enigma - Part 2
Idol 7 - Sharath - The Musical Enigma - Part 2
Impressions of an Amateur Musician
- Murali Venkatraman (dhool.com)
- Murali Venkatraman (dhool.com)
3. Chaithra GeethangaL
As if Sharath was not happy with the gargantuan effort and complexity that he subjected Unnikrishnan and listeners to in Sudha mantram, he went on to record some more similar difficult songs for an album called Chaithra GeethangaL. This time he chose to discard tongue twisting swara phrases and chose to have all the songs aalaap and sahityam based. (Readers please be advised that I have no information as to whether he did Sudha Mantram first and Chaithra GeethangaL next. I just happened to hear them in that order.)
The entire album was rich in melody and Sharath had chosen to tell people that he can create songs that people could understand. The best song of the album, as agreed by my friend Raja Govindarajan (Kansas Raja or rajaG), is "Madhuram gayathi mama hrudhayam" by Chitra. This song starts off in the scale of hindholam and deftly uses the root-note shift concept to have a few phrases in mohanam in charanam. The most baffling link (or its lack of) between the charanam and pallavi is the aalaap which winds down in mohanam but the pallavi starts in hindholam as its ShruthibhEdam. This once gain shows the complexity of thought but does not compromise on the melody due primarily to the beautiful voice of Chitra who goes on a roller coaster ride of swarasthanams and still extracts the nectar of melody.
Listen to Madhuram Gayathi
Although Madhuram is a beautiful song, I got really tired with the synthetic trumpet or saxophone prelude which has a long winding aalaap. In fact, one starts to wonder if it was really necessary in the first place. After getting to know from Bhavadharini– a professional singer who works with Sharath occasionally – that he pretty much sequences everything in the Keyboard itself and lets other instrumentalists arrive and practice their portions based on the sequenced song later, I hypothesize that the complex and seemingly unfocused aalap in the beginning of the song, has been played by none other than Sharath himself. May be I will confirm this with him someday if I get to meet him. But that prelude is a serious deterrent in an otherwise awesome composition.
Chaithra geethangaL featured both Srinivas and Chitra and Srinivas in his silky voice renders some tough songs. For the sheer melody - bandhura vasandhya sandhye - takes the cake. Milder form of raga hamasadhwani is beautifully captured in this song with a bit of Vatapi Ganapathim poking its nose in the interludes. Of course, the charanams have the characteristic detours to other ragas.
Listen to Bandhura vasandhya sandhye :
Another beautiful song is gopike nin maaRil aarO chaarthi chandanangaL. A very nice melody however, sprinkled with interludes that lack any definite structure. I see influences of reethi gowLai in the composition. I don’t know how many of us know that Sharath is a walking encyclopaedia of Ilaiyaraja’s (IR) songs (Check this discussion which talks about Sharath’s comments on IR ). I have heard about this from two independent sources : rajaG and Murali Ramanathan. (Murali happened to be a contestant in Idea Star Singer and had the good opportunity to interact with Sharath.) Well, IR never let his interludes go unregistered in mind. For example, when somebody thinks of nilaave vaa, he also remembers along with it, the first flute interlude and the second violin interlude. He or she may not know the beautiful layers that IR overlays, but they certainly remember the lead melody of the interlude in a monophonic fashion. And even when IR employs a root-note shift in a song, it is always a smooth sailing in the interludes where the listener hardly recognizes the transition. An excellent example is Poonkaatrile from paattu paadava in which the charanam and pallavi are in different scales. Certainly Sharath has not done it successfully in this album.
Listen to this Gopike nin maaRil
However, the song that really leaves the listener befuddled is "niLaiyude maaril". The chord progression and the beginning of the song are absolutely disjointed ( not saying inharmonious) and borrowing rajaG’s words:
"If anybody is to attempt this song live, oru note thappinaalum govindha dhaan from the beginning"
karaNam thappinaal maraNam - this is the what any singer would describe this song as. Sindhuja rightly wondered "Srinivas idhai eppadi paadinaar ?!!!". Well given the recording facilities these days, it is relatively easy to record such complex scale-shifting songs in multiple takes, although conceiving them can be a real gargantuan effort and needs mammoth talent. However, in my opinion, even the most difficult concepts conceived by the author must be explained in as simple terms as possible. Or else, the genius will get buried and may have to wait till somebody, familiar with employing simpler verbatim, digs the work up from the grave of the genius à la Galois. ( http://dhool.com/ is certainly one such digger )
Listen to NiLaiyude maaril
Although, Sharath has openly claimed IR is his favourite music director, in my assessment his style borders on Hrudayanath Mangeshkar’s who is probably the senior most in the band of tough composers. More about him in a later article.
=========
Part 1 : http://swara.blogspot.com/2008/04/sharath-musical-enigma-part-1.html
Part 2 : http://swara.blogspot.com/2008/07/idol-7-sharath-musical-enigma-part-2.html
Part 3 : http://swara.blogspot.com/2008/08/sharath-musical-enigma-part-3.html
Part 4 : http://swara.blogspot.com/2008/09/sharath-musical-enigma-part-4-final.html
Friday, July 04, 2008
Tutorial - Recording your voice along with Karaoke using a computer
I receive many mails from people who are interested in creating an audio-blog for themselves but are unfamiliar with how to record their voices on the computer. I have written this tutorial to help them kick-start their singing. I have also included how one could possibly make a Karaoke. However, it must be kept in mind that this is only a basic guide for Karaoke singing using some of the freely available softwares. If somebody wants to take up singing and recording seriously for recording albums, he or she has to go a studio. What is illustrated is pretty much for fun.
Essentials:
Any basic recording set up would require the following (approx price in the braces):
1. Computer - $800
2. Sound card - $200
3. Microphone - $100
4. Headphones - $50
5. Recording software - $0
If you discount the computer cost, you would incur not more than $350 which is very good for home recording.
1. Computer:
OS - Windows 2000/XP
RAM - 512 MB
Disk space - at least 1 GB
Sound in a computer is a file. Computer recognizes multiple formats off which WAV and MP3 are the most popular in the music circles. WAV is un compressed audio file whereas MP3 is a compressed format without a considerable loss in quality. Almost all the audio blogs these days use MP3s. Typically an Indian song is 5 to six minutes long. A commercially recorded CD track when converted to WAV format typically at 44.1 kHz and 128 kbps produces a file which is approximately 10 MB / min of song length. Thus a WAV file is usually 50 to 60 MB in size. When compressed to MP3 format, the file size becomes approximately 1/10 of the original WAV file.
Why is WAV file important ? That is because the computers and most of the music softwares in the world recognize WAV files (exception being real player) and when you record audio on to a computer it is always a WAV file. since WAV files are 50 to 60 MB in size, a computer with a disk space is necessary. Moreover, the music softwares perform a lot of floating point calculations and hence at least 512 MB RAM is necessary.
And for the Operating system I use Win XP with SP2 and I am very happy to recommend it.
2. Sound card:
The sound card of the computer is the heart of sound generation both for playback and recording. However, most of the sound cards that come bundled with either the desktops or laptops are of inferior quality and I strongly discourage using them. ( Can a sound card that is bundled with the laptop or desktop (usually on-board) do the same job ? Answer is yes. however, it would have high background noise and latency ). Since you want to sing and record an inexpensive home studio sound card would do wonders.
When opting to go for a good soundcard, you need to decide whether you want an internal (PCI) or external portable sound card. I strongly recommend external soundcard since they are easy to install and are highly portable. Also you donot have to install a PCI component yourself if you are not good at such things.
I suggest one of these three - All are excellent:
1. Tascam US 122L
2. M-audio - Fast Track USB / fast Track Pro
3. M-audio - Firewire solo
The first two soundcards are USB based. Third one is based on Firewire. I have used all these three myself and I have had no issues with them. They are stable and offer excellent sound. You should be able to purchase it from an online store or zzsounds.com.
If you are using the sound card with a laptop, you may have to buy an external power adapter to boost the elecrical signal. It may not be needed for USB based soundcard, but definitely needed for Firewire based sound cards.
Installation is really simple and straight forward. You would install the driver and then connect the hardware. Reversing the process will lead to instability sometime. Once you have installed the soundcard, internal or external, make sure that you restart the system and enter the BIOS and deactivate the internal on-board sound card and restart. This will make the computer use your new soundcard exclusively. Any sound generated, like for e.g. if you play a song on the computer, can be heard in your new soundcard. And you will see what a difference it makes especially if you are listening to some compositions of Rehman.
3. Microphone and pop filter:
There are two types of microphones:
1. Dynamic
2. Condenser
An excellent article on comparing these two types can be found here. In my opinion, a condenser mic is unnecessary for a person who wants to record just vocals. A dynamic microphone is more than sufficient. In fact, most of the audio bloggers I know use dynamic microphones. The dynamic microphones are cheap and certainly reliable and rugged. The brands that I suggest are:
1. Shure - SM58
2. Shure - SM57
3. AKG-80
Most of the songs I have posted on my blog were recorded with a $30 Sony mic (which I bought when I was on a shoestring budget). It is good enough for me, but I do have an AKG-80 with which I have recorded 2 or 3 songs. I strongly recommend SM58.
Condenser mics need phantom power of 48 V. Do not supply phantom power to dynamic mic.
A pop filter reduces the "pop" sounds when you open your lips for saying some syllables. Buy a Nady pop-filter. Pretty good. It should be place between your mouth and the mic.
4. Headphones:
I have audio-technica headphones. They are warm to the ears and cheap for the wallet.
5. Recording Software:
Most of the soundcards come with a lite version of a professional recording software these days - for e.g. Ableton Live or Cubase SL. These are very powerful softwares and if you know how to get them working for you, you do not have to read further. However, if you end up buying a cheap soundcard with no free software or a soundcard with software which you fear is way too complicated, read on.
I recommend Audacity (Better download the stable release, I am never a fan of over-functional but undependable betas) - a free software which is more than sufficient for home-studio-vocal recordings.
Also download the LAME MP3 encoder which is available along with Audacity.
Recording:
Any recording has at least 3 stages:
1. Preprocessing setup :
a. Ensure that the microphone gain in your mic input of soundcard is not more than 40%.
b. Ensure that you dont have speakers on, but that you hear the output in headphones. This prevents unnecessary feedback.
c. Ensure all cables are functional. I bought a new mic once without realizing that the old mic was fine but the cable was faulty.
d. Your mic inputs or line-in inputs of the computer are NOT to be used anymore. Only the inputs in the sound card should be used. So, if you have connected a mic to yo your laptop or the desktop (which is actually the input on he internal sound card which had been disabled in the BIOS), remove it and plug it into the sound card input
e. If you want to record guitar the procedure is the same except that you will need to attach an electrical "pick up" unit on the guitar and connect the output from that unit to the input of the sound card.
f. Try to be in a noise-free place. Dynamics mics are usually unidirectional and usually pick-up sounds that are in the line with the central axis of the mic. So, do not stay too far away from the mic when recording. Place the mic close to your lips and just at a distance which would allow pops and clicks to not get recorded. Use a pop filter and mic stand if needed. (Do not try to wield the mic like Kamalhassan did in ennadi meenakshi or Shankar did in vaasamillaa malaridhu. That constitutes not only manhandling, but also will record nothing.)
2. Recording with software:
1. Open Audacity. You should see:
2. Use - Import Audio to import the Karaoke track you have. In this example I have used Jashne-bahara
3. You should see the Karaoke track now
4. Play the karaoke track and get the pointer to the position when you want to start recording. (It is usually a good idea to position the pointer atleast a couple of bars before the position from which you would like the vocals to be recorded. this gives you the sense of rhythm and shruthi).
5. Press the record button on top. The moment you do that, another track (mono) should appear below the Karaoke track and will start recording you voice if everything is properly connected.
6. Play back to see if the voice+karaoke sounds good.
7. Repeat step 5 till you record all of the vocals. Everytime you press the record button you would have a new track. Thus unless you sing it in one stretch you will have multiple tracks of vocals. If you made a mistake in any track, just use the close (X) button on the track. Track is removed.
8. Once you are done recording vocals in multiple tracks, select all the vocal tracks (selected tracks get highlighted by blue) that perform a quick mix (Project--> Quickmix ) to obtain a single vocals track.
3. Post Processing your vocals and exporting the mix
1. Now your vocal track is dry. that is how it should be recorded. When you play you would find that it probably lacks some effect. I do not use multiple effects since I am mostly unfamiliar with them. The only effect that I use is reverb. This can be done first by duplicating the vocals track and adding reverb to it. This way the original dry track is preserved in case you goof up. Press Ctrl-D to duplicate your vocal track and select the duplicate track.
2. Open Effect --> Gverb
3. Play with the parameters, preview the effect on the vocals and play the "effected" track with Karaoke to see if everything is fine. Do not forget to mute the original vocals track (Don't close it. You will lose it !)
4. Once you are satisfied with the result, export the whole of the project or a selection of it as mp3.
5. Get an audio blog account : ( hipcast, muziboo, esnips, odeo ), upload this and publish it ! Thats it. You are done.
Preparing a Karaoke Track by removing vocals:
I am not going to elaborate on this since there is an excellent video tutorial on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEjzdurnJhw
If you get some weird results, just remember that you do not need to invert the whole track but only those parts which contain the vocals. So, you could alternatively duplicate the track, silence the portion which does not have the vocals and invert. This kind of Karaoke creation is limited and a better option would be to obtain Karaoke tracks from shops.
Downloading Karaoke Tracks :
Some websites where Karaoke Tracks may be downloaded / purchased are:
1. http://www.esnips.com/web/IndianKaraokeTracks
2. http://www.melamaudios.com
3.http://www.4shared.com/dir/10484349/77a94d76/Malayalam_Karaoke_Film_Songs.html
4. http://karaokes4you.co.nr/
Also check out George Kuruvilla's write up here : http://blog.gksden.org/?p=260
Disclaimer : The brand names used here are only for illustrative purposes. The opinions expressed on branded products must be considered non-promotional and disinterested.
Essentials:
Any basic recording set up would require the following (approx price in the braces):
1. Computer - $800
2. Sound card - $200
3. Microphone - $100
4. Headphones - $50
5. Recording software - $0
If you discount the computer cost, you would incur not more than $350 which is very good for home recording.
1. Computer:
OS - Windows 2000/XP
RAM - 512 MB
Disk space - at least 1 GB
Sound in a computer is a file. Computer recognizes multiple formats off which WAV and MP3 are the most popular in the music circles. WAV is un compressed audio file whereas MP3 is a compressed format without a considerable loss in quality. Almost all the audio blogs these days use MP3s. Typically an Indian song is 5 to six minutes long. A commercially recorded CD track when converted to WAV format typically at 44.1 kHz and 128 kbps produces a file which is approximately 10 MB / min of song length. Thus a WAV file is usually 50 to 60 MB in size. When compressed to MP3 format, the file size becomes approximately 1/10 of the original WAV file.
Why is WAV file important ? That is because the computers and most of the music softwares in the world recognize WAV files (exception being real player) and when you record audio on to a computer it is always a WAV file. since WAV files are 50 to 60 MB in size, a computer with a disk space is necessary. Moreover, the music softwares perform a lot of floating point calculations and hence at least 512 MB RAM is necessary.
And for the Operating system I use Win XP with SP2 and I am very happy to recommend it.
2. Sound card:
The sound card of the computer is the heart of sound generation both for playback and recording. However, most of the sound cards that come bundled with either the desktops or laptops are of inferior quality and I strongly discourage using them. ( Can a sound card that is bundled with the laptop or desktop (usually on-board) do the same job ? Answer is yes. however, it would have high background noise and latency ). Since you want to sing and record an inexpensive home studio sound card would do wonders.
When opting to go for a good soundcard, you need to decide whether you want an internal (PCI) or external portable sound card. I strongly recommend external soundcard since they are easy to install and are highly portable. Also you donot have to install a PCI component yourself if you are not good at such things.
I suggest one of these three - All are excellent:
1. Tascam US 122L
2. M-audio - Fast Track USB / fast Track Pro
3. M-audio - Firewire solo
The first two soundcards are USB based. Third one is based on Firewire. I have used all these three myself and I have had no issues with them. They are stable and offer excellent sound. You should be able to purchase it from an online store or zzsounds.com.
If you are using the sound card with a laptop, you may have to buy an external power adapter to boost the elecrical signal. It may not be needed for USB based soundcard, but definitely needed for Firewire based sound cards.
Installation is really simple and straight forward. You would install the driver and then connect the hardware. Reversing the process will lead to instability sometime. Once you have installed the soundcard, internal or external, make sure that you restart the system and enter the BIOS and deactivate the internal on-board sound card and restart. This will make the computer use your new soundcard exclusively. Any sound generated, like for e.g. if you play a song on the computer, can be heard in your new soundcard. And you will see what a difference it makes especially if you are listening to some compositions of Rehman.
3. Microphone and pop filter:
There are two types of microphones:
1. Dynamic
2. Condenser
An excellent article on comparing these two types can be found here. In my opinion, a condenser mic is unnecessary for a person who wants to record just vocals. A dynamic microphone is more than sufficient. In fact, most of the audio bloggers I know use dynamic microphones. The dynamic microphones are cheap and certainly reliable and rugged. The brands that I suggest are:
1. Shure - SM58
2. Shure - SM57
3. AKG-80
Most of the songs I have posted on my blog were recorded with a $30 Sony mic (which I bought when I was on a shoestring budget). It is good enough for me, but I do have an AKG-80 with which I have recorded 2 or 3 songs. I strongly recommend SM58.
Condenser mics need phantom power of 48 V. Do not supply phantom power to dynamic mic.
A pop filter reduces the "pop" sounds when you open your lips for saying some syllables. Buy a Nady pop-filter. Pretty good. It should be place between your mouth and the mic.
4. Headphones:
I have audio-technica headphones. They are warm to the ears and cheap for the wallet.
5. Recording Software:
Most of the soundcards come with a lite version of a professional recording software these days - for e.g. Ableton Live or Cubase SL. These are very powerful softwares and if you know how to get them working for you, you do not have to read further. However, if you end up buying a cheap soundcard with no free software or a soundcard with software which you fear is way too complicated, read on.
I recommend Audacity (Better download the stable release, I am never a fan of over-functional but undependable betas) - a free software which is more than sufficient for home-studio-vocal recordings.
Also download the LAME MP3 encoder which is available along with Audacity.
Recording:
Any recording has at least 3 stages:
1. Preprocessing setup :
a. Ensure that the microphone gain in your mic input of soundcard is not more than 40%.
b. Ensure that you dont have speakers on, but that you hear the output in headphones. This prevents unnecessary feedback.
c. Ensure all cables are functional. I bought a new mic once without realizing that the old mic was fine but the cable was faulty.
d. Your mic inputs or line-in inputs of the computer are NOT to be used anymore. Only the inputs in the sound card should be used. So, if you have connected a mic to yo your laptop or the desktop (which is actually the input on he internal sound card which had been disabled in the BIOS), remove it and plug it into the sound card input
e. If you want to record guitar the procedure is the same except that you will need to attach an electrical "pick up" unit on the guitar and connect the output from that unit to the input of the sound card.
f. Try to be in a noise-free place. Dynamics mics are usually unidirectional and usually pick-up sounds that are in the line with the central axis of the mic. So, do not stay too far away from the mic when recording. Place the mic close to your lips and just at a distance which would allow pops and clicks to not get recorded. Use a pop filter and mic stand if needed. (Do not try to wield the mic like Kamalhassan did in ennadi meenakshi or Shankar did in vaasamillaa malaridhu. That constitutes not only manhandling, but also will record nothing.)
2. Recording with software:
1. Open Audacity. You should see:
2. Use - Import Audio to import the Karaoke track you have. In this example I have used Jashne-bahara
3. You should see the Karaoke track now
4. Play the karaoke track and get the pointer to the position when you want to start recording. (It is usually a good idea to position the pointer atleast a couple of bars before the position from which you would like the vocals to be recorded. this gives you the sense of rhythm and shruthi).
5. Press the record button on top. The moment you do that, another track (mono) should appear below the Karaoke track and will start recording you voice if everything is properly connected.
6. Play back to see if the voice+karaoke sounds good.
7. Repeat step 5 till you record all of the vocals. Everytime you press the record button you would have a new track. Thus unless you sing it in one stretch you will have multiple tracks of vocals. If you made a mistake in any track, just use the close (X) button on the track. Track is removed.
8. Once you are done recording vocals in multiple tracks, select all the vocal tracks (selected tracks get highlighted by blue) that perform a quick mix (Project--> Quickmix ) to obtain a single vocals track.
3. Post Processing your vocals and exporting the mix
1. Now your vocal track is dry. that is how it should be recorded. When you play you would find that it probably lacks some effect. I do not use multiple effects since I am mostly unfamiliar with them. The only effect that I use is reverb. This can be done first by duplicating the vocals track and adding reverb to it. This way the original dry track is preserved in case you goof up. Press Ctrl-D to duplicate your vocal track and select the duplicate track.
2. Open Effect --> Gverb
3. Play with the parameters, preview the effect on the vocals and play the "effected" track with Karaoke to see if everything is fine. Do not forget to mute the original vocals track (Don't close it. You will lose it !)
4. Once you are satisfied with the result, export the whole of the project or a selection of it as mp3.
5. Get an audio blog account : ( hipcast, muziboo, esnips, odeo ), upload this and publish it ! Thats it. You are done.
Preparing a Karaoke Track by removing vocals:
I am not going to elaborate on this since there is an excellent video tutorial on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEjzdurnJhw
If you get some weird results, just remember that you do not need to invert the whole track but only those parts which contain the vocals. So, you could alternatively duplicate the track, silence the portion which does not have the vocals and invert. This kind of Karaoke creation is limited and a better option would be to obtain Karaoke tracks from shops.
Downloading Karaoke Tracks :
Some websites where Karaoke Tracks may be downloaded / purchased are:
1. http://www.esnips.com/web/IndianKaraokeTracks
2. http://www.melamaudios.com
3.http://www.4shared.com/dir/10484349/77a94d76/Malayalam_Karaoke_Film_Songs.html
4. http://karaokes4you.co.nr/
Also check out George Kuruvilla's write up here : http://blog.gksden.org/?p=260
Disclaimer : The brand names used here are only for illustrative purposes. The opinions expressed on branded products must be considered non-promotional and disinterested.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Sharath - The Musical Enigma - Part 1
Idol 7 - Sharath - The Musical Enigma - Part 1
Impressions of an Amateur Musician
- Murali Venkatraman (dhool.com)
- Murali Venkatraman (dhool.com)
1. Introduction
Time and again, Indian film music comes across people who break the shackles and monotony of the musical boundaries. They may be composers, singers or arrangers. For example, in singers Mohammed Rafi, Asha, and Janaki brought a revolution in the way the songs had to be sung emphasizing the emotional content. Naushad, the composer, was responsible for envisioning such emotional delivery and proper enunciation, who even the venerable and versatile MSV considers his guru. Until then, the songs were just songs, however after the stellar contribution from defining artists, songs became a part of the hearts of million people irrespective of whether they were musically literate or illiterate. Similarly in the arrangers, many like Louis Banks have left an indelible impact on the music scene
However there are some artists, who are so innovative that initial appreciation of their work would be extremely difficult. Their work may seem extremely complicated, difficult and may even appear pointless. Mathematics is replete with geniuses like these and to mention two of them - Georg Cantor (who compared infinite sets) and Gregory Galois (who was responsible for some advanced group theory principles). In fact, when Cantor came up with the idea to measure infinite sets, he was categorically discouraged and ridiculed by mathematicians and theologians alike. Poincare and Weyl dismissed his ideas as grave disease whereas Christians were worried about the non-uniqueness of infinity that Cantor was proposing (which would imply the ultimate infinity (oxymoron) which was 'God').
In western classical music, Debussy was one such innovator. His adherence to non-formal resolutions of harmonies and chord progressions earned him the wrath of many peers. But now, long after his death, his work is hailed as the transition period.
In Indian film music too, occasionally one comes across a person who embodies the defining qualities of a revolutionary. And it is even rarer to find somebody who dons multiple roles of composer, singer and arranger and excels in each of it. Harder even, to find that he/ she would also possess the ability to create new musical forms which are unheard before and/or can go sit at the traditional desk and come up with creations that reflect the classical purity of the earlier (music) generation. When this artist attempts creations which break the boundaries, he is hardly understood by both the learned and the lay. However, in a sheer fit of obsessive and irrepressible intellectual compulsion, he goes ahead and pursues his art with an unsurpassed vigour. He knows, by such indulgence, he would be be inviting criticisms for bringing groundbreaking changes in the musical structures which test the age old conceptions, however, his compelling inspiration for creative output just overpowers his sensitivities. He would be well-versed in the idioms of the classical structures and be extremely comfortable in scoring using them, but opts for a cavalier disregard for them, since his love for creating unprecedented musical forms supersedes anything else.
Welcome to the world of Sharath - the distinguished composer from Kerala, in whose compositions you find the afore-said musical innovations. Mind it, this is not a page providing a biographic or discographic account of Sharath or any other composer but one where I express my admiration for my 7 musical idols and the way I enjoy their music. The reader will also find some non-intrusive references on how I (an amateur composer) allow these masters to influence me in my own compositions as I climb a steep learning curve।
2. Sudha Mantram and the Floating Shadjam (Sa)
My first tryst with Sharath's composition was way back in 1997 when I was still in CECRI in my undergrad days. I had been an active music troupe leader at CECRI and one of my friends Vivek MakaraBooshanam (Kumba!) who played mrudangam and tabla for the troupe informed me one day that he had an invite from one of the movie companies who had come with their crew to shoot a malayalam movie. The movie was Devadasy and Vivek was asked to pretend playing tabla for a song on screen. I had no idea about the song for which he was inducted for, but on return he told me that it was a very difficult hindustani number.
The movie was a disaster at the box office but the songs were aired in television. Since the movie had a sleazy theme (or so we were told) featuring Sethu-fame-Abitha and it was a norm in college to congregate for all midnight masala songs in every channel irrespective of the language (no regionalism!) , I got to see the song. The song was a jawbreaker and the all the guys awaiting some masala show due to the surge of hormones found it extremely displeasing and incompatible with their midnight expectations. There were no vulgar hip moves or any part of feminine body that the guys wanted to feast their eyes upon. In stead, it featured a bald and stone-faced Gopi singing the song for an intolerable classical dance by Abitha, but we cheered for Kumba when he was shown in the song. As expected, the song did not make any impact on the anybody except one.
Me.
Make no mistake of my intention to be there. I was there solely because I wanted to watch sleazy numbers and NOT to discover musical gems in the mid-night (lest I should appear holier than my college-mates, to the blog-reader). However, I was completely stunned to hear such a song in Malayalam. It was only a year back that I had started venturing into Mallu semi-classicals like Devasabathalam and others like sangeethame amara sallapame and was familiarizing myself with classical nuances. But this song just devastated any little hope that I could sing classical some day. In fact, it made me think if I should ever sing at all since I was clearly a pretender. Unfortunately I could not get any information on the movie and also could not see the movie till I went to
The song was Divaa swapnam - the song which Unnikrishnan admitted in one of the interviews to be the most difficult song that he has ever sung. He also alluded that it is probably the toughest ever recorded for Indian films (Well..may be..there is one composition by Raveendra Jain for the shelved film Tansen which comes close. The movie was never released and Yesudas sings this song in all concerts as a tribute to Raveendra Jain who had a nervous breakdown after composing this song.) . Later I came to know that the same song had another version for lyrics sung by Unni himself : Sudhaa mantram
Listen to Sudhamantram
Listen to Divaa swapnam
When the song starts the new listener has only a minimal clue about what is awaiting to hit him. The first line of aalaap seems to make the listener think it is starting with some hindhoLam sound-alike ragam which stands shattered by the end of the first line itself. He senses a complete concoction (or confusion, may be from the listener's perspective) of anya swaras (notes which do not find a regular place in the defined scale or ragam). He is confused. But he is ok with the first line. The second and third line offer similar windings and he seems to be ok. But in the final line of the aalaap he senses that there are some notes which cannot be mapped to the keyboard. This is where his frightening journey begins.
Since Sharath has the unusual knack of leaving the listener in a lurch in the search for Shadjam of the song, for the rest of the article on sudha mantram, I place the "g3" on the word "su" of Sudha Mantram and go ahead with the notations. Just as
Why did I choose this ? Because in the song, when the swara phrases later come in, Sharath clearly tells us where he has placed the "Sa" (for a change, he was kind to us, unlike "niLaiyude maaril" song from Chaitra GeethangaL which I shall take up later in this article).
Some readers may wonder why I am making such a fuss over "finding" the Shadjam of a song. As an aside, I have had some interesting conversations in this aspect of finding the "sa" of a song, with Sheela (Listen to her Charukeshi here) and Sindhuja about this. Once Sheela and I were engaged in an enchanting discussion about the song "Sumam prati sumam sumam" - a telugu movie song sung by SPB Janaki in the Film Maharshi and composed by IR. Sheela insisted that the swarams of the first line were:
su mam prati su mam su mam
g mada mada ga ma ga sa
and declared it was in the ragam
sallapam (surya) - s g3 m1 d1 n2 s
(I shall come back to this ragam in the article that is to follow about IR.) To her annoyance she found me refuting it saying it was in ragam
shrotasvini - s g2 m p n3 s
where I would notate the song as:
su mam prati su mam su mam
n saga saga ni sa ni pa
We both could not convince each other for a while but finally, we ended up agreeing on it being Shrotasvini after getting convinced partially that the "feel" is more of Shrotasvini.
This happens due to what is called a Shruti Bhedam (Please refer to Appendix B for some interesting and important info on ShruthBhedam provided by Sindhuja) or the shift in the root note (Sa). Unlike Western music, Indian music uses notes which are relative to each other (equivalent to Do Re Me). Hence, when the singer sings an aalaap and not swarams, the listener’s mind which yearns for a pattern recognition tries to fit it in a scale or a ragam. For example,
sallapam (surya) - s g3 m1 d1 n2 s
shrotasvini - p n3 s g2 m1
i.e. what I perceived as shadjam of shrotasvini was perceived as madhyamam of sallapam by Sheela. Reason ? Sallapam is indeed shrotasvini when it is played from m1 to M1. This is called Shruthi Bhedam. In fact if one plays the keyboard he can identify some ShruthibhEdams pretty easily. Let us start with Mohanam in scale C, i.e. Sa = C:
s r2 g3 p d2 s - Mohanam
C D E G A C
Now play :
D E G A C D = s r2 m1 p n2 s = madhyamavathy with Sa= D
E G A C D E = s g2 m1 d n2 s = hindholam with Sa = E
G A C D E G = s r2 m1 p d2 s = shuddha saaveri with Sa = G
A C D E G A = s g2 m1 p n2 s = shuddha dhanyaasi with Sa = A
Uff ! So, all these ragas are intricately connected to each other through the shift of root note. Thus if you “wrongly” place the Shadjam you will “wrongly” infer the ragam in some songs.
Sindhuja is another person who hears ragams much more differently from the way Sheela or I do. Many times when she is given a new song, either a composition of mine or some other film song that she is unfamiliar with, she would come up with the raga which happens to be the shruthi Bhedam of the ragam the composer has intended. I believe that for monophonic minded persons, who are overly familiar with Indian classical and semi-classical music, it becomes an uncontrollable and natural desire/habit to search for/find the Shadjam of a song. If there is a potential conflict between 2 ragas being probable candidates, people tend to favor that raga's name which they "feel" is more appropriate. (come on..music is not just about notation ! ). The "feel" part may be argued as being substantially unscientific (one of the most interesting discussions with Sindhuja ) , which I have no intention of elaborating here.
Su dhaa man tram
g ma maa maa
ni ve
g gmd mdn dnn3 nn3dmga mmd mdmgsn da
di tam
ni ri
hrudu man..gala yaam
rm dnSGMSnd maa ri
prapanchamE..
sass sa sa (shift1)
n3n3n3ri d2d2p m2d2p m2r2s n2 (shift2)
ardhanjali
da2ga3r1r1
r2r2 da ma2 (and then comes a winding down aalap which is in a totally different scale which I am not able to decode) (shift3)
Shift1 is actually mohanam in scale G. But I see no pattern or ragam in the shifts 2 and 3. May be there is and I am blind.
Thus in a pallavi, we have got three root-note shifts ! And there are incredible gamakams and clear swarasthanams in it without any note being "averaged out" by the singer - a crystal clear rendition. This can happen only if the composer and the singer are absolutely confident about swarasthaanams. A song like this is impossible to be composed or rendered by somebody who is unfamiliar with the rigors of classical music.
However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The entire song goes through so many variations and two particular swara phrases caught my attention:
s g m d n
s g m p n
Try saying these two lines in succession fast with a shift in Shadjam. It will be very difficult. Reason "p" and d are only half note away and both form the aarohanams of 2 different ragams the "feel" of which are entirely different.
In other words, the monophonic mind which is comfortably resting on one ragam, that is, a certain musical/psychological plane, finds itself jolted and offers a considerable resistance to be pushed onto another plane. I find this amusing since I always get reminded of a parallel in physics.
Sharath does something similar in the songs except that he (and only he) knows exactly where the ball is. While the listener’s mind (ball) is comfortably resting on a single ragam (bowl) viewing mild fluctuations (F) as deviations (anya swaras) from Shadjam (the current equilibrium position which is the lowest point of the bowl), he suddenly changes the scale in such a way and in such short times that the ball gets confused as to where it is at a given instant of time. Sharath explains this case of shifting Shadjam here . I have no idea how many takes did Unnikrishnan go for before finalizing this song. But one must step up and congratulate him for rendering two lyrical versions of the same song !! That is some talent and bravery which certainly deserved a national recognition but did not get any.
Taking to a Sharath's song without training is akin to going to a battle field without armour. One must have courage and skill, or else perish. And you can see how a contestant Arun gopan struggled to sing this song. (If I were him, I would not even have thought about singing that song and that too in Sharath’s presence . And for that sheer courageous effort and reasonably good output Arun – hats off ! )
Disclaimer : The low quality music clips featured here are only to highlight the artist’s music in the form of a tribute.
© Dhool.com - 2008
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Part 1 : http://swara.blogspot.com/2008/04/sharath-musical-enigma-part-1.html
Part 2 : http://swara.blogspot.com/2008/07/idol-7-sharath-musical-enigma-part-2.html
Part 3 : http://swara.blogspot.com/2008/08/sharath-musical-enigma-part-3.html
Part 4 : http://swara.blogspot.com/2008/09/sharath-musical-enigma-part-4-final.html
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