A rapturous weekend

How would you feel if too many good things happened over a weekend ?! Happy and Tired and..may be sick !

That is what happened to me last weekend.

1. Raja Govindarajan (rajaG or G) - my long time friend from Kansas and Narayanan - an old alumnus from University of South Carlina joined hands together in the Bay Area to give a telugu concert http://www.aavakai.com/
2. I was meeting Narayanan after 8 years !!
3. Went to Nara and G's practice session on Friday where I met Kishmu who I have known for 6+ years but have never met. We have had so many discussions online ! It was wonderful to meet him personally.
4. Ended up singing "track" for G for Vidhata talapuna just for fun
   
5. It was even more wonderful to have him play some background for me and G to sing some songs like NinaivO oru paRavai where there were some voice overs. Note this was a leisurely singing after the practice..as in jamming !
6. Met Vamshi - a good singer with a penchant for high pitched songs and a friend of Nara. On his insistence, sang a composition of mine.
7. Came to know that Guitarist Krish was the brother of Raghu Tangirala - a common friend of Udhaya and me - who composes !
   
8. Bala - my DAV classmate and a close bud was supposed to pick me up from the practice session and his tyre burst !
   
9. I ended up going to Nara's place with Vamshi where we had a lively discussion about singing Aye ajnabi - a song that Vamshi wanted to give Mahesh Shankar - a budding music director in Telugu Films.
10. All of us packed up and headed to Vamshi's house where we chatted about music till 3:30 am !
11. Got up late only to be notified by Bala that a certain Mahesh Shankar - who happened to be cousin of Arthi - Bala's wife - was waiting to join them for a hike in the mountains !
12. That was a coincidence ! The same Mahesh Shankar who I was talking about the previous night with Vamshi!
13. Before we could reach Vamshi's place, Bala's car breathed its final and Mahesh picked us up. We deposited the car in the garage and headed off to Mahesh's home with the hiking programme cancelled.
14. Came to know Mahesh was a very good friend of Nandu and Ramesh (ya blogswara guys !) who played with me for Aavarthana !!
15. Mahesh and I sat for a discussion on song making and exchanged thoughts about our philosophy towards music production.
16. Came to hear Meera's and Nara's recordings for Mahesh and many other songs that Mahesh had composed. Shared some of mine !
17. Mahesh and I decided we should look forward to meet for many times before I leave for australia.
18. Landed in aavakkai programme an hour late only to be apprised I did not miss anything due to the unexpected long lecture by Sirivennala
19. Had a lot of backstage conversations with singers and musicians during the break and ended up leaving the auditorium at 12:30 with G and BB.
20. Went straight to a Dennis and had some pancakes and omlettes to appease the appetite and headed to BB's place
21. It was rollicking fun with G at his panning best. Cannot divulge it all here :)
22. The snoring or roaring of G made my sleep impossible and could catch only 4 hrs of sleep before which I was woken up and was asked to sing with G. You can see how disheveled I look in this video. Sang "enakkoru kaadhali irukkindraaL" imitating the voice of MSV.





23. Went to Meera's son Ayush's Birthday party and met tons of ppl.
    

Finally ended up with a severe cold and fever. And could not go to the office on Monday !!

Sharath - The Musical Enigma - Part 3

Idol 7 - Sharath - The Musical Enigma - Part 3

Impressions of an Amateur Musician
- Murali Venkatraman (dhool.com)

4. Other Melodies

So, is sharath all about composing extremely tough songs which are singer's nightmares or is there a composer in him who can also create hummable beautiful melodies which even a layman can appreciate ? This is an important question because all said and done, it is finally the layman who decides the sale of music which promotes the sustainability of the composer. While people are generally aware of raavil veeNa nadham from sindoora rekha (in which song too he displays some eccentric swara placements like the first rishbham in the last line of pallavi giving a flavour of kanakana ruchira - the rest of the song is smooth sailing though), they are less aware of the beautiful "ende sindhoora rekha" which is a delightful concoction of Chitra’s and Yesudas voices interleaved with voice-overs as the melody strides sonorously.

Listen to Sindoora Rekha (Youtube link)

Another melody and probably the best song of Sharath in my opinion, which wonderfully showcases Sharath's ability to create melodies with a teaspoon of "vidwat" sprinkled elegantly over it is "Yamuna nadhi ozugum" from Devadasy. The beauty of this song is that it reveals its ragam only slowly although the melody is wonderfully preserved in those lines which confuse the listener. Now that, I call, is the stamp of a real master. It tells the listener “please sit back and enjoy my melody, but do not get overly zealous about creating one since it is not easy”. This kind of teasing is great. It is primarily based on ragam Mohanam but the way it starts gives a tinge of "madhyamavathy" feel. It would not be wrong to say that the first line especially has the ghost of madhyamavathy residing in the body of mohanam. (This twist inspired me to an alternate idea of supporting one raga’s chords with the other and I tried my hand doing this in the song “azagaay poosum manjaL”. In this song’s first interlude, raga hamsadhwani is played by the violin and the backing chords were that of mohanam).

One may write pages and empty all the adjectives in the thesaurus to describe Chitra's voice, but he would still be left with a feeling of insufficiency. Well this is a song in which the Singing Angel of South India rules supreme and brings tears to the eyes of a listener.

Listen to yamuna nadhi ozugum

5. Tamil

So much for Malayalam. What about Tamil ? The film June R had the song "mazhaiye mazhaiye" which saw the confluence of two genius singers - Sharath and Hariharan to produce a song which stands out in every aspect of composing. First the lyrics - they need a mention.

mazaiye mazaiyE
neerin thiraiyE
vaanam theLikkum
kavidhai thuLiye
Megaththin sirippoliye
neela vaaname
oru thaRi illaamal
neerin noolil mazaiyenum sElai neydhadhe

Oh my.. what beautiful lyrics ! It reminds me of Udhaya's style - who in every poem of his brings an unprecedented set of metaphors and I stand awestruck every time ! And after all his complex tunes, Sharath chooses to make this song an unhindered melody but decides to weave an orchestration that only a person with superior musical acumen can construct. The bass line, the thunder and the rain drop sounds all melt in a wonderful musical cocktail which the listener could savor as he admires the acoustic portrait of the natural splendour painted by Hariharan’s immaculate voice. In this song, the notes are definitely Sharath’s, but “maNNukkum vaasam thondrum” line makes one wonder how seamlessly Hariharan blends a western style of singing momentarily with the gamakams of the east. It is this composition of Sharath which I had no complaints about. A flawless masterpiece !

Listen to mazaiye mazaiye

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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