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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Celebrating ShankarabharaNam - 3- Brochevarevarura and Dialogues preceding the song

Song : Brochevarevarura and Dialogues preceding the song
Composer / Lyricist : Mysore Vasudevacharya
Originally sung by
: Vani Jeyaram, S. P. Balasubramaniyam
Originally Arranged By : K. V. Mahadevan
Movie : shankaraBharaNam

Dramatization and Dialogue Delivery:
Narayanan Raju (Dasu) and
Vamsikrishna Nadella (Shastri)

Singers
: Srividya Kasturi,
Murali Venkatraman
Mixing : Meera Manohar


Celebrating ShankarabharaNam - 3- Brochevarevarura - With Srividya Kasturi | Upload Music

(The song starts at 3:43)



Remix - these days has become synonymous with making a cacophony of older compositions of high musical standing. The disturbing trend has started eroding the minds of newer listeners who may, if ignorant about the classics, start hating them baselessly simply because the only version of the classic they heard was a bad inharmonious effort from a wastrel of an arranger.

Lyrics form another domain where the value seems to be getting lost especially in tamil and telugu. Meaningless words with some stupid rhyme like:

"kaNNum kaNNum nOkia
cappuccino cofee ya
sofia "

are flooding the music scene. Songs like "arigori bonsaai samba nellaalE" which feature gibberish are better only than the vulgar songs like "aakalesthe" (nee rent kodutha tent pOdalaam)". In the movie Shankarabharanam there is a scene where 'Dasu' tries to 'teach' the kid a new variant of Brochevarevarura. His insistence on remixing the song in a speedy trendy (we are talking about late 70s here) way, incurs the attention and wrath of Shankara Shastri (Somayajulu). Shastri explains how each and every syllable of the great classical compostions brims with life. He explains how every aksharam has a distinct swaram and naadam and how one must not ruin the original in the name of remixing it.

I was of the opinion that this movie stressed only on the "holier-than-thou attitude" about Indian classical music until I saw this clip:




The director K. Vishwanath through the character of Shankara Shastri explains how one should approach and perform music with dedication be it western or Indian. That, I thought was a great piece of advice. What do we do with the musical giant that is S.P.B ? See how he effortlessly sings the 'pop' portions ? I don't know anything about western singing, but I can certainly recognize a voice which can effortlessly transition through octaves with ease and utmost clarity. It may be that he won the National award for Shankara Naada Shareera Para. But I think the movie has many bits like these which never got popular but featured some excellent singing (Remember - punjai uNdu nanjai uNdu humming of SPB in unnaal mudiyum thambi?).

As a tribute to the situation in the movie which featured the comical Dasu and serious Shastri, my friends and I here present you with both the dialogue and the song. For this, I requested Narayanan and Vamsi - two good singers in their own right - to recreate the situation. And that they did beautifully with Vidya who also joined me in rendering the song. And I need to acknowledge their guidance in pronunciation. The original had a few minor mistakes done by the lead singers and Vidya and I have tried to sing the song with the right words (with help from vamsi).

With Meera's help we seem to sound better than we actually do. And for the rest of the series too Meera has graciously accepted to mix. Thank you Meera.

Over to you all for all the bouquets and brickbats !

Lyrics:

ब्रॊचॆवारेवरुरा
निनु विना रघुवरा
नी चरणाम्बुजमुलनॆ
विडज़ाल करुणालवाल

ऒ चतुरा ननादि वन्दित
नीकु पराकॆलनैय्या
नी चरितमु पोगडलॆनि ना
चिन्त तीर्च्चि वरमुलीच्चि वॆगमॆ

सीतापतॆ नापै नीकभिमानमु लॆदा ?
वातात्मजार्चित पादा ना मोरलनु विनरादा ?
भासुरमुग करिराज़ुनु ब्रोचिन वासुदॆवुडवु नीवुकदा ?
ना पतकमेल्ल पॊगोट्टि गट्टिग ना चेय्यि पट्टि विडुवक

Sa;;Sanida pada niSanini dada pama ||

pa;dama;; ga;; ma;pa; da;ni ||

Sa,ni,dapama ni,da,pama gamapada ma ||

garisa; sama;gama padama; padani ||

SaSaRi ni; niniSa da; dadani pa;da ||

mapadani Sanidapa magama nidani pada||

ma; padaniSa Ma;GaRiSa Ri;Sa;ni ||

dapa Sa;ni;dapama ga;ma;padani ||

9 comments:

  1. While I enjoyed the whole presentation as a package (the dramatization was indeed a breath of fresh air in blog uploads! Very innovative!) I do have reservations about the rendition of the keerthanam. Let me go on with the positives before I start picking :P
    One thing that was noteworthy was Srividya's "podi brighas"- like at 4:19 and 4:28; and Murali, as usual, good feel and clarity of words.

    On the flipside, sorry, but this did not bring out the true flavor of Khamas IMHO. Not sure if the intention was to reproduce the film version (which I'm not familiar with) or recreate it. Even if this is how the original film version sounds, I would not be able to enjoy it.
    Khamas has trademark usages and every note has a unique stamp- like ma goes oscillating like gmgmgm... and ni2 most usually goes from dha (in fact like dsdsds) and from ma while going from below. These notes are NEVER flat. However, in this rendition, the "ra" of brocheva..revarura is sung as a flat ma which sounds odd. Similarly, in the swaram, in the line Sa ni... dha pa ma, ni dhaa.. pa ma ga, the first ni usually is sung as going from dha and the second from ma. But here, they seem to be flat as well.
    Many more instances like this throughout.
    And the second speed swaram seems to be faster and ahead of the beat.
    Sorry guys if I seem to be nitpicking, but Khamas is dear as life to me and I'm very fond of this song, so couldn't help!
    Murali, once again, great idea of doing this series and looking forward to the upcoming ones.

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  2. Murali,

    nice attempt. nalla bhavam. "nIku parAka" right way to split. Good diction over all.

    The song is a composition of Mysore Vasudevachar and not Tyagaraja. (kaRirajunu brochina "VASUDEVUDAVU")

    I can't remember how is it in the original song. But, the mridangam esp. during anupallavi chitta-swaram sounds a little jarring to my ears. It becomes worse during the chittaswaram rendition after the charanam.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2:25 AM

    Search for Shankarabharanam songs brought me here.
    Male voice is not open enough. Voice quality is not good. Strength in the voice and notes clarity is missing. Female voice is sweet.Bhaavam missing in both. Lack of training shows for both especially not being able to keep up with the taalam.
    Dialogues very well rendered.
    Classical songs need more practise and will be wonderful if recorded with care.

    - Sashi

    ReplyDelete
  4. Interesting writeup! Well said!
    Wonderful dialogue delivery by Narayanan, Vamsi& vidya. What shastri spoke was difficult to understand. Waiting to see the movie with subtitles. The video clip you have attached was narrated by music master few yrs back.
    And recreating all this is simply wonderful! Hats off to each one of u. Feel blessed to be listening these!Superb singing Murali n Vidya! And special kudos to MEERA to make all this sound so great!

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  5. Ok guys- I just heard the original (movie version). Your version has done a fair justice to it. Its just that the original itself is not to my taste. While I still think that you could have improvised to adhere to Carnatic stds, apologies for the rather hasty comment before I heard the original.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Murali,
    Beautiful rendition & a nice write up!
    And yes it only hurts so much to see kids singing sicker - vulgar lyrics (not knowing what it means). I very well remember how furious my bro used to get when we sing “Kokku chaiva kokku” Well…Now we have songs like “Chinna veeda varatuma periya veeda varattuma…”,"Meow!Meow poonai..",more n more! Room pottu yosipanga pola! Hell with such sick lyricists.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This is an evergreen - I know that is like saying the sun rises in the east, but to someone who doesn t understand the octaves much, like me, the song connects to my heart and so, I say, Murali - wnderful composition.

    I agree with your opinion on 'remixes'. The remixes we see today are a miserable admission of the lack of originality and innovation . I hope remixes are banned from the market, to preserve the sanctity of music.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous6:11 PM

    Hi Murali

    Just chanced upon ur blog...very interesting...you have a wonderful voice ....about the song... very nice attempt...but i felt ur voice needed to be more commanding ..i have heard the original many times over and felt Mr.SPB's voice being so powerful that it kept ringing in my ears days after too ...felt like you were just gliding over and not really emphasizing on all your notes..but practice can just help you there....

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous5:45 AM

    Hi Murali & Srividya - excellent! Murali's voice has a vintage quality to it while Srividya's, well, very sweet and versatile! A humble request to the blogger - please don't compare/judge between genres - ideally, a true music lover should be able to appreciate music irrespective of genres and be able to enjoy "nakkamukka" as much as Nagumomu, IMHO! As a kid, I grew up with carnatic music all around me while I totally hated (and ridiculed) it until a few years ago – I would enjoy Indian film music to classical rock to hardrock to grunge to heavymetal, but somehow never had the maturity to appreciate Indian classical music and it was fusion that got me interested - started with Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and then Indian Ocean and now I’m in love with not just carnatic, but also Hindustani, Khawali, etc, so point I’m trying to make is, if not for fusion, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to see that glimpse of greatness in our own music, which led me to where I’m now! Hence, remix or not, music should never be discriminated on the basis of genre IMHO. BTW, there are so many fusion bands out there, but very few of them seem to get it right and this band called Mrigya – they are brilliant!
    As for some comments, well, people need to realize that covers are mostly sung for the gratification of the singers and as a tribute to the artists – they have no intent to imitate or sound like the original, so please refrain from making such naive comments!
    Finally, Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam - I know I'm 2 years late in replying to this post so chances of you taking notice of this comment are very slim to none, but nonetheless, I gotta say this - you may like to call yourself a purist and enjoy that tag in your circles, but you have absolutely no right whatsoever in interfering with the freedom of what someone does with Kamas or any raga they like. Music's like open-source and anyone can do what they please, so stop dictating terms and being a phony that you are!

    ReplyDelete