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ARR's song making style

Topic started by kiru (@ 192.138.149.4) on Tue Oct 3 18:56:17 EDT 2000.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

I'd appreciate if knowledgeable people can contribute to this thread, hopefully explaining musical techniques in a form that everybody can understand

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: vijay (@ 129.252.22.221) on: Wed Oct 11 01:54:02 EDT 2000
  
  Observer,
  
  What I meant by technical/cinematic point of view was your comment reg. Wagner being a Nazi etc. From that point of view It might have made sense to use Wagnerian based WC and also I read somewhere that Kamal was the one who demanded that piece etc.(so perhaps IR had no choice), but musically it did'nt sound apt. The transition was abrupt atleast to me. Hope it is clear now.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 129.252.22.221) on: Wed Oct 11 01:58:18 EDT 2000
  
  Fan,
  
  Just ignore the posts that u think are irrelevant, that would save a lot of unwanted exchanges. BTW, have u listened to 1947-Earth theme by ARR?
  
  
• From: fan (@ 63.225.174.193) on: Wed Oct 11 02:01:59 EDT 2000
  
  vijay, will try to ,
  yes I have listented to the theme,
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 129.252.22.221) on: Wed Oct 11 02:06:04 EDT 2000
  
  Fan,
  I think the mood (partition, violence etc.) was conveyed beautifully. there are 2 versions. iam referring to the one not involving the piano but sitar based. it was simply awesome I thought. I keep listening to it again and again. I dunno if the composition was really the complex but the sitar slowly building up to a grand crescendo and then coming back again to a sitar solo and so on..
  it was well done.
  
  
• From: thamizhan enRu sollada :) (@ 64.40.43.100) on: Wed Oct 11 02:18:09 EDT 2000
  
  let the examples be subjective to Tamil Film Music. ........
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 129.252.22.221) on: Wed Oct 11 03:06:41 EDT 2000
  
  Theme music has no language.. ;))
  
  
• From: G. Kuppusamy (@ 156.153.255.250) on: Wed Oct 11 05:21:10 EDT 2000
  
  Friends,
  
  I am just a rasika of good music. I dont know the nuance of classical music but i respect them. I am following this thread carefully. I must thank you all for having a healthy discussion on ARR's musical pattern. At the sametime I feel sorry since I could not contribute to this thread. I also beg your pardon that I want to deviate from this current topic. If you feel my question is geniune then please think a while about this or else please ignore this.
  
  From all of your words what I observed is :
  
  Earlier cine-music was sticking in generating a particular mood which was required for that situation, it made listener to CONCENTRATE on a particular mood or aspect (whatever it is, im not able to express it properly but i know u got it).
  Nowadays the cine-music has taken diametrically opposite purpose which is insisiting on DIVERSIFIED mood or DISTRACTION. My question is, just because it shows the intelligence of a MD, is it justified to drastically change the mood of songs unwarrantedly (from the cine-scene's perspective) and 'spoil'(may be this word is bit harsh but i didnt get better word)?
  Well please keep it in mind that my intention is not to find fault with ARR or IR for that matter, i'm talking generally about the trend in cine songs. May be these kind of songs go well with an album (video-cum-audio) where in 5 min time they tell an entire love story. But will it be justified to use this trend for many of the cine songs? MSV tried this here and there. IR who touched upon many nuances of music too tried this in many of the songs. ARR who is setting a trend which is not-IR is also grossly following this DISTRACTION strategy.
  
  Now let me get into the shoes of analyst(even though im not fit to wear it). From your discussion I could observer that ARR is a very intelligent, very good music DIRECTORY (earlier I had the impression that he was just a sound engineer, his way of recording might make people to think like that but he is far far more than a mere sound engineer, he is a brilliant MD). Now flashes a fear in my mind. IR gave many "janaranjaka" songs limiting his experimental stuff to some extent only that too he tried very hard to see to that that those songs are also 'janaranjaka' songs. But when he became too much experiemental because of his versatality, knowledge, etc., he going far from being 'janaranjakam'. I understand too much experiementation generally alienates from public. Thats why I dont like 'isayil thodangudhamma' from Hey ram as much i like as 'siriya paravai siragai..' from 'andha oru nimidam'. I feel/fear if ARR pursuits the same kind of strategy which he follows now (mostly/always deviate from prior set things), then he too will be alienated from popular support. Just because that I dont want IR or ARR to always give junks like SAR or monotypic ghanas of Deva. Its ok, you follow "breaking of the rules" sometimes, here and there, but not always.
  
  I want to note one more point from the posting of
  rjay (@ 208.51.40.112) on: Mon Oct 9 14:01:30 EDT 2000
  
  I can accept that 'ennai thalatta varuvalo' is rahman kind of arrangement. But I cannot accept "Similarly the vande mataram from Bharathi". I believe(note believe, i cannot substatiate, its just an intuition based on my rasanai of music) that vande mataram is a kind of arrangement made in the song 'manida manida ini un vizhigal sivandhal ulagam vidiyum' from 'kansivandhal mann sivakkum'. Also this song, i feel, has a peculiar nature, isn't it of the type which has never ending pallavi? and a kind of always raising nature?
  
  Thanks for keeping patience in reading this. Once again I beg your pardon for deviating from the topic. I request you all to continue with this thread producing such kind of good analytical postings.
  
  Bye and Cheers
  Kuppu
  
  
  
• From: e.hari (@ 199.67.138.20) on: Wed Oct 11 10:29:47 EDT 2000
  
  Another aspect, which I have not noticed so far. discussed in this thread, is how ARR
  silently changed the traditional interlude structures, used in TFM.
  For many of his songs, interludes are eiter breif or just made of chorous and a little
  instrumentation.
  
  For example, if you take the song 'Adisyam' in Jeans, he used a nice chorus to fill the
  interludes, with little instrumentation ( a beautiful flute piece). That was a refreshing
  attempt to change the traditional interlude rules.
  Another wonderful example is 'kadhal sadugudu' from alaiypayde. The chorus, humming kadhal
  sadugudu repeatadely for 4 times, is, If we dare to call it as interlude, filled the gaps.
  There is an similiar attempt made in 'pachai nerame' too.
  
  
  Another often repeated technique in ARR music is using pre-ludes and using them as the main
  second interlude in most of the songs. It could be chorous as used in the songs like
  'kanalene' or 'jiya sale' or more recent 'suntha hai' from pukar. This is akin to most of
  english pop songs, where mostly there is only interludes in the second part of the song.
  
  But there are also wonderful interludes from ARR as in 'ottakathai kattiko',
  'Roja Roja' and thoda thoda malarendha ( second interlude is very good, in both the songs)
  and many more, which I liked very much.
  
  It seems, for dance based songs, he is concentrating interludes to maintain the tempo of the song. Just few beats of drums, a chorous, and humming, and the song continues. I noticed
  this pattern in almost all of his recent dance numbers like 'smaiye', 'maria maria' and
  'shakala baby'.
  
  Also lately, films like pukar, in three songs of the six songs , he repeated the same
  interludes, with out any changes.
  
  It looks like, his songs are getting similiar to any english pop songs in a sense,
  where there is more importance to the vocal part and the interludes are there to fill and to
  keep the tempo and aiding the overall catchy factor of the song.
  
  Regards
  e.hari
  
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.149.4) on: Wed Oct 11 10:34:40 EDT 2000
  
  Well..good discussion/digression on 'mood' in a song. Very educative. Especially the post by rjay on the various ways mood is invoked in a song. So all we know is that there is a school of thought that 'mood' may not be consistent in some of ARR's songs. But is there a pattern to the kind of instruments/sounds he uses to convey a specific mood intentionally ?
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 208.51.40.112) on: Wed Oct 11 10:55:22 EDT 2000
  
  Looks like the thread has bypassed some negative
  energy and is emerging into a nice discussion,
  going beyond ARR - in the sense that the broader
  questions of mood, strong structure, song situation are being addressed and ARR is just
  seen as one approach. That is really health.
  
  THe newcomers to the thread have given quite a
  bit of fresh thought - welcome raj, hari, kuppuswamy. We are seeing a balance in the viewpoint towards mood shift. For now, I like
  the observations and will postpone conclusions!
  
  Go ahead, there is also the Raja thread, I need to visit now....
  
  
  
• From: kishmu (@ 198.102.112.201) on: Wed Oct 11 12:20:22 EDT 2000
  
  "sunta hai" from pukar is just like "kannallam maanikka kallaguma"...the list is endless. There are "bits and Pieces" of other songs. so much for originality!!
  
  
• From: disgusted (@ 208.142.210.30) on: Wed Oct 11 14:01:34 EDT 2000
  
  kishmu
  
  I just heard 'sunta hai' from pukaar. It indeed a shameless copy of 'kallellaam'. Not only that, portions of the charanam are another shameless copy of
  
  vaNNakkiLi kaiya thoda
  chinna chinna kOlam ida
  
  from 'ingi iduppazhagaa' (thEvar magan).
  
  Like other remix songs, this also loses the 'depth'. And we call him the best MD of India. Disgusting!!!!!
  
  
• From: chandy (@ 131.230.25.38) on: Wed Oct 11 14:16:25 EDT 2000
  
  kishmu and disgusted : please dont digress. this song and the copy/inspiration about it has been discussed in the copied songs thread.... there is some nice disscussion doing on here.. please dont inteerupt the flow... thanks
  
  
• From: kishmu (@ 198.102.112.201) on: Wed Oct 11 14:44:51 EDT 2000
  
  If you want to analyze his composing style, analyze the originals and other "inspirations"...thanks
  
  
• From: porumai (@ 216.190.255.35) on: Wed Oct 11 16:18:40 EDT 2000
  
  kishmu,
  have you heard the song
  "yenge nan kanden anarkali" composed by ir for a sivijai movie ?If so please hear and tell me what you think of that song.
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 208.51.40.112) on: Wed Oct 11 16:35:21 EDT 2000
  
  Every 5th post seems to jump into the favorite
  love hate theme!
  
  
• From: kishmu (@ 198.102.112.201) on: Wed Oct 11 17:44:08 EDT 2000
  
  Well, I certainly am not comparing MDs. It is indeed a shame (as disgusted pointed out) to copy. Be it any MD (IR or ARR for those that seem intent upon hearing a gun shot here).
  Instrument use does in a lot of ways influence a song. It requires a judicious choice, and thats one of those areas where ARR shows an immense talent and good taste. All his compositions have nice sounding instruments and played as it should be. Sounds are fresh and there are a good many places where they give importance to the instrument player. But this is only one aspect of music, although it was a welcome change to be listening to something new. But thats about it! Iam tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. I have little technical knowledge (like knowledge of counterpoints..and like - that "fan" and other people seem to be expert at) to be talking about "analysis". But I do understand music by ear, and would like ARR to come up with something new.
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.149.4) on: Wed Oct 11 18:27:59 EDT 2000
  
  Guys ..guys..there are lot of people here who are musicians or have deep technical knowledge. Based on their knowledge of music they have respect for ARR. You or I because of individual preferences or some other reason may not like ARR. So as a mark of civility we should just mention in passing politely our observations. Something like - 'I noticed that ARR songs have bits and pieces from other songs. for eg..." . And leave it at that. Yes..just only observations please..no trashing. Only then we can move on to other aspects of his work.
  
  
• From: kishmu (@ 198.102.112.201) on: Wed Oct 11 18:46:15 EDT 2000
  
  Sometimes criticism sounds unpolite. Never mind. That point was made, and its time to move on. And also, people that have sound technical knowledge, please come up with what you mean in a way we can understand. Its one thing to say and other to really understand what it means. I have no individual preference, and I enjoy listening (and playing) many kinds of music. My comments do sound harsh when it comes to copying and when theres lack of originality. And those are passing comments afterall!!
  
  
• From: k (@ 198.102.112.201) on: Wed Oct 11 19:45:22 EDT 2000
  
  impolite sorry. theres no unpolite
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 208.51.40.112) on: Thu Oct 12 15:07:08 EDT 2000
  
  Kuppu,
  
  The style of Manidha Manidha is very majestic and you are right, Vande mataram has similar
  arrangement. Just one correction, Manidha Manidha
  does not go all up like kalaivaniyae. It comes down during, 'ulagam eriyum'.
  
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.149.4) on: Thu Oct 12 16:06:02 EDT 2000
  
  e.hari elaborated on the interlude/novel structure of ARR's songs.
  Then we talked about scale/mood changes.
  There was discussion that the structure being a collage of bits/pieces lacking continuity.
  After these we have not explored another technique/pattern in ARR's songs, so far (???)
  
  
• From: Trend (@ 216.68.113.227) on: Thu Oct 12 17:08:48 EDT 2000
  
  Could anyone analyze the way ARR chooses singers for his compositions?
  What kind of voice does he expect for a classical based song or melody song or a fast beat song or a high pitch ?
  
  I think he is the first person to break the monotony of using same singer for all the songs .
  
  This discussion will also bring out the special characteristics of each singer.Even though opinions may be subjective it would be nice to know where we agree.
  
  Thanks,
  Trend
  
  

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