Why IR is NOT simply someone between MSV-time & ARR-time

V_S

 It is taking me several posts to just comment on one post of yours. Such was the quality of what you wrote  

 While blogs and personal publishing is a new technology, we must only consider Raja and other composers who came after him, in this aspect. Let's leave MSV out of this as his music was before the days of personal publishing.

 In general, I notice that blogs on Raja belong to several categories: 1) Emotional content (good and bad) based on personal experience 2) Gossip based on a popular personality (one can easily ride on the popularity of the musician) 3) Casual blogs which feature Raja as one of the topics (this is the most widespread) 4) Blogs that are an excuse to download his music 5) Blogs that are dedicated to Raja, but more superficial - these contain youtube links and content not so deep and lastly 6) Blogs that are based on serious research on his work.

 The reason why I list these types of blogs are the reasons behind such content publishing: Raja means different things to different people - some approach his music very emotionally, others casually and a few, very seriously. However, all of them think that there is something unique they want to share with the world.  This does not include the social media, which has its own twists and turns.

  Going back to my previous example, for the longest time, people spent so much of time demystifying relativity and Einstein. He did very little to demystify it as he thought it was all logical. Others had to do it. The deeper the thought in the making of something, the longer it takes to unravel it. That perhaps explains why Raja blogging is still thriving in a world that loves to twit.  Not everything can be said in a few sentences and not everything can be enjoyed by casual listening.

  The key point is, has there been a musician who has captured the imagination of so many folks with so different focuses other than Raja? With other musicians, you are likely to find a lot of these categories except 1) and 6). When there is not much to unravel, why blog? Unraveling could be by emotion or by intellect.

Those two are diametrically opposite categories of folks who take the pain to document their thoughts or emotions. Such things happen only with Raja's music.

  Personally I like a number of other film musicians, but none of them qualify to be researched.

Again,  worthy stuff written from Suresh, V_S, fring151 and Ravinat.

Ravinat, that analogy with Einstein.  

Suresh saar,

One doubt. Not stirring a hornet's nest here but just trying to take that logical thread further. That point on MSV, Raaja and ARR's music is well taken. But we do see ever so slight examples of Raaja's style (again, not saying they are copies) in Rahman's work. A Kathaazhalan Kaatu Vazhi and an Unakkena Thaane Inneraama (first brought out by Plum), and also a Kadhalennum Thervezhudhi. Apart from these minor examples (which can themselves be debated), it is hard to argue Rahman owed Raaja anything musically whereas we see Raaja taking MSV's soul in the late 70s and approaching it in a WCM way of thinking that you mentioned and thereby updating MSV (a term @equanimus uses regularly). That way, would it be okay to call Raaja a person who maintained the chain at one level and created a separate chain at the other end realizing Salil da's dream? And the 80s were a more clear example of that chain break. And that chain is yet to be taken forward and be emulated.

Also, where would you categorize Rahman post 2003 in Tamil? Has he brought those pop influences and has brought a disruption in TFM? As for songs growing on you, I don't take a lot of that bull, but I do admit quite a few ARR songs have grown on me with time (like a Kelaamal Kaiyile from ATM, lovely song). And is he going back to MSV's soul again? Innum Konjam Neram and Netru Aval from Mariyaan (Kaaviya Thalaivan being set in the 1930s apparently) being recent examples. Of course, idhu nelaikkumA nu solradhukku only time will answer. More than questions, these are thoughts I'm pondering here so that we can bounce off ideas openly.

i dont think raaja owes anything to msv. all msv did was to do his creative duties.
raaja being an eager student of music carved his own path. and nfor the zillionth time 
i have to reiterate that msvness of the songs of raaja of early days stopped at the
 singers used period. closely observed, it is msv who started concentrating on
 elaborate interludes as opposite to squeezing in an additional charanam.
and were it not for raaja arr wouldnt have bothered about interludes either.

This video deserves a place in this thread. Now this kind of emotional connect with the audience, only Raaja possible. Unless its manufactured to prove a point. A discerning observer can clearly see that each and every word the fans spoke came straight from their hearts. And the most important thing here is - even at that stage Raaja does not engage in any type of conversation at their level. But still look at their love for the man. 

The only thing which has been continually speaking to us is his music. It touches those sweet spots which we thought never existed. And sometimes it makes us bawl like a baby. The only musician who has created songs for every imaginable feeling in this world.

Drunkenmunk wrote: Not stirring a hornet's nest here but just trying to take that logical thread further.

. More than questions, these are thoughts I'm pondering here so that we can bounce off ideas openly.

kavalaiyE padAdheenga sAr, like I mentioned in twitter, this thread IS and WILL BE the most mature place to discuss MSV, ARR & other TFM composers in & out of relation to the IR phenomenon

So, pugundhu viLaiyAdunga please

Thanks Drunkenmunk.

Drunkenmunk wrote:And is he going back to MSV's soul again?  Innum Konjam Neram

Definitely! Whenever I first listened to this song, I sensed a 70s MSV song, but could not relate to which song. It even takes me to some old hindi song. It is still eluding me. Still I can faintly relate to enakkkoru kaadhali irukkindraal (muththaana muthallavO - 1976) kind of melody. Even when he has employed ghatam to convert to folk flavor, it cannot hide its ancestor.

Staying on my non-musical path (e.g. pOrALi MD fan), let me get back to my pet topic of "recognition for MD" again.

This time not among the street fan gumbals but the industry bigwigs.

Would anyone have imagined prior to rAsA making it big that this 'ENdee muththammA Edhu punnagai' Chandrabose could have been given that kind of facilities by biggie producers?

Chandrabose himself -even in his wildest imaginations - couldn't have thought of AVM Saravanan and the likes giving him apple-juice

That, I think, is the biggest contribution by rAsA to ARR.

Recently I read a news report on KBR speech that went like 'because of rAsA, I became MD'

Just look at the psyche behind such extreme decision.

Here he was, a top-selling director who was also riding high in the BO as hero. His mundhAnai mudichchu was a record-breaker, smashing every record prior in collections / number of days run, theaters run etc - rivalling the levels of MGR/Sivaji/Kamal/Rajini.

And, that too after a string of hits. And, with the reputation as one of the best script writers around to take along (e.g. despite being a big-ego fellow and ladAi with sishyan prior, BR went back to him, requesting to write the OKD script). MGR himself named him as his vArisu

And, this KBR -despite all such success and fame - could not stand him being a "lesser hero" than rAsA and wanted to prove something

I guess IR generated similar jealousy in some degree with other biggie heroes too.

Some recognition for a music composer  

(None prior could dream of such a stature...if some after him got such stature - e.g. ARR - it was definitely because rAsA had created such aura around the composer before, which is unlike any other market in the country! Why country - even abroad, where pop singers are sung about everywhere - with the composer's name often only in fine print of music albums, unless the singer himself / herself happened to be the composer)

it is hard to argue Rahman owed Raaja anything musically whereas we see Raaja taking MSV's soul in the late 70s and approaching it in a WCM way of thinking that you mentioned and thereby updating MSV (a term @equanimus uses regularly). That way, would it be okay to call Raaja a person who maintained the chain at one level and created a separate chain at the other end realizing Salil da's dream? And the 80s were a more clear example of that chain break. And that chain is yet to be taken forward and be emulated.

I would partially agree with DM on this. There are some early Raja songs which can be considered "MSV updated". Veterans correct me if I am wrong on this, but wasn't Sigapppu Rojakkal in 1978 Raja's first full fledged wcm based album? If this is true, then I would consider this as the point when Raja started breaking free of all conventions and began forging his own unique path and identity. The BGM of this movie is particularly a turning point to me. From then on, it has been one endless journey of relentless experimentation, innovation and breaking rules. 

With ARR, I agree that he didn't owe much musically to IR. To me, he is a self-made man and an outstanding musician without doubt.  And again, I think it is unfair to compare his composition and working style with Raja (There just isn't anyone else like that the world!) The only thing I don't like is the exaggerated media hype and the Aascaar worshipping gumbal that follow the man.

D_M,

As app said we are here to discuss music primarily and in course of our analysis if some people get hurt it is fine  Secondly, I am not the proprietor of truth  So I can be wrong in my assessment. So please do put up any counter points you can think of.

First let me state this. If there were dramatic breaks from the past it must be MSV-TKT and KVM who broke away from G Ramanathan & co. The music of MSV-TKR and KVM was very explicitly different from GR. These masters sounded fresher, they gave a new definition on how to approach a raga, which was different from the more classical oriented GR & co. Added to it they brought in a nuanced way of singing compared to the more direct approach of the earlier MDs. This had already happened in Hindi film music but came to Tamil films through MSV-TKR and KVM. I don't think the modern generation can appreciate how disruptive MSV-TKR were in their generation. 

The second dramatic break was that of Rahman from Raja. As I said, Rahman approached music differently. He got in many of the pop music ideas into TFM. He got some outstanding recording equipment. Very catch rhythm loops started coming in, the melody was suitably simple, keeping with the pop style requirement, new voices came in and crystal clear sound was heard. The richness of orchestra of Raja gave way to synthesized sounds, the complex harmonies gave way to simple ones. The effect was opposite to that of Raja. The break was definitely dramatic and disruptive.

Raja is an example where the break was not as disruptive as in the earlier two cases. Yes, there was a certain magic in 'Annakili', there was a certain magic in 'Sendhoorapoove' and yet, the aesthetics sound very close to the aesthetics of that era. Added to it were many Sivaji movies wherein Raja had to sound like MSV in melody. Also as Jai pointed out, the use of singers like TMS kept his music rooted to that MSV era for some time.

Yet, when you look closer, you will observe that while MSV became more modern and got TFM on same level as HFM or even TeFM, the major way they composed still remained the same. There was change in terms of approach to melody but there was no change in the tune being the central idea of the song. All that the instrumentation did was to keep this central idea intact. In the same way, if you look deeper into Rahman's music, you will find that there are certain central ideas in the song and they are what add to the attractiveness of the song. This could be the basic rhythm, this could be 'hook' he uses in the tune or a very melodious pallavi line. They are rarely developed beyond a point and as I said, there is rarely any any unified idea. We will come to why that doesn't happen in a later post.

Coming to Raja, it took people some time during those days to realize that though some songs of Raja sounded like MSVs in the initial, this was a different beast altogether. People were used to skipping the interludes mentally and they probably did that in the earlier times. But slowly it started seeping into their consciousness. Then they found out that many of Raja songs are not just about the tune but about the whole tune+orchestration. I don't people expressed this explicitly but this was what happened. Because people started singing songs with the preludes and interludes!! And these were complex ones but people knew it by heart. (If I just start, "pa pa pa pa papa paa" and say this is the prelude of 'Andhi Mazhi' will you not sing the whole complex prelude in your mind? That is how deeply these are embedded in people's mind.) So slowly and steadily people realized that Raja has broken a lot of ground. This was done by ensuring that the philosophy which he held, of the unity of the song, was reflected in every song that he composed. No compromises were ever done. That is why he was able to start as if he is one music director in TFM to slowly becoming the 'only' music director in TFM.

Coming to Raja's influence on Rahman, I think it is very less. Yes, a couple of examples would be there but his structuring of the songs were different and his versatility limited to certain templates for certain situations. I would think that 'kannalane's pallavi line structuring is similar to Raja songs but the whole song does not owe anything to Raja. The only thing I can think of which owes to Raja are the interludes or preludes which are longer than in MSV's period. This had become inevitable after Raja. Yet, these interludes were mostly the imagination of the instrument players (as per Rahman's fans themselves.) So you do not get the tight coupling, the precision and the unity of interludes with the main melody.

The influence of MSV, which seems to high, if we go by the initial few Sivaji films, was more a mirage. HFM had more influence on Raja's musical thinking than TFM's music. If you hear carefully, you will find lot of Salilda influenced orchestration, SDB and RDB influenced songs. As usual, Raja molds these influences into his own vision and delivers a completely different product to us.

App ji,
That was a nice catch about Chandrabose. I totally agree. Excellent posts! As you say, Raja did all the ground work and hard work to put and establish the music directors in front, otherwise we would not be even talking about them now. All the music directors who came after Raja owe a lot to him. What a platform he set for them, but what we see from them in return.

Drunkenmunk wrote:Suresh saar,

Apart from these minor examples (which can themselves be debated), it is hard to argue Rahman owed Raaja anything musically whereas we see Raaja taking MSV's soul in the late 70s and approaching it in a WCM way of thinking that you mentioned and thereby updating MSV (a term @equanimus uses regularly). That way, would it be okay to call Raaja a person who maintained the chain at one level and created a separate chain at the other end realizing Salil da's dream? And the 80s were a more clear example of that chain break. And that chain is yet to be taken forward and be emulated.

 
I think this observation is based on a small percentage of songs of those time. They definitely were 'MSVish' to some extent but those songs formed only a small percentage. Raja's approach to the tune itself was quite different from MSVs. His was a complex construction. While we can always showcase songs from 'Tyagam' or "Deepam', for MSV 'influence', you just need to look at the Bharathiraja films of those times to see the real Raja. 'MSV' type of tunes were done more keeping Sivaji in mind and the enormous respect Raja had for Sivaji. Outside of this there is very less reason to say Raja updated MSV. I mean, 'sendhoorapoove' or 'kuyile kavikuile' or 'kaalai paniyil' are nowhere like MSV. All these happened in Raja's B&W years only. So reading a few songs and concluding that Raja was MSVlike is in my opinion a very gross generalization. Right from the beginning he was charting a new path. For various industry reasons he had to give an illusion of having one leg in the path traveled by MSV.

Suresh,

 killed it. Lovely stuff. Thanks for the answer. I find that mirage very interesting. Whether he was preparing the Tamil listener, used to MSV/KVM/TKR's sounds, on to his sounds, or whether it was a compulsion of the Sivaji film structures is worth exploring IMO. But you say it was more a compulsion of the Sivaji film structure. However, a song like Sugamo Aayiram, though the whole is definitely Raaja, with its instrumentation genius, which Plum spoke about with the flute pauses in the third charanam throwing a podi before the final revelation from the wife. All that is only Raaja fossible stuff. But strip the orch, the tune can be mistaken for MSV with its brighas and raaga structures. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Raaga_Suresh wrote:All these happened in Raja's B&W years only. So reading a few songs and concluding that Raja was MSVlike is in my opinion a very gross generalization. Right from the beginning he was charting a new path. For various industry reasons he had to give an illusion of having one leg in the path traveled by MSV.

Point taken. Maybe I was cherry picking too with Sugamo Aayiram and singular examples. Taking the BR films, NMP with an Aayiram Malargale from 1979 or an Azhagiya Kanne and a Naan Paada Varuvaay are agmark Raaja. Would it then be fair to say he brought in the sound I was referring to films like Odi Vilayaadu Thaatha and Sivaji films and slowly with most of the other films like BR's and Mahendran's and with the new wave of BM, SP Muthuraman, brought his own style and opened up his genius? Because he himself certainly evolved completely in the 80s. There is a change from his late 70s and 80s output. How much of it is attributable to the change in the way films were made and their demands for songs and how much was Raaja himself evolving is again making me think.

One more track I want to open up w.r.t music is how Raaja builds a composition. Take any song. Again, the one that comes to mind is Poongadhave. The interludes, apart from the nadhaswaram and thavil in the first and the violin-flute "it-kills-my-soul-every-frikking-time" counterpoint at the end of the second interlude, there are violins that keep playing. As they play, a flute adds on to the violin which does not stop. This to me is akin to building a fort brick by brick. The way Raaja constructs a composition. Even other than constructing a song the way Suresh mentions (the whole song being a WCM idea with every instrument contributing equally including the voice and the tune), I find this "constructing a song layer-upon-layer" to be a Raaja style which I don't hear in any other Indian composer. I find this an art worth emulating.

Poongadhave:


I tried writing on it today too:

http://raajasongadaykeepsboredomaway.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/61-skies-open-up/

Your two pence are always welcome too as I feel this is yet another facet to the diamond that is Raaja the musician (endha pakkam paarthaalum jolikkum) that is worth exploring.

D_M,

Raja, with every 5 to 7 yrs term, moved away to newer pastures. (I will not call this evolution because it will mean that things became better  ) It is just that he started adopting a newer style of composition and orchestration without losing his signature. So till around the early 80s his style was different, then he changed slowly in late 80s / early 90s and around late 90s there was another subtle change before the mid 2000s got him into another style. All this happened almost imperceptibly. Yet, as I mentioned on twitter, from 'chella pilla saravanan' to 'kalaiyile maalai vandhadhu' is like crossing the Pacific

Sureshji & DM, question :

What extension of MSV was 'machchAnappAththeengaLA' or 'suththachchembA pachcha nellu'?
(Well, here I'm trying to speak musically )

Aren't we looking at the firstest movie / album of rAsA, before studying his possible "forced compromises" like 'nee kEttAl nAn mAttEn enRA', 'en kalyANa vaibOgam', 'nallavarkkellAm sAtchikaL reNdu'?

Even when looking at Sivaji movies where IR can be "insinuated" of following MSV idioms for "some" songs, didn't he stick to his style of music in parallel in those very albums? (The likes of 'vasantha kAlakkOlangaL', 'poovizhil vAsalil yAradi vandhadhu', 'AgAyam mElE bAthALam keezhE', 'mazhai varuvadhu mayilukkuth theriyum')...

Of course, please pardon my ignorance in the above post / questions where I assumed that machchAna and such numbers quoted were breakaway from the tradition of prior masters

They might very well have been not breakaways but continuations

However, to my musically untrained ears, those sounded very different those days - I mean 70's radio days (much like how rOjA sounded to people of 90's). I couldn't connect such numbers of orchestral brilliance to the immediate prior works of MSV / KVM...(possibly there were references to some MSV-TKR period where Henry Daniel and such assistants provided WCM conceptual help, but some putting such connections together will help people like me)

app,

To a large extent that is my argument as well. That Raja was different but had to make some songs sound MSVish in order to satisfy people (film people not the common man.) So there were few MSVish songs but people take those up and say Raja extended MSV, which I do not agree upon. He was right from the beginning a different man with his own views. At the same time, I personally feel that his break from MSV was realised a bit more slowly than Rahman's break from Raja. 

You will already know this but for the sake of younger folks, we must talk about the situation in which Raja worked in. There was decent level of resistance to him in the film field. When he was given the first film 'Annakili' by Panju Arunachalam, there was opposition from Panju Arunachalam's brothers itself. They wanted to listen to the song with full orchestra before approving Raja. So Raja hired Balaji Kalyana Mandapam in T Nagar, practised with his group and only after hearing the whole orchestra they approved him as the MD for the film. Those were the days of MSV and Shankar Ganesh. So Raja had to tread bit slowly and had to satisfy lot of people in his initial days before he could start dictating terms.

Rahman, on the other hand, had no such issues. He was already a successful jingle maker and was very much in demand in the ad world. (Raja on the other hand was an assistant MD to GKV). He also got the full backing of influential TF folks like Balachander and Maniratnam, who had an axe to grind against Raja. Later Rahman got the backing of the hotshot debutant Shankar and also top producers like Kunjumon and Ratnam. So Rahman did not have any pressure to sound like Raja. (We must give credit to Rahman also here since he ensured his new sound was different and people asked for it.)

V_S wrote:

ravinat wrote:V_S

 It is taking me several posts to just comment on one post of yours. Such was the quality of what you wrote  

Thanks Ravi. Sorry if I am making you work. When I wrote that post, I wanted to just sketch each accomplishments for us to discuss about each one of them in detail.

 

ravinat wrote: The key point is, has there been a musician who has captured the imagination of so many folks with so different focuses other than Raja? With other musicians, you are likely to find a lot of these categories except 1) and 6).

When I mentioned about Raja fans and their blogs I was only having #1 and #6 in mind. Good that you brought out all categories of blogs and materials available on net. I have mostly found such intense articles and blogs about Raja's music a lot compared to others. Yes, I left out MSV when I stated that, still there are some forums and sites about MSV's music, but not huge (but was definitely expecting a lot more to read about his music). It was puzzling that there are so many young music directors have come out (including ARR) since last 20 years, but have not seen much analysis on any of their music (which I am very much willing to read), except there are some usual reviews of new music and the corresponding hot comments sections. On the other hand, we still keep reading articles, blogs on Raja's music (even for the ones which were composed during 70s and 80s) which tells me one thing. Either their respective music fans just listen to whatever comes new that time, praise for few days and forget it and wait for the next release, OR they are quite lazy to do any such analysis. This is inclusive of the fans group. That's where Raja fans are quite different. Their passion never dies(d) as is the music itself. The music draws them to such an extent that they could not remain silent after listening. I am also astonished to see the amount of detail they get into (I am also including your blog).

V_S

   In my view, the blog scenario of Raja is also not very mature, though it is better than others. Here are two reasons:

1.  While most analytical blogs speak positively about his techniques, rarely do they touch on failed experiments. In a mature evaluation, you need to deal with both success and failure.  I think it is time for Raja bloggers to get to that next level

2. Almost all blogs are individual contributions. My view is that, any blog that does deep analysis must go with some theme or the other. Navigating Raja's work over the past 4 decades is very cumbersome. There is a definite need for collaboration when you do some serious research. While forums such as this are at times focused, they tend to lose focus after a while. Collaboration is completely lacking among Raja bloggers/researchers. I have tried unsuccessfully many times to rope fans into a format. Of late, I do most of the slogging of navigating his work. I only seek opinions where I lack expertise.

  Unless the above two happens, the Raja blogosphere will revolve in the same axis and will lose steam after some time.  Trust me, there are not that many low hanging fruits any longer.

Wov, Enjoyed/enjoying all the brilliant posts  

Raaga_Suresh wrote:MSV's 'mampazhaththu vandu' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFlUntVyGGk
Rahman's 'chinna chinna aasai': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpMK2UYmgw8
Raja's 'annakili unna thedudhu': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtd_9LkMxig

Somehow I thought once, Chinna Chinna Aasai tune is a simplied tune of Ilaiya Nila Pozhigirathu

Three more songs for comparison. I have taken the case of a young female being in a happy mood as the theme.

MSV with his 'aalaya maniyin osai' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN2a7WO3wkI 
Raja with 'kuyile kavikuyile' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPGddm9VBaQ
Rahman with 'marghazi poove' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fme52RzRI-E

Since I have already spoken about complex construction and simple construction earlier, you can easily make out which is more complex   Seriously, you can see a linear progression in Rahman's charanam and a final descend. While Raja is very non linear in his development, right from the pallavi. MSV is somewhere in between these two extremes. Not in the melody/ragam definitely but in the way the charanam is constructed, you can clearly see the affinity of Rahman to MSV.

nanRi Sureshji, for the explanation of the IR's circumstantial conformance to existing music style (aka his "establishment" phase)

I'm glad that my understanding that "not ALL of rAsA's initial output were simbly extensions of prior-erA" is somewhat correct

And you proved me right by the excellent 'kavikkuyil' example to showcase it

A song that rAsA hit the TN-ers with - and threw them into a rocket to soar