Taking next gen MD's into account...

app_engine Fri Oct 04, 2013 4:57 pm

Thread for HJ, Yuvan, Imman, GVP, Anirudh, Devi Prasad, Vijay Antony and everyone who came after ARR...

app_engine Fri Oct 04, 2013 4:59 pm

600 page symphony score by Anirudh...
https://twitter.com/anirudhofficial/status/386073253770702848

Irandam Ulagam's 600 page Symphony Score in Budapest, Hungary. Getting geared up. Love, Anirudh pic.twitter.com/7D8EXOv3QF

fring151 Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:08 pm

Hahaha..Plum is on a roll there. Sagittarian82 is hilarious with his DP and matter-of-fact question, "but who wrote it?". Is he in this forum?

On a serious note, is there no limit to the gullibility of the Tamil audience and the extent to which these jokers can get away with making such preposterous claims. 600 page score? Does Anirudh even understand staff notation or realize how many minutes of music that would translate to. Does he even know what a symphony is?

app_engine Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:10 pm

fring151 wrote:Sagittarian82 is hilarious with his DP and matter-of-fact question, "but who wrote it?". Is he in this forum?

It is our Nerd Smile

crimson king Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:20 pm

In symphony, you do NOT whistle/catcall/chat loudly with companions/answer phone calls etc when the musicians are playing. Would love to see that implemented for all Irandam Ulagam screenings since Anirudh has himself declared it a symphony. By the way, which scale is it going to be in?

fring151 Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:59 pm

Also what is with this sudden surge in the popularity of throwing around words like 'symphony', 'counterpoint', 'harmony', going to Budapest etc? In the last 15 years, I don't ever recall hearing such passionate talk about orchestration or symphonic music by any MD in India including ARR. Has the popularity of NEPV given them ideas? And in case the Budapest musicians had come to think very highly of Indian composers in general, pOchu ponga, total damage.

sagi Fri Oct 04, 2013 7:02 pm

crimson king wrote:By the way, which scale is it going to be in?

Taking next gen MD's into account... Ruler-30cm-deluxe

crimson king Fri Oct 04, 2013 8:17 pm

fring151 Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:30 am

@Nerd: LOL

Brief notes on these MDs:

HJ: Already said in the other thread. He has a few genuinely good songs. They might not qualify as 'evergreen' or 'classic' but they are definitely worth a listen. On the other hand he has a lot of mediocre songs and the repetitive nature of his music and unimaginative chord progressions more often than not, just bore me.

Devi Sri Prasad: I would love to be generous with this guy, being that he reveres Raja and considers him to be his greatest inspiration, but to be honest, most of his songs are eminently forgettable. Granted, I haven't heard any of his telugu works and not even all his tamil ones, but I am assuming that if he had done something truly memorable it would have been brought to my notice by someone, somewhere.

GVP: I have heard only a few of his songs and have liked only one so far, 'Pookal pookum tharuNam'.

Yuvan: I like a lot more of his works than the other three listed so far. Still, nowhere close to ARR.

James Vasanthan: Not heard too many recent ones, but enjoyed 'Kangal irandal (obviously)', 'Oru vetkam varudhe', 'nAn pOgiren' when they came out. Rarely seek them out on youtube though.

Vijay Antony and Imman: Totally unfamiliar.

fring151 Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:33 am

Did I miss MahlerofMadras? I guess we should reserve judgement till he releases the symphony and becomes the youngest symphony maker and adding it to his tag of youngest music composer/singer (got that from his twitter page).

fring151 Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:01 am

Also to put things in perspective for those who want LOL more at MoM, the collection of all of Beethoven's 9 symphonies in full score notation (which means separate pages for each instrument) would probably cover 700-800 pages. See this for example http://www.amazon.com/Ludwig-Van-Beethoven-Symphonies-Score/dp/1607961466. And consider the fact that Beethoven's symphonies are among the longest and densest in terms of orchestration. I have the sheet music for guitar arrangements of some of Bach's orchestral suites and 1 page roughly corresponds to 3-5 mins of music (depending on the tempo).

vicks Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:07 am

slightly tangential, but heard somewhere that Raja writes ~ 40 sheets of BGM per movie.. but going by your estimate of ~5 mins = 1 page, assuming for a 3 hr movie BGM = 1.5 hrs, Raja writes ~20 pages for BGM.. assuming 5 songs = 5 sheets, total per movie = 25. ~920 movies => 23000 pages of music!!!

No wonder the man has lost a few score sheets over time. This number (23000) alone should put ARR and co to shame!

fring151 Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:33 am

vicks wrote:slightly tangential, but heard somewhere that Raja writes ~ 40 sheets of BGM per movie.. but going by your estimate of ~5 mins = 1 page, assuming for a 3 hr movie BGM = 1.5 hrs, Raja writes ~20 pages for BGM.. assuming 5 songs = 5 sheets, total per movie = 25. ~920 movies => 23000 pages of music!!!

No wonder the man has lost a few score sheets over time. This number (23000) alone should put ARR and co to shame!

40 could be correct if it were full score notation. I think 1.5 hrs of BGM is stretching it. My estimation would be no more than 30 mins of original music since themes repeat frequently throughout the movie. So assuming 20-30 mins of music, for a single instrument, it can be written in 5-7 pages. And since a full orchestra is rarely used for every portion of the BGM, the full score will probably fit in 40 pages...

As for MoM, his shameless twitter update convinces me he is probably illiterate in WCM. I don't mean that in a condescending way, but you know, for someone to write a symphony, it is kind of a prerequisite. In any case, the empty first sheet had the name of some other person as the orchestrator. I suspect that this person wrote the score, made some photocopies and stacked them together and our man just counted 'em all up.

vicks Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:41 am

fring151 wrote:
In any case, the empty first sheet had the name of some other person as the orchestrator. I suspect that this person wrote the score, made some photocopies and stacked them together and our man just counted 'em all up.

^
heights of ignorance, if true lol!

crimson king Sat Oct 05, 2013 6:23 am

Of those mentioned in the OP, I also like a few of Yuvan's songs at the most, that too, from the time when he was still establishing himself like Dhina (Sollammal) or Nanda (Muthal Paniya), nothing in the last few years. I like SPB's singing in that 7am Arivu song, but the composition is very boring. I liked a few songs of Ramesh Vinayagam but he doesn't seem to get many opportunities. And I still like Vidyasagar's work in the last decade more than any of these people. If MM Kreem gave scores in Tamil, he would probably outshine them too (for me). I recall Jism songs more often than most of the stuff that the new Hindi MDs have turned out.

crimson king Sat Oct 05, 2013 6:37 am

The only Imman song I have properly heard is Aiyayayo. The song sounded decent but the tune sounded like sniping portions from old IR melodies to put together a new one, so I never felt like listening again, nothing more to see. The common thread I see in post ARR MDs is they seem to decide the arrangements first and then try to work out some tune which will fit. But it's going to be either the melody or the chords that make up the most memorable part of the composition so that should ideally get attention first. I see this trend in Hindi, I see this in contemporary rock/pop and it makes for music that sounds very hip, stylish even but ultimately lacks identity.

**V_S** Sat Oct 05, 2013 6:42 am

crimson king wrote:ultimately lacks identity.

Nailed it. This is my biggest complaint. If I could not tell from a composition who would have tuned (I hate to call it 'composed' as it is only applicable to Raja) it, it is an ultimate failure for the music director.

crimson king Sat Oct 05, 2013 6:51 am

I was listening to Malayil Vedhanai from Sethu yesterday. And I could see that even though the arrangements, the sounds have been 'aligned' to the Rahman-era (save the jazz surprise in the second interlude), the melody is not only unmistakably IR, it is well rounded and developed with a climactic, soaring chorus and all that. One could (appropriately) change the arrangements or even sing it without accompaniment and the song's essence would still be intact because it derives from the melody. I only wish Unni had sung it with a little more passion, especially the chorus.

**V_S** Sat Oct 05, 2013 7:05 am

Somehow I never felt any Raja song having sounds of Rahman or other music directors. Not a single song/note I felt this was unlike him, the main reason being he changed his approach gradually and not abruptly. Just like he slowly shed his live orchestration format by losing out live percussions first, then gradually strings, then wind instruments so that that transition was seamless. Those who listened to 93-95 and suddenly to 98-99 without listening to 96-97 might find it abrupt, but if we had closely followed we could sense this change. Even when he took up new synth (by late 90s), he was in his own elements and I can clearly differentiate his usage from others. If we are deviating, we can continue in appropriate threads.

crimson king Sat Oct 05, 2013 8:38 am

I don't mean sounds LIKE ARR but just aligned to that era. As in, the era of electronic and slick sounds. IR was also doing the same thing from mid 90s onwards (to some extent, as early as songs like Aasai Adhigam) so it fitted in the overall 90s/00s sound. While a score like NEPV stands out because it's so orchestral.

fring151 Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:22 pm

I didn't mention Vidyasagar in the last post because he isn't really Gen-Y or post-ARR, however if we are discussing him, I agree he is far more preferable to the likes of GVP and HJ and I like many of his songs. 'Malare mounama', 'Poi solla koodathu', 'Poovasam purappadum peNNe', 'Un samayal arayil (in spite of the Rolling Eyes

lyrics)', 'Aasai aasai (from Dhool)', 'Ding dong koil mani (why, lyricist? whoever you are), songs from Parthiiban kanavu to name a few. One thing I like about Vidyasagar is that he seems to know his strengths (melody and raaga based songs) and sticks to it, ditto for Maragadhamani. Far more preferable to indulging in half-baked copy-pasting from alien genres and sounds.

Yuvan, I like almost all songs from 7G, some from KaNda nAl mudhal in addition to those mentioned by CK. Also 'idhu varai' from Goa and a couple of songs from Payya (what a title for a movie!). Haven't heard anything in the last 2 years, so I don't know if he has gone downhill.

kiru Sun Oct 06, 2013 1:46 am

crimson king wrote:I don't mean sounds LIKE ARR but just aligned to that era. As in, the era of electronic and slick sounds. IR was also doing the same thing from mid 90s onwards (to some extent, as early as songs like Aasai Adhigam) so it fitted in the overall 90s/00s sound. While a score like NEPV stands out because it's so orchestral.

It goes even much earlier, I still dont like raja .. rajathi raja from AN for its usage of synths.
Well, IR would use all kinds of instruments, templates etc. but my guess is - the one with the heavy use of orchestra/strings is his favorite. We have seen quite a good progress on this front.. with mugilO mEgamO taking the current best award in this genre.

crimson king Sun Oct 06, 2013 7:49 am

fring151 wrote:One thing I like about Vidyasagar is that he seems to know his strengths (melody and raaga based songs) and sticks to it, ditto for Maragadhamani. Far more preferable to indulging in half-baked copy-pasting from alien genres and sounds.

Well, he can also be 'credited' with popularising the kutthu paatu format from around 2000 or so. Either with Gemini or Dhool. Since then, there's been no 'looking back'. He has also composed songs like Hey Shabba (copied, by the way) and Kadhal Pisaasu. It may be a matter of melody format songs falling into his lap more often than not because he has given some very good melodies like Malare/Poovaasam/Konja Neram. While M M Kreem seems to try to treat situations in a way that suits his strength in melody. He could have done Jaadu Hai Nasha Hai differently but he chose to write a very melodic antara because that's where he can stamp his identity.

**V_S** Sun Oct 06, 2013 8:03 am

Coming to Vidyasagar, have you guys listened to his recent film Pullipulikalum Aattinkuttiyum? What are your thoughts? He is even scoring music for Sathyan's next movie. I still find it difficult on where he brings his own touches/signature. Great melodies, no doubt, but I am still searching Vidya Saagar in these songs. Definitely, his melodies are way more welcoming compared to other contemporaries. Couple of his recent songs which I like very much.

Otta Thumbi - Shankar Mahadevan and Chitra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEAWB-sTj0M

Kootti Muttiya - Najim Arshad and Sujatha

crimson king Sun Oct 06, 2013 8:12 am

I don't hear any SIGNATURE as such of Vidyasagar either. He is good at crafting memorable melodies (in itself a very difficult thing) but it's not like if I line up three or four of them, I could tell that they are all by the same composer. I am interested to know fring's views, whether he has spotted any distinct trademarks of Vidyasagar. He is a bit of a chameleon, like the yesteryear composer Ravi, but when he writes melodies, he does a tasteful job.

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