IR's waltz hits

app_engine wrote:

Usha wrote:

kakka kakka from Jule Ganapathy.. Starting portion.....

http://tamilthiraipaadal.com/index.php?action=album&id=205&aname=Julie%20Ganapathi

This JG album has two terrific IR-Waltz numbers

KJY's 'minmini pArvaiga'L (quite straight forward waltz, easily mapped to the pattern in Vicky's video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYQLJ6stRJc

And the sweet SG number 'enakkup pidiththa pAdal' also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLPLOI6KpGE


I think both these songs got referred when people commented on the lovely 'kanulu kalanu' of abbAyithO ammAyil

Thank you app....... indha paatai maranthuten................

Niram pirithu parthen from Time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5m3pR2Y5Jg

Uravugal thodarkadhai from Aval appadithan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52lDnAYzCUk

Usha wrote:Niram pirithu parthen  from Time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5m3pR2Y5Jg

Classic!

Superb sample!!

Once again, this song should serve as an "EXCEPTION" to my opinion 7 b

Reasons :
1. This is the most complex / innovative / experimental song in that album
2. Not as popular as kAdhal nee dhAnA (sung by the super singer judges ) or thavikkiREn with the general public (well, not popular even with the director who chose to not have visuals)

app_engine wrote:

Usha wrote:Niram pirithu parthen  from Time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5m3pR2Y5Jg

Classic!

Superb sample!!

Once again, this song should serve as an "EXCEPTION" to my opinion 7 b

Reasons :
1. This is the most complex / innovative / experimental song in that album
2. Not as popular as kAdhal nee dhAnA (sung by the super singer judges ) or thavikkiREn with the general public (well, not popular even with the director who chose to not have visuals)

Highly underrated composition. I have been listening to this song more frequently (at least once in 2 days) since last 2 weeks. The charanams are top notch. If you see, the music ideas in this song are in the same ilk as Ennulle ennulle (Valli) or even the songs in Neethane Enponvasantham. This is easily one of his finest compositions in the 2nd half of 90s.

(candid confession: The rest of the songs in this album are big time blah for me. This is the only song where I think he knocked the ball out of the park)

Thanks app......

Kamalaakarsh,

Time... Beautiful Album...... Interludes Speaks a lot.......

Original  Audio CD ellam romba costlyaga irundha time.. apo vandha padam idhu.. paatu kaetu... Original CD vanginen.....

sila natkalae ana andha cd.... En friend asaiyaga vangi sendral... Indru varai thirupi tharavillai... apadi konjam special dhan indha Time enaku.......

Mouni naanu from Suryakanthi

Nee partha parvaikoru from Hey Ram

Usha wrote:Thanks app......

Kamalaakarsh,

Time... Beautiful Album...... Interludes Speaks a lot.......

Original  Audio CD ellam romba costlyaga irundha time.. apo vandha padam idhu.. paatu kaetu... Original CD vanginen.....

sila natkalae ana andha cd.... En friend asaiyaga vangi sendral... Indru varai thirupi tharavillai... apadi konjam special dhan indha Time enaku.......

Usha, I have another favourite too apart from "niRam pirithu",  in "Time". It is the
ultra peppy duet in Mohanam, "naan thanga roja" with
very groovy violins backing

Some might raise their eyebrows for my opinion 7 a, asking "what's the big deal - when there are so many numbers in an album, it is pretty normal to switch around rhythm structures for variety, is it not? What's so big about having at least one waltz in that".

From a HCIRF PoV, that may sound reasonable (as he has spoilt us with so much of variety in orch and ideas).

However, it need not be the norm

Take for example, his illustrious predecessor MSV. There's little argument even among the HCF's of MSV that his songs with partnership of TKR were superior. There's also general agreement that while MSV was the leading melody maker in that partnership, TKR had a lot of say on orch. (MSV had to later use talents such as Joseph Krishna in that department while continuing to create lot of terrific melodies himself. Also, we all know about MTK where IR did the orch for MSV melodies, with the exception of kuzhaloodhum where both melody and orch by IR).

Now, pudhiya paRavai is one album which MSV-TKR fans often place as a "counter" when IR's top-class orch skills are mentioned. The duo even had talents such as Henry Daniel to help them in that movie. Often MSV fans talk about 60 violin 90 violin etc for 'engE nimmadhi' song and cannot stop talking in general about the orch of pudhiya paRavai. (The only other album they ever talk about "western instruments" will probably be ninaiththAlE inikkum).

Now, while I love all the songs of this album (not so much 'engE nimmadhi' but all others are my all-time-fav numbers, 'unnai onRu kEtpEn' has even the pride of having an IR-remix, 'AhA mella nada' is terrific, 'chittukkuruvi muththam koduththu' can make one's spirit sore high, 'pArtha gnAbagam illaiyo' - despite being an "inspiration" - is a wonderful song, with inimitable PS), I'll have to point out here in this thread that not one of them was waltz All the songs had "tha-ka-dhi-mi-tha-ka-ju-nu". (Musicals please correct me if I'm wrong).

Of course, the MSV-TKR duo had that terrific 'adhO andhappaRavai pOla vAzha vENdum' - classic waltz - in Ayiraththil oruvan. They also did the sweet "kodi asaindhadhum kAtRu vandhadhA" in pArthAl pasi theerum. However, like the example of pudhiya paRavai, it was not always gonna be there! And, the amount of innovations aren't anything near IR's (as talked about by Vicky in his Jazz Waltz article / youtube or thAmtha-deemtha youtube). Prior to IR, such works were more straight-forward, with more stress to melody (as in V Kumar's kAdhOdu dhAn nAn pEsuvEn, a classic waltz number).

The history of IR - OTOH - is so different w.r.t. his "waltz" indulgences! Even in his very first movie, he had to have it Of course, the sweet "annakkiLi unnaiththEdudhE"  is IR-Waltz! Also machchAnap pAththeengaLA! When one adds sondhamillai bandhamillai, it becomes 3 out of 4 songs in his first album. (suththachchambA is 4 beat cycle)

Well, literally 3/4 in his first album

In fact, I am struggling to think of 3/4 songs of MS/TKR.  There must be, but not many of the notable ones it seems.  Not even the Tamizh tabla waltz so ubiquitous in IR's music.  He may have been influenced there by the Hindi greats who loved 3/4.  Esp the ballroom waltz with piano and all.  IR only tried that precise format once IIRC in Kalyanam Vaibhogam.  Something like this:

crimson king wrote:In fact, I am struggling to think of 3/4 songs of MS/TKR.  There must be, but not many of the notable ones it seems.  Not even the Tamizh tabla waltz so ubiquitous in IR's music.  He may have been influenced there by the Hindi greats who loved 3/4.  Esp the ballroom waltz with piano and all.  IR only tried that precise format once IIRC in Kalyanam Vaibhogam.  Something like this:

<Ballroom Waltz>

Reminded me of this IR peach. Thanks  



A fantabulous tabla-Piano-violin waltz. Viji Manuel's inimitable fingers on the keys and IR's signature all over. Sad the picturization has to be the killjoy. But a true masterclass in the genre IMO. Also the debut (?) for a young Unni Menon, then named Vijay, in 1982.

Thanks man, great song, don't think I have ever heard it.  Even if I have, didn't register.  Come to think of it, Devan Kovil is somewhat like this.  Although...I think the charanam in this track doesn't live up to the quality of the interludes, which has some out of the world piano chords!

Drunkenmunk, thanks for reminding me of this rare beauty of a song. The same movie has a sober P.S solo "ninaithu ninaithu varaindha Oviyam" which instantly came to my mind when I heard "kannula kalanu" of "Abbayito Ammayi", the very song that inspired app to open this interesting thread. Even sakalakalAvallavar mentioned dthis song in his review, to my delight. As I have not heard this song for ages, I presume even this might
qualify to have some characteristics of "rAjA waltz".

mythila wrote: The same movie has a sober P.S solo "ninaithu ninaithu varaindha Oviyam" which instantly came to my mind when I heard "kannula kalanu" of "Abbayito Ammayi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOnxvwZW4bI



Yes, another sweet IR_Waltz

crimson king wrote:Thanks man, great song, don't think I have ever heard it.  Even if I have, didn't register.  Come to think of it, Devan Kovil is somewhat like this.  Although...I think the charanam in this track doesn't live up to the quality of the interludes, which has some out of the world piano chords!

Yup. Violin Vicky quotes Devan Kovil with Dil Dil Dil Manadhil and Gaanam Than Kaatrodu Poi as examples of Jazz Waltz

app_engine wrote:

mythila wrote: The same movie has a sober P.S solo "ninaithu ninaithu varaindha Oviyam" which instantly came to my mind when I heard "kannula kalanu" of "Abbayito Ammayi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOnxvwZW4bI



Yes, another sweet IR_Waltz

app_engine, mikka nandRi .

crimson king wrote:In fact, I am struggling to think of 3/4 songs of MS/TKR.  There must be, but not many of the notable ones it seems.  Not even the Tamizh tabla waltz so ubiquitous in IR's music.  He may have been influenced there by the Hindi greats who loved 3/4.

May be...however, I'm more inclined to think that it comes from his TN-folk beginnings (recently I formed another "opinion" on this and will post it as my next in this thread, please consider).

Or, it could also be due to his rigorous WCM training with Dhanraj master and exposure to those western masters prior to beginning film MD job....something that made the difference between him and other MDs as to his choices being far more varied...

Now, this could be the most outlandish of all opinions in this thread

At the same time, it could also be the most important one! As one can discern, I didn't have a ton of opinions when I started the thread (to begin with I had only two or three) - only constructing them as we go along. That way, this opinion came up AFTER I posted about MSV-TKR & annakkiLi

Opinion 8 : IR got his love for Waltz from TN-Folk aka his "thAyppAl" !

If someone watched the recent Gautam interview of IR for the Vijay TV celebrations (or a former video by one of the many "official IR facebook" thingies), IR can be seen confessing his "usage of" existing folk numbers from native area (although only very few of them)!

The original folk song reportedly was like this:

புள்ளி போட்ட ரவிக்கைக்காரி புளியம்பூ சேலைக்காரி
நெல்லறுக்கப் போகையில் யார் கன்னி எந்தன் காவலடி
அன்னக்கீளி (annakkeeLi and not annakkiLi) ஒன்னத்தேடுதே

IR picked the last line into the pallavi, shortened the kee into ki and made it his first song.  (Thank goodness there was no VM then, he would have made ki into kA and it would have been annakkaLi - jail food)

What is relevant to us here is the song is very clearly waltz and it is even more pronounced when you sing it annakkeeLi  As confirmed by IR himself, he got it from the women singing while transplanting paddy saplings in the field. So, waltz is so native to TN and so folksy in its beginning.

As mentioned in a post prior, two other songs (the record-breaking smash hit machchAnappAththeengaLA & sondhamillai bandhamillai) too were waltz in his first album. Two of these songs (annakkiLi & machchAna) also had pathos versions  thus inundating IR's first album with waltz, leaving a lone "suththachchambA" with a different time signature. A fact that cannot be easily brushed aside

And the array of rhythm & percussion instruments that he had deployed for these songs is definitely mind-blowing, considering what budget he would have got for that very low-bud production. Let us experience the songs :

annakkiLi unna thEdudhEy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtd_9LkMxig


machchAnappAththeengaLA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE2K5PPw4HU


sondhamillai bandhamillai:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xmAM3xAxq0


Now, annakkiLi is not the only reason for the above conclusion. We have already seen some folk biggies by IR (rAsAththi onna, indha mAn undhan sondha mAn etc besides a few Malayalam numbers). We can keep adding to it effortlessly. The song often talked about (even in this recent Gautam interview) is mAnguyilE poonguyilE of karakAttakkAran and that fits into this description too, just a slow waltz as in some wedding dances in the west There are countless youtubes if one chooses to search (for the bride and groom waltz dances in weddings)

mAnguyilE poonguyilE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0wtvrmYg1k


Now, there are some people who'll quickly try to dismiss this theory, stating that IR was never "original TN folk" (Recently one guy posted that Yuvan did more original TN folk and idiotically quoted his paruththiveeran song which happened to be a repeat of an older IR number ) Though not as a reaction to such fellows, just to satisfy my own curiosity, I sampled a few pre-IR film songs that are widely regarded as "folk numbers"...

maNappARai mAdu katti (KVM's iconic number from makkaLaippetRa maharAsi) - of course, Waltz : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQQwUqxBaFg

mAttukkAra vElA un mAttakkonjam pAththukkadA (KVM, vaNNakkiLi) - waltz  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POEko5bsacU

ERAdha malai thanilE vegu jOrAna kaudhAri reNdu (GR, thookku thookki) - starting pallavi is of course waltz - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkdsYAdgIvQ

Now, this should give a big kick to those MSV-HCFs

Though I do not agree to the claim about this song being "folk", this used to be their #1 choice when talking about MSV doing folk in the "எங்க ஆத்துக்காரரும் கச்சேரிக்குப் போயிருக்கார்" style :

ennAdi rAkkammA (pattikkAdA pattaNamA, iconic MSV-NT song) - Waltz only - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXm3lopuhXs

I can keep giving a number of such non-IR samples of "TN-Folk" that had "waltz" (ennadi muniyammA un kaNNula maiyyi, for e.g. by T K S Kalaivanan)

When someone made a movie called 'nAttuppuRappAttu' in the 90's and signed up IR, there was a requirement for a song to be with that title in the pallavi. And no prizes for guessing if it was "waltz" or not

nAttuppuRappAttu onnu nAn padikkiREn kELu machchAn : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ML-7jSBNM


I think these varied samples should add weightage to my theory - that TN folk's main time signature happens to be "Waltz" and that being IR's thAy veedu, he got it from there

After posting the above opinion, I was trying to recall the biggies that made IR a household name in the initial years.

By "biggies" I mean the kOlAmbi-patti-thotti-citi-hit songs and not necessarily the "classy" ones.

Perhaps these even contributed to the negative opinion among paNdithargaL - that he was a "dappAnguththu MD"! But such songs made sure TFM has a very new trend / lot of focus from pAmarargaL etc. (Actually a number of these were frowned upon by the mEttukkudi AIR fellows & they banned those from broadcasting! Despite that, such songs reached every nook and corner of TN)!

AND A MAJORITY OF THEM ARE "WALTZ"

1. Chronologically 2nd very big loudspeaker hit for IR (i.e. after machchAna), was 'kEttELE ingE' of badhrakALi. #IR_Waltz (vAngOnnA, ada vAngOnnA)

2. Kannadasan's "Welcome song" of IR, which made it big in village functions - "kola kolayA mundhirikkA" of pAlootti vaLarththa kiLi. #IR_Waltz (kaNNA nee Odi vA, rAjA vA). I think counterpoint had earlier mentioned that 'nAn pEsa vandhEn' of this movie was waltz too, which was "western", slow and quite obvious. OTOH, kola kolayA was nAdan and needs deciphering (i.e. playing the waltz rhythm in your mind when the song gets played...IR would have given some pointers here and there in the call/response stuff or interludes in such songs)

3. Song borrowed from ilangai folk but made it very big in TN nevertheless - "surAngani surAngani" of avar enakkE sondham. Of course #IR_Waltz. One need not look any further than the lead guitar prelude, to come to this conclusion. One should have lived in those days (like me) to understand how big this song impacted TN school / college students!

4. "பாளையம் பண்ணைப்புரம் சின்னத்தாயி பெத்த மகன்" - yes that phenomenal hit song "Oram pO Oram pO" was clearly #IR_Waltz ! Movie - poNNu oorukkuppudhusu. It is noteworthy that at least two songs that has reference to IR's mother, with her very name included, are waltz. (This one and the thaLabathi song). After all, I may be correct it connecting IR's waltz-piriyam to mom's feeding! Musicals can clarify if sAmakkOzhi was waltz too - from this album. Such samples should add weightage to my theory that waltz is TN-nAdan stuff

5. "thaNNee karuththuruchchu kaNNu thavaLa saththam kEtturuchchu" of iLamai oonjalAdukiRadhu is not just a sweet themmAngu but an IR variant of "waltz" as well (mass number in addition to the "class" orE nAL song from that album). Once again, one should have lived in that time period to appreciate the "reach" of this song among TN public! Though the popularity was not to this scale, the "janaranjaga" number from IR's second album for director Sridhar - "abhishEka nEraththil ambALai dharisikka" of azhagE unnai ArAdhikkiREn - too got the waltz thingy.

I can keep adding more but these samples should prove the point that IR got catapulted to "mass popularity", breaking the myth that only MGR-Sivaji songs can reach people of all walks of TN, by using waltz to a great extent to his advantage

(BTW, I want to reiterate that this was not just because IR wanted to "impress" public and give hits. I think he genuinely loved waltz. For example, when cinema express magazine took an interview with him at the time of his 100th movie, they asked him what is his favorite song among his recent ones. He did answer 'suththamAna hamsadwani rAgaththil amaindha "mayilE mayilE, un thOgai engE" of kadavuL amaiththa mEdai'. BTW, please note that this number - a classic IMHO - is waltz too)

It's a blend of all three major source materials of his, as with other aspects of his music - WCM, Tamil folk, HFM - rather than only one of these influences.  It is after I noticed the relatively few 3/4 songs of MSV that I could even put this thread to perspective.  Because 3/4 is so common in HFM and Western that I never noticed IR's use of 3/4 as something out of the ordinary.  Many of the tracks in 3/4 are brilliant but so are Meendum Meendum Vaa and Kaatrai Konjam and they are in 7/8.  I realise now that from a TFM perspective he brought something very different with his use of 3/4. It's a point to ponder as to why MSV was not influenced by either Tamil folk or HFM to use 3/4 more.  The first one may be accounted for by the fact that he hailed from Palakkad so maybe Malayali folk traditions don't use that time sig so much.  But he did draw upon Hindi orchestration styles a lot so why he never tried 3/4, at least not as much as them, beats me.

crimson king wrote:It's a blend of all three major source materials of his, as with other aspects of his music - WCM, Tamil folk, HFM - rather than only one of these influences.

Yes, definitely!

I was deliberately trying "yAnai-kurudan" style After all my background is pattikkAdu and I'm trying to focus on that dimension

It's a point to ponder as to why MSV was not influenced by either Tamil folk or HFM to use 3/4 more.  The first one may be accounted for by the fact that he hailed from Palakkad so maybe Malayali folk traditions don't use that time sig so much.

I beg to differ. Palakkad is more Thamizh than Malayali Especially prior to independence! Even now, most people from his village (elappuLLi - pARa) speak Thamizh and it's very close to the bordering town kozhinjAmpAra between Palakkad and Pollachi.

In addition, there's also anecdotal evidence -okay let me be more charitable, "statistical / sample based" evidence - that he was INDEED familiar with TN-Folk being predominantly waltz

Let me explain!

1. To repeat, the pseudo folk "ennadi rAkkammA" of pattikkAdA pattaNamA was waltz. This movie is exclusively about the conflict between a nAdan husband and a city-bred wife (NT-JJ) and the movie loudly talked a lot about folk biz.

2. Not just this song, there is another song in this movie called "kEttukkOdi urumi mELam" which should seal this issue. Please note that this song is in DUAL form, wife singing nAdan style (with tangleesh lyrics but urumi and other country drum sounds) and husband singing western style (with nAdan lyrics but "western" orch).  

Here is the youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv8Z35EGbQI


Interestingly, whenever there is 'nAdan', he switches to waltz (even with tangleesh lyrics) but when it is "western", he uses 4/4! This kind of explains MSV's understanding / belief that nAdan will be puccA only with the waltz pattern.

3. Another folk song that Drunkenmunk loves to quote for MSV-folk, thAzhayAm poo mudinju (bAgappirivinai), is waltz too :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkhMbyxVKKc


Now the question is, why didn't he use it very often? It can be easily answered with a counter question - "why didn't he do a lot of folk songs at all?" Even with much less # of TF albums, KVM seemed to have done more folk numbers than MSV, who probably didn't have a favorable attitude towards this form! Or most probably, his companions like Kannadasan / Vaali / TMS / many who directed NT etc had a condescending attitude in general towards anything nAdan, prior to the arrival of IR!
(My incomplete project in the other section - that of finding how many folk songs did TFM have between 1970-1975 should conclusively prove this but I'm not finding time to continue on that Whatever I sampled, however, easily pointed towards the direction that this was indeed the case).

OTOH, IR brought a sea change in the whole field, with huge success of annakkiLi - both of the album and the movie. Without that success, IMHO, 16V couldn't have happened! We would have still been seeing coat-suit kind of heroes most of the time - with folk music more of curiosity and not a main player

On a lighter note, I would like to call Waltz as both "vallinam" (the first strong beat) and "mellinam" (the two soft ones that follow). All other thALam / rhythm forms are "idaiyinam"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5N9TgILtYg


And, IR being "full of romance" (as confessed in his interview to Gautam recently), embraced all forms - vallinam, mellinam, idaiyinam - everything

OTOH, like one old TFM song (inangaLilE enna inam peNNinam) says :
என் (மெல்லிசை) மன்னருக்குப் பிடித்ததெல்லாம் இடையினம்

So, less preference of waltz

In that interview to Gautam, IR gave another interesting pointer (that too in a funny way)!

Portions of the interview were shot at a seashore (where IR reportedly frequents for relaxation) and Gautam asked a question about kadal meengaL album where he threw in a fisherman folk song as interlude. (SJ-JC's thAlAttudhE vAnam song has that "வலையில் தனமும் வந்து சேரும் எங்க முருகம்மா ஏலோ" part sung by an unknown singer).

While Gautam and Vijay TV were trying to feature an "80's IR" , rAsA hit a sixer with that ball, ignoring kadal meengaL and jumping to his 70's album kAtRinilE varum geetham - chiththirachchevvAnam sirikkakkaNdEn!
(That song too has a similar original fisherman folk song used in anu pallavi).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk4R0ZfkRwg


Now, what pointer did he give us for this thread?

That TN fisherman folk songs loved the waltz rhythm too

Not just them, also the Malayalam ones! The famous chemmeen had Salilda doing waltz for kadalinakkare pOnOrE :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7JIfXxw6OU


Women planting paddy saplings in field, fisherman working at the sea or their families waiting back home - such samples are giving a lot of native flavor to our thread subject

One more post, to complete my folk-waltz ramblings

So, it is my strong opinion that while the masters before IR were quite familiar that our folk music had waltz as the main rhythm / time signature, since they had folk itself only sparingly (and instead more inclined towards strong or light Carnatic which allegedly uses Adhi thALam for 75% of its krithis), their use of waltz too was not too frequent.

Often, they used it for curiosity or variety (that famous yAradee nee mOgini of uththama puthtiran, for e.g., starts with waltz but switches to other forms as the song switches genre / changes tempo etc) unlike IR who had it as ONE OF THE MANY MAINSTAYS of his initial years!

Thus the traditional "folk-only" instruments such as urumi / udukkai etc too established their special place in TFM with the advent of IR. (Right now my mind is playing the urumi sounds - those that my school recorded in a cassette by getting professional dEvarAttam artists play! These were used to train boys learn oyil kummi / dEvarAttam for school anniversary. It was mainly waltz - VROOM vroom vroom, VROOM vroom vroom, VROOm vroom vroom, VROOM...this pattern got repeated before it switches to tak-doom-tak-doom-tadoom-tadoom  ) 

A couple more folk picks of IR - which I think should give more strength to this theory - have to be added here, that had udaukkai adi

1. uchchi vagindhedhuththu pichchippoo vachcha kiLi - arguably the most popular pathos of SPB from early IR, that had the terrific udukkai adi in the third interlude that I would call as #IR_Waltz   While that is vallinam, as it changes to guitar, it becomes mellinam

Even the pallavi's rhythm with morsing sound is a rAsA-variant of waltz IMHO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2arnMngHr8


2. Similar udukkai adi in the second interlude of kAthirundhu kAthirundhu song of vaidhEgi kAthirundhAL!
BTW, this is another primarily-folk album by IR and the songs were supposedly composed during some breaks during a trip for another movie and IR was willing to give them ONLY to someone who'll make a movie with ALL of them! That is, songs were independently made as a "music album" then R Sundarrajan did a movie around it! And this album had rAsAththi onna, mEgham karukkayilE, portion of kAthirundhu all nAdan waltz by IR! Lot of credibility to my opinions on IR's love for folk-waltz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbidRaHhBW4


Interestingly, after IR hitting it big, others were FORCED to follow, to be in the reckoning. The smart duo, Shankar-Ganesh, did exactly that for their survival. Their biggest hit album after the arrival of IR, kannipparuvaththilE, had them adapt simply vallinam / mellinam  nadaiya mAththu was vallinam, including urumi sounds declaring "we follow IR", adi ammAdi chinnapponnu was mellinam, with some nice bass guitar stuff...Then there was "inspiration" of uchchi vagindheduththu, pattu vaNNa rOsAvAm...this style of rhythm they kept as their signature for many songs later on, nAn unna nenachchEn for e.g.

T Rajendar, who hit it big with oru thalai rAgam, that had A A Raj as a partner (possibly for orch), had to follow IR for koodaiyila karuvAdu (waltz) to reach masses. Another song that had college students follow him like crazy for a while, reenA meenA and other girl name calling followed by ada manmadhan ratchikkaNum (Jolly Abraham) had waltz as well.

What's more, MSV himself had much success with this sweetie post-arrival-of-IR and two samples are worthy to share!

1.  kaNNAna poo maganE kaNNuRangu poo maganE (thaNNeer thaNNeer) - FOLK WALTZ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqLqdUMAPmA


2. This is a biggie, claimed by many as a unique masterpiece, with Kamal Sridevi on screen
sippi irukkudhu muththum irukkudhu!

Look at the "ball-falling-demo" youtube that I included in the previous post and see how exactly it maps to this song! Also, look at the short first interlude!

sippi (strong, vallinam) irukkudhu (soft, mellinam) muththum (strong) irukkudhu (soft)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiW8qxUrzZ8


So, the waltz conquest of TFM is by now complete!

app,
Great........ TFM page.. kaalathil irundhu...... IR kaga...IR padalgalai.. vidham vidhamaga topic arambithu........ azhagaga mudithu........ Great work....

Very Sweet........

IR waltz inum irukum pola irukae.......


Sundari neeyum sundharan nyanum  ???

Anandha kuyiln paatu from Kadhaluku Mariyadhai

nanRi Usha akkA, for the kind words

Usha wrote:
IR waltz inum irukum pola irukae.......

There are quite a lot...I've been listening to some major Malayalam hits of IR for the last few days (i.e. besides the ones already talked about in this thread, such as kaiyeththA kombaththu, swapnangaL kaNNezhudhiya) and I need to post another "opinion" in a few days

Well, right now I'm just ruminating my "eurEkA" moment of IR-Folk-Waltz and how it was a "turning point" in TFM history (please apply "yAnai-kurudan" principle)

Happened to watch last night the latest episode of the comedy called "Sun-Singer" (my daughter wants to see this and I typically give "half-ear" to the proceedings, hoping to catch some IR-titbit from GA - however atrocious the show may be).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPzURnTiHb0


It's funny to see someone who repeatedly vouches for MSV getting forced to appear with "adiyE manam nillunnA nikkAdhadi" as BGM , a tremendous "folk-waltz" number! (I hate this one being simply bracketed as "kuththuppAttu" - IMHO this is a remarkable multi-genre wonder).

During the conversation too GA briefly mentions about 6/8, which leads me to think that the TFM maker community regarded that time signature as "kuththuppAttu"...so, I'm just identifying it now as "yAnai-kurudan". (BTW, the atrocious selfie puLLa also follows the pattern  and I think YGM wanted a song by his nephew in the program, even declared it "now I like this" attributing his change of heart to the kids' influence)

nenjathai killadhey had  a double bonanza in waltz, not sure if I included the other one, Ye thendrale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pVFAuBdh8g

a terrific mood waltz overshadowed by the other songs.

There were a few noteworthy waltz numbers from other MDs too

My all-time favourite TFM waltz number with terrific piano ludes and oozing with romance and beautifully constructed charanam melody lines. V.Kumar stays immortal just because of this one song .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc1v6uBKtKs

kan pona pokkile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BjXwxj6CVY

even if a lift, still a big hit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHUF00AP87s

poo pola poo pola
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsa5Le9TNno

ellorum nala
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo00ogHbydI