Ilayaraja's How To Name It.

**groucho070** Tue Jan 22, 2013 12:44 pm

We didn't start this forum so that you guys can bitch about that stuff and this (you know what), but then, you know what the focus is.

And then there is numbknucklehead like myself who has no idea how this album got made. Why? I mean, he was at his peak and why did he produced this album? I mean, who financed it? It's fucking brilliant and I feel it didn't get the reach it deserved.

Come one IR fans, discuss this, each piece. Contemplate, go back to the time, remember those short news pieces? Yeah. Come back, while I listen to NEPV again..... Laughing

(hopefully some fans of ather non-film albums will come with their threads).

2040 Tue Jan 22, 2013 1:33 pm

this is the album which made me appreciate IR initially... before that i used to enjoy his songs... but without knowing the worth of it... this one was so nostalgic... i don remember the tracks by names.. but i can recall the tracks... and every track invokes some of my memories around that period... so around that period of life, as in movies, if there can be a BGM for that episode of my life, this would be it... but i just cannot name that episode... i remember carving 'how to name it' in my college desk...

jaiganesh Tue Jan 22, 2013 4:50 pm

short reaction kudukanumna...
the audacity of inviting bach to have a dinner
with thyagaraja!!
y? bcoz many years later some carnatic stars
churned out a pep fusion album with prasanna's help.
all they cud do was put jazz background to carnatic
krithis. what raaja has done is a high spiritual intercourse
of all the carnatic music with wcm. light years ahead.

app_engine Tue Jan 22, 2013 10:14 pm

1986 was my first job - first year at Palakkad. Transitioning from student to worker. Transitioning from TN-er to KL-er. (Though both states were supposedly one TN during chEra / chozha / pANdiyar kALam, to me these two states seemed to have as much differences in culture as between Indian and "foreign").

While learning lots of new things at work and learning a new language kept me busy, the thAkkams of non-TFM influences were great during this time period as well. (The college-found love for MJ and others continued but a new honeymoon started now with MFM. The big music wave, PM, was to happen a little later than HTNI, however).

Of course, I enthusiastically got the HTNI cassette at the time of release (needless to say I was closely following the news thuNukkoos about this work by IR through whatever media forms we could expose ourselves to in those days...including the "posters" in audio shops / recording centers etc, apart from newspaper / kumudam / vikatan).

Liked only the first & last tracks, listened to them a few times in the walkman. While those two were "tolerable", the more serious fusion works didn't work for me then.

Actually, I got somewhat disappointed with that album as a whole, since I was expecting "lighter" stuff (i.e. like IR's film song interludes and not serious classicals). I would have been happier then if the album had, say, one semi-classical track as in rAjapArvai panthuvarALi piece / another like punnagai mannan theme music / one more like ullAsappaRavaikaL title music etc. I wanted more thALakkozhuppu, scintillating guitar sounds etc (Little did I know then that those tracks will be playing on repeat continuously for days in my car decades later Smile

)

The quality of the EchO cassette was so bad that it soon needed a "watch screw driver" (both to loosen up the cassette screws to make sure it runs smoothly and to adjust the walkman "head" to get sound on both ears) Embarassed

So, the cassette started collecting dust within just a couple of months and the album didn't receive much attention from me for many years thereafter Sad

nathamuni Fri Mar 22, 2013 6:10 pm

I bought a CD of "How to Name it" recently from Oriental Records Inc. It would be an understatement to say that I was absolutely floored. A true Baroque in Thiruvaiyaru experience. I am not trained in music and cannot articulate what I am enjoying. But this album is by far and by a big margin IR's best (non-film). It is very important to listen IR in high quality recording and on high quality audio system. The staging, instrument isolation, silences you get in his recordings makes it a wonderful listening experience in contrast to the sterile 1D wall of music you get in current day music composers. The recording quality from Oriental Records is topnotch.

Virtuosity of V.S.Narasimhan's viloin is exhibited in full glory. I never thought I would enjoy electronic sounds as much as I did in this album. IR doesn't use electronic sounds for its novelty but for its quality and how it orchestrates with regular instrument sounds. Except in "Mad Mod Fugue" you wouldn't notice the electronic sounds and IR didn't seem to have a problem naming that piece :-).

I must have burnt a hole in the CD playing it everyday in my car audio. To not numb my sensibilities I have taken a break from listening to it. After this post I will again load it in my car CD changer. And hopefully post more on this album.

**V_S** Fri Mar 22, 2013 7:17 pm

Welcome nathamuni and thanks for your first and nice post. Smile

Yes, please share more of our thoughts about it and more.

app_engine Fri Mar 22, 2013 7:26 pm

nalvaravu nathamuni!

nanRi for sharing your HTNI experience Smile

Years after I discarded the HTNI echo cassette, I chanced upon the (Oriental) CD in an audio store in Bombay Smile

I lost count how many 1000's of times the tracks got played (some of them on repeat for days) while driving Smile

nathamuni Fri Mar 22, 2013 9:09 pm

Thank you V_S and app_engine.

I will share more later. A big challenge for me is communicating musical experience in language. Without training and right vocabulary its hard I think. Maybe not... maybe that is an advantage :-)

app_engine Tue Jul 16, 2013 4:21 pm

Drunkenmunk is currently running HTNI in his "one rAsA song a day" blog...today's post is on my fav "do anything" :

http://raajasongadaykeepsboredomaway.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/54-do-anything/

I smiled when I read this portion Smile

d_m wrote:
It lends itself for a short story (I have the Maestro’s license to Do Anything here). The outburst of joy evokes a wedding to me. The melancholy before can hence only be the imminent departure of the girl from her family as they get ready for the wedding that is an absolute geyser of joy; a license to celebrate life.

For I wrote a year back on the same track, describing how it created wedding-day imagery in my mind (at the hub) :
tfmpage Post on Do anything

Let me repost it here :

a_e wrote:
HTNI disk this morning while driving to work...

When I reached the parking lot, kept skipping other tracks to play the 'Do anything' and have a special listen (Inside vaNdi in parking lot means pure, loud music in a superb sound system / acoustics and no external noises...BTW, with all the messing up of track names in the cassette, I hope I'm right with the reference. For ease of identification, this is the only track with flute predominant ; all others were violin-dominated )

For some reason, this piece often evokes an imaginary "wedding day" in the mind

Since rAsA music is mostly associated with cine / fantasy situations, though HTNI is a non-filmi album, one cannot help but bring up some movie-fantasy situations in imagination.

The beginning of the piece is like a calm "waking up in the morning" kind, quite removed from all busy activities that are expected to happen to the bride / groom / parents / relatives on that day.

pularum pozhudhu like any day. Such a calming, refreshing flute! The world slowly waking up to the morning sun - no rush and buzz yet.

As the music moves on, one gets a feeling of progressively increasing activities - dressing up, arrival of crowd, maNdapam kaLai kattal, cheerful crowd and beginning of the festivities...

When the shenAi sound arrives, one gets the feel of main "muhoortham" With all eyes in the maNdapam focussed on the couple, symbolization of wedding / crowd cheering etc. (ketti mELam, ketti mELam)!

Immediately after this, like in movies - editing mundane things as sAppAdu, one gets transported to the mudhaliravu room - padukkai with pookkaL, thanimai etc. The portion with the piano heralds the intimate moments between the newly wedded. The phenomenal strings moment that comes after symbolizes "uchcham".

Towards the end one gets reminded of the lines of chANdilyan when he wrote a "samooka nAval / thodarkadhai" for the first time in vikatan, i.e. away from his regular sariththira kathaikaL, with ma.se's pictures (the artist signing as 'nAthan'). In one episode -of FN- he wrote 'sambanthaththAl kaLaiththuppOy vitta sathi-pathikaL iruvarum....'

Yes, it sounds like the couple slowly retiring into a delightful slumber...

Movie makers can tell a big story on screen in few minutes with just any one single piece of HTNI running in the background, and with absolutely no words spoken!

app_engine Tue Sep 24, 2013 8:57 pm

WARNING:

READ THE BLOG POST WHOSE LINK iS GIVEN BELOW, ONLY IF YOU WANT TO GET ANGRY AND FIGHT WITH SOMEONE!

Stumbled on this page while googling for latest news on rAsA, thru the same blog's Lalgudi article

Smile

crimson king Sat Oct 19, 2013 10:00 am

^^^ OMG, so many facts in that post. I have written a comment poking him just to have some fun. Twisted Evil

Nothing, just an innocent fact finding and cross verification exercise, let me see what he has to say. Razz

Usha Sat Oct 19, 2013 12:31 pm

Blogger ku than oru Intelectual nu nenapu. adhan prob........

Music ai pidikavilai endru sollalam.... adharku kaaranam thevai ilai.. anal Music il vishayam ilai. ondrum theiryavilai
endru solvadharku.. solbavarku oru arivu vendum..

arivu irundhal.. kandipaga Negative aga solla mudiyadhu.. sollavum thondradhu.......... epodhu Negative aga solla
thonugiradho... ... arivu ilai endru artham......

blogger.. ipadi solvadhal...........

Raja has no intellectual ability to conceptualize what is art. Before his worshippers bare their fangs at me, note that I am not deriding his ability to create music. When a good director gives him a challenging situation like Balachander asking for a music without descending notes (avarohanam) Raja rises to the occasion. Left on his own he flounders for ideas.

But onething... aanma.. aathma.. irukaravangaluku than Raja vin music puriyum.......... Idhayam iruka vendum..

Pure Heart, Soul, Humbleness.. idharku ellam. indha kalathill.. artham... akramamaga than irukiradhu......

crimson king Sat Oct 19, 2013 12:36 pm

I don't mind his rather snobbish opinion on IR but there are a lot of statements that are factually incorrect. I want him to explain his statements and attempt to objectively justify them. Maybe he has sought to cover himself with that quantum theory preface. Truth is relative so tomorrow GVP can pretend IR's compositions are actually his or uncle Rahman's....or, not! But he should not then go on about Western philosophy and classical music because what is relative in that context is entirely different from the Indian one and Westerners tend to be precise and measured in their arguments from the discussions I have had with them, not carelessly misrepresenting facts to suit their opinion.

I am waiting to see what he has to say. So far he has not even allowed the comment to appear on his blog. Very Happy

Usha Sat Oct 19, 2013 12:41 pm

ck,
S. unga comment inum post agalai angae.......

avvalavu humble person pola iruku. avar........ idhu dhanae humbleness....... Very Happy

crimson king Sat Oct 19, 2013 12:47 pm

This is what I said the other day in a hub thread. Before slamming IR for being egoistic, people should hold a mirror to themselves to honestly judge their ego. We all have egos. IR is honest about it and accepts it in interviews, while we try to hide it. We should consider that if we have egos even when our achievements are relatively insignificant, what would we be like if we were in IR's place.

crimson king Sat Oct 19, 2013 12:49 pm

Benefit of doubt: The blogger apparently lives in USA so maybe he has to moderate the blog to allow the comment to appear. Although it didn't say so when I posted it, only that the comment will appear to the owner in a short while. In a couple of days it will be clear if he is willing to answer my questions or wants to conceal the comment.

Usha Sat Oct 19, 2013 12:55 pm

ck,
you are 100000000000000 time correct............

oru blog pottutu.... oru Negative comment ku permit panra humbleness illadha indha blogger.. IR ai.. egoist nu solra
thagudhi konjamum illai dhan...........

IR Level enna.. indha Blogger in level enna..............

crimson king Sat Oct 19, 2013 12:58 pm

It isn't a negative comment actually. I have just asked three penetrating questions which he will have to do some hard work to answer. Very Happy

As I said, let's wait a couple of days, maybe he is not at home and unable to attend to his blog.

Usha Sat Oct 19, 2013 1:02 pm

ck,
sari...... Personal attack.. nam ennam ilai.. Very Happy

..

Oru blog ku.... comment varadha madhirii safety messure seidhu irukarae.. adhai yosichen........

crimson king Sat Oct 19, 2013 1:04 pm

Oh, lots of people moderate their comments section. Not necessarily to keep hatemail out but to make sure spam doesn't get posted in the comments. Of course, it can be used to conceal inconvenient questions from the public. Twisted Evil

fring151 Sat Oct 19, 2013 11:16 pm

I will admit I am not really familiar with many of the names he throws around, but hey!, being an Indian, all you need to do to lend credence to your opinion while bashing Ilayaraja is to bring up posh or exotic sounding names like Sir Neville Mariner or Rafal Blechcz (who are not even composers btw according to their wiki pages) or Gustavo Dudamel (who I have heard of) and compare him unfavourably with said personality. The less pseudo-intellectual ones bring up Hans Zimmer, Michael Jackson or ABBA, the more elitist invoke Beethoven and the most high class snobs have a penchant for name quoting the most obscure personalities, probably not held in such high regard even by their own fans and in their own countries.

Forget IR, I consider ARR, the 90s creator to be far superior to any of the above names except Beethoven.

fring151 Sat Oct 19, 2013 11:57 pm

And CK, you nailed it. People are free to use extreme language in their blogs, but when they misrepresent facts, invoke quantum mechanics while at the same time engaging in idle speculation and drawing bizzarre parallels, it betrays their lack of objectivity and undermines their own argument. You will be hard-pressed to find an accomplished mathematician or scientist write something as logically flawed as this...

fring151 Sun Oct 20, 2013 1:42 am

And reading some of his other rants on Ilayaraja and Indian music in general, it is clear his belief seems to be that a knowledge of music alone does not make one a great musician and one must be well read in philosophy and literature, besides being articulate. Fair argument, and an interesting perspective I concede. And he tries to extrapolate this to other fields by giving the example of Leibniz and Newton, who he claims were well read in philosophy and literature (also gives references), but there have been so many great mathematicians who were completely and utterly dedicated to science and did little else (Gauss, Ramanujan, Paul Erdos, for example). I am sorry, selective examples to bolster one's argument and glossing over counter-examples is not very scientific.

P.S: Let me also stress that people like him are much much better than the Kaarigans and Amudhavans (KA) of the world and worth engaging in debate with as they genuinely have an interesting contrarian perspective to offer. While extreme and snobbish, it definitely has more intellectual merit than the idiotic posts of KA or the oscar grammy arguments of ARRtards.

**V_S** Sun Oct 20, 2013 3:41 am

When a good director gives him a challenging situation like Balachander asking for a music without descending notes (avarohanam) Raja rises to the occasion. Left on his own he flounders for ideas.

The biggest comedy here is KB didn't ask him to compose only in ascending notes, it was IR who suggested this idea (and composed) to KB citing the hero will have ascend in his life further on. There are many many examples like these where he has suggested so many ideas to the directors. These are the big things they conveniently miss and talk big words about intellect and art. I pity these guys.

fring151 Sun Oct 20, 2013 3:53 am

Yes!! As Baradwaj Rangan said somewhere in his blog once, I doubt if some of these directors asked IR anything beyond "Love song venum" or "Sad song venum". To say he can't conceptualize on his own is pure speculation, if not a deliberate lie.

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