Anything about IR found on the net - Vol 1

IR 365 quiz season #2 started:
http://365rajaquiz2.wordpress.com/

This time around, a team is running (unlike the first one by Rex Arul sir)...

They've posted an amazing IR-SPB discussion clip in one of the blog posts, where we hear 2 more melodies for the famous 'mAnguyilE poonguyilE' :

http://365rajaquiz2.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/musical-discussion/

Don't miss this audio clip!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9e-0SeV8sA

TVG..  IR patri...........kaeka romba sandhoshama iruku...... vishayam therinjavanga IR ai pathi sollanam. naam kaekanam.

sound. enaku work agalaiyae.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ge2VZRctSE

indha clip.. audio work aradhu.
indha programe nethiki parthen...... audio quality konjam sumaraga than irundhadhu.....

Sundhara telungu....... nijam dhan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tzeOmkNyXg

6th part. audio work aradhu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfalDebv1nk

Usha wrote:6th part. audio work aradhu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfalDebv1nk

Awesome, thanks for the links. "photography'na light/shadow ..music'an aarohanan/avarOhanam .."   "hours of alaap/singing..is captured in the pallavi and all this condensed is movie music" .. (he probably means the essense of the whole thing). .. very nice.. Even though there were a few people in the family who always listened to carnatic .. I personally would not have developed an appreciation for carnatic .. had it not been for IR. koondhaliLe .. what a song.. He is right.. music + quality lyrics + instrumentalists and the virtuosity of the singers .. all contribute to the success of the song.. (right..he appreciates kavignar :-)  people have to shoot for the moon when they work with him.. standards are pretty high. my bets are on na- muthukumar these days for lyrics )

Thanks kiru.

part 3 work aradhu..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ge2VZRctSE

Thanks to venkiram.

http://idlyvadai.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/blog-post_26.html

jaiganesh posted this youtube on twitter, which resulted in a lot of tweets :



IMHO, the politician cleverly attacks rAsA

Anyways, one person had captured the essence in a youtube comment :

Roshan Raj wrote:
Seeman was very clear in what he was speaking, Basically he is telling the real fact.
1. He says Ilaya raja was best at village songs
2. Most of village based composition was copied from the original or typical village songs.
3. Ilaya Raja only composed for cinema only but nothing given to the society.
About Rahman,
1. He is the best in Western music,
2. He was amazing at village based composition
3. Nothing was copied but made musical revolution
4. Rahman loved his society.

Nanum parthen indha youtube ai. idharku per dhan.. Pugazvadhu pol Igazhdhal... idhu dhan indha kalathu humble..............

I guess hereafter, we should strongly oppose / resist any attempt by anybody to project IR as the "folk king" "melody king" and such fixed frameworks! Especially, when another (much inferior) musician is included in such praise-speech!

Why?

Such fellows have a hidden agenda - to push IR into a "fixed-framework box" and also projecting the other musician as superior to him because of "ability-to-operate-outside-that-box"

(vanjap)pugazhchchi is one big weapon in the hands of politicians and such shrewd fellows to attack a talent - we should be smart enough to identify when it's wielded

As a matter of fact, IR is not just a folk or melody or BGM musician. When some of these fellows were still playing gOlikkuNdu, pambaram & gilli in their villages, IR had already got his WCM medals and was getting up early to do ICM lessons with jAmbavAns.  

Such important facts are cleverly ignored by people quite often, in an effort to bundle rAsA inside a folk-melody-tablA dabbA!

Agreed IR did a blunder in not releasing an asian's first symphony - but hasn't he excelled in HTNI & NBW? And, what about his continuing collaboration with the BSO / Hungary / EU musicians to bring out tremendous albums such as kAlApANi, guru, TbI, PR, NEPV and more? Are these in any way less than some XYZ classical album done by some ABC composer elsewhere in the world? i.e. both musically & "outside-country-angle-lly" speaking?

app,

  solravanga ellarum.. IR songs.. ellathaiyum kaetu irukangala...  kiru sonna madhirii.. IR songs kaeka kathukanam..............aparam comments sollanam.

What else can one expect from Maramandai TN makkal? Lazy generalizations and broad brush statements are the specialty of these people. This is one of the reasons I don't care much for IR-praises (or criticisms) from political and cine field quarters. I don't care much for the title Isaignani given by political gumbals. The way Tamil society has elevated talentless hacks by giving them fancy titles has reduced the whole system to a farce. The same people tomorrow will crown some one else isai mahagnani or isai avataram or some similar crap and it would tell you precisely nothing about the person's actual talent. We know they have already done that in other fields like poetry. And we also know pathetic people who actually use this as an argument to say A is greater than B. This whole system is rejected in my book. 

Praise ARR for his melodies or recording techniques and I will second you. This undeserved praise for introducing western music and orchestration or being equal to Raja in folk music is the kind of lazy, disingenuous commentary I have grown used to hearing from vested interest groups and which needs to be condemned. Lazier still, is the pathetic refrain found in the media and among certain sections of society and the online world that Ilayaraja popularized folk music in south India and ARR went one step ahead by taking Indian music to the world stage. 

Rejetted. Next please.

I dont think we need to worry about these kind of people. The fact is, traditionally, we indian people do not have an ear for the polyphonic WCM music. Forget about Seeman, the general audience itself (those who are not biased against IR) may not appreciate the work of IR genuinely. In fact, the heavy WCM dosed songs of IR which I would die for did not get the appreciation with the audience as much as I'd have liked. So IR is actually battling an uphill task of educating and making people enjoy WCM in small, medium and large doses whenever possible.
He is a doing great service to our country to have our people appreciate the art form of another land. He is feeding this along with other familiar forms and maintaining his relevance, income levels :-)
He is doing his piravi kadan. He has to operate without much appreciation. People like only the melody and catchy rhythm of his works, the harmony etc of WCM are completely ignored. So he has to maintain his motivational levels and continue. No wonder he gets philosophical and sometimes gets annoyed and irritated. If you and me were to work like this, we would be totally frustrated. But he continues to keep his cheerfulness and dances to the Hungarian musicians music. Just my few cents on this topic.

fring151 wrote:...
Praise ARR for his melodies or recording techniques and I will second you. ....

Exactly, Rahman DOES create fantastic melodies, has a good sense of aesthetics which reflects in his sonic presentation. I am a liberal kind of person . do not believe in race, caste etc. But I think for music or math .. you need to be wired for it. Rahman does have this gift of nature.
Our land continues to produce lots of smart people .. including you and me to some extent :-) But there are some who will stand the test of time ..

kiru wrote:But there are some who will stand the test of time  ..

solra maari, 2080 la IR music'a college vechu paduchaalum padippaan. Nationalizing his work is a must. adha en vaazhkai la paakkaradhu, though not in my hands, is in my bucket list.

kiru wrote:
He is doing his piravi kadan. He has to operate without much appreciation. People like only the melody and catchy rhythm of his works, the harmony etc of WCM are completely ignored. So he has to maintain his motivational levels and continue. No wonder he gets philosophical and sometimes gets annoyed and irritated. If you and me were to work like this, we would be totally frustrated. But he continues to keep his cheerfulness and dances to the Hungarian musicians music. Just my few cents on this topic.

So true - itha padichitu kan kalangittaen.

Even at his peak he was working without anyone really able to understand/appreciate his works, but for the last 2 decades, like always, he has been working and innovating tirelessly without much recognition/appreciation, on top of all the mud-slinging by media and "friends & family" (BR, GA etc.). Nammalaala 1 week thaakku pudikka mudiyadhu intha maadhri toxic environment la, eppadi thaan IR ... cha.

kiru wrote:He is doing his piravi kadan. He has to operate without much appreciation. People like only the melody and catchy rhythm of his works, the harmony etc of WCM are completely ignored. So he has to maintain his motivational levels and continue. No wonder he gets philosophical and sometimes gets annoyed and irritated. If you and me were to work like this, we would be totally frustrated. But he continues to keep his cheerfulness and dances to the Hungarian musicians music. Just my few cents on this topic.

I agree with most of what you said but disagree with you on the highlighted portions.

I have always maintained with my friends (and it is a pet theory of mine) that Raja believes in you more than you believe in yourself. Ofcourse I mean this musically. Let me expand on this.

Raja knows one thing for sure: None of us have the required musical knowledge to appreciate what all he does. He knows much better than us how the listening experience of a villager would be. (He / She is uneducated and hence musically not very literate. This is the standard high horse which many of us climb.) Knowing this, Raja also knows another important thing: that music is about emotions and not about theory or genres. He strongly believes that whatever the intended emotion of his music will reach the listener. In other words, he knows why he is harmonizing, why he is using WCM. why he is using rock elements and more importantly he know how these will impact the listener. The impact here is something he is looking for in a much deeper sense. He is not looking for people to identify various genres in his music and go ga-ga about it. If someone were to listen to 'mudhai murai', it is the searing heart of a love lorn girl that is heard. The guitar, the rock elements and all come later. Same way, 'satru munbu' creates an ominous tone and perfectly captures the girl's heart. WCM is later. This impact is made on the listener irrespective of whether he knows the underlying genres or not.

That is why I say Raja believes in people's taste of music and that they are capable of grasping the intended emotion. If they did not grasp it Raja would think he has failed. Yes, Raja is a karma yogi but with a difference. It is not the detachment of a karma yogi who doesn't care. In this case it is the detachment of a person who is sure of himself and more importantly sure of his listener. This distinction is very important. Raja will cease to create music the day he believes people cannot 'understand' his music. For him, emotion is primary, musical techniques are secondary.

A nice long tweet by P_R with his typical humor

P_R on rAsA of 90s wrote:
Just that, a clutch of us, rather superficial listeners, got to remind ourselves of the monstrous richness that pervaded our soundscape (pretty unbeknownst to us) and thus set an impossible standard for everything that would follow

A co-worker shared this Mayilsamy joke (I did LOL at the end of the video), but there's also some rAsA reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVq2Qbl-hUw

app_engine wrote:A co-worker shared this Mayilsamy joke (I did LOL at the end of the video), but there's also some rAsA reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVq2Qbl-hUw

mayilswamy - most underrated comedian.. his love for Raasa is not a secret!! nice.

Suresh, I actually agree with you completely. So let me qualify my statement. Yes, ingredients in Raja's music are impacting the listeners. This is happening from a subconscious perspective. I believe the strength and longevity of IR's music comes not just from the melody but also from the strategically placed chords, fills and one note harmonies. When a listener is open-minded and listens to the music with a little bit of focus all these elements will hit them and they will be musically satisfied. I would like to contrast with carnatic, where you go to a katchEri and miss all the sangathis. A food analogy - coconut rice is good, but you are not aware of the cashews fried in ghee in it, sort of thing. Sometime, to appreciate some things, you have to learn somethings as well. I am not trained in carnatic or WCM but am aware of a few things which helps me appreciate the music better. This awareness of the elements of IR's music is not much with our audience. For eg, chords are something only people in college music band or the light music troupes know. Compare this to carnatic, where more people are able to identify atleast more popular raagams in film music easily. The audience appreciates IR's music in concert when they can hear the grandeur of the orchestra. Still, I insist, our ears are not trained for the polyphonic music of Europe. Even Gautam Menon did not pick out mudhal murai or sarru munbu as his favorite and not necessarily audience's #1 as well. In the west, singing with a guitar or piano is common, but not in our country. This is essentially my point, IR wants to add more and more of these elements. My pet theory is he is trying to get these WCM nuances the same amount of exposure/appreciation/respect as say, carnatic nuances (sangathis, brighas, gamakas).

T Sounder's next in his rAgA in TFM series

இளையராஜாவும் பந்துவராளி ராகமும்:

பொதுவாக மற்றைய ராகங்களைப் போலவே இந்த ராகத்திலும் அசாத்தியமாக பல கோணங்களிலும் பாடல்களைத் தந்தவர் இசைஞானி இளையராஜா.பலவித ரசங்களையும் திரைச் சூழலுடன் இரண்டறக் கலந்து இணைந்து போகும் பாடல்களாக்கியதுதுடன் தனது இசை ஆர்வத்திற்கும் உரம் போட்டார் என்றே எண்ணத் தோன்றுகிறது.

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இளையராஜாவின் இசையில் சுபபந்துவராளி ராகம்

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புது தினுசாக வசந்தா ராகத்தில் மீண்டும் இளையராஜாவின் கை வண்ணம்

Thanks for the link app.

kiru,

Very true. I had a major discussion about Indian ears, melody and harmony with a person in twitter a couple of days back.

And since Mayilsamy is being discussed, he is a perfect example of how deep Raja's music has reached. You would have seen this but it is still worth watching again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cgq7LZXeok

Raaga_Suresh wrote:

kiru wrote:He is doing his piravi kadan. He has to operate without much appreciation. People like only the melody and catchy rhythm of his works, the harmony etc of WCM are completely ignored. So he has to maintain his motivational levels and continue. No wonder he gets philosophical and sometimes gets annoyed and irritated. If you and me were to work like this, we would be totally frustrated. But he continues to keep his cheerfulness and dances to the Hungarian musicians music. Just my few cents on this topic.

I agree with most of what you said but disagree with you on the highlighted portions.

I have always maintained with my friends (and it is a pet theory of mine) that Raja believes in you more than you believe in yourself. Ofcourse I mean this musically. Let me expand on this.

Raja knows one thing for sure: None of us have the required musical knowledge to appreciate what all he does. He knows much better than us how the listening experience of a villager would be. (He / She is uneducated and hence musically not very literate. This is the standard high horse which many of us climb.) Knowing this, Raja also knows another important thing: that music is about emotions and not about theory or genres. He strongly believes that whatever the intended emotion of his music will reach the listener. In other words, he knows why he is harmonizing, why he is using WCM. why he is using rock elements and more importantly he know how these will impact the listener. The impact here is something he is looking for in a much deeper sense. He is not looking for people to identify various genres in his music and go ga-ga about it. If someone were to listen to 'mudhai murai', it is the searing heart of a love lorn girl that is heard. The guitar, the rock elements and all come later. Same way, 'satru munbu' creates an ominous tone and perfectly captures the girl's heart. WCM is later. This impact is made on the listener irrespective of whether he knows the underlying genres or not.

That is why I say Raja believes in people's taste of music and that they are capable of grasping the intended emotion. If they did not grasp it Raja would think he has failed. Yes, Raja is a karma yogi but with a difference. It is not the detachment of a karma yogi who doesn't care. In this case it is the detachment of a person who is sure of himself and more importantly sure of his listener. This distinction is very important. Raja will cease to create music the day he believes people cannot 'understand' his music. For him, emotion is primary, musical techniques are secondary.

Very well reasoned. It is also my belief that Raja's goal is not to force feed listeners with technicalities. This is why we hardly hear him deconstructing or explaining the nuances of his own music and instead leaves it to the listener to interpret and enjoy in their own ways. He incorporates alien idioms into his music only if he thinks it heightens the emotional impact. For example, his counterpoints often strike me as expressions of conflicting states of mind, moods or emotions. Perhaps it is also his way of practically demonstrating the unifying aspects of different musical forms at the micro level.

I must have watched/heard the Chennai 2011 concert on youtube at least 10 times. The point of him believing in his listeners more than themselves can be observed even there. A few instances where this was apparent to me.

Bass guitar- Raja's basslines are dynamic, very sophisticated from a harmonic point of view and often in counterpoint. Now how many tamilians even know of the existence of this instrument.  Yet, if you watch the program, these are moments where the crowd spontaneously erupts into rapture.

a) The starting of Madai thirandhu.
b) The first interlude of en iniya pon nilaave after the chorus and flute bits end and the bass guitar kicks in.
c) The second interlude of Poove semboove which starts with that epic bassline.

So, yes, people enjoy the listening experience without fully understanding why they enjoy it. And to have done all this in the 70s and 80s without getting any sort of direct feedback about the audience's appreciation by means of live concerts or shows and not hankering after such recognition for musical innovations is the supreme confidence of a genius ahead of his time, at peace with himself in the knowledge that eventually, his name will be forever etched alongside the likes of Thyagaraja, Bach and Beethoven in the annals of music history.