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The Golden Era of Tamil Music...

Topic started by Vishvesh Obla (@ 206.189.24.8) on Wed Feb 21 15:28:41 EST 2001.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Listening to a few old tamil songs always reminds me of the golden era of Tamil Cine Music. The two decades from the late fifties seems to me to have produced the best light music in Tamil. The golden era not only belongs to MSV (&Ramamoorthy) but also minor composers like AM Raja and V Kumar who could create music which has taste and inspiration behind it. Perhaps the formative years of Tamil Cine Music had an element of genuine inspiration behind it that could shape the musical sense of even the minor composers.

I have observed the songs belonging to this era having a kind of organic fluidity that is so natural to good music. The tunes flow to the natural sequence of music and don't have the strain of an artificial imagination at all. The accidental notes fall so perfectly in their places and add charm instead of a jarring sound as one hears in modern tamil cine music. Take for instance a song like "Unnidam Mayangugiraen". It varies in its rhythm and tune so differently but as a whole it is so beautifully synthesized that it adds so much of beauty and charm to the tune as a whole. The variation of tune sequence (or the scale) in those songs always seems to blend and not forced as one sees in the songs today.

They still appeal to the music lover, for there is the charming simplicity of the tune which combines elegantly with the better lyrics (mostly from Kannadasan, who had a fine sense of the beauty and more importantly, a good sense of sound in Tamil Language). The lyrics, hence, came naturally without any forced or exaggerated poetic association. One notices that those songs don't involve much complex orchestration of modern light music, but nevertheless are so musically elegant ; there isn't any forced imagination ; no aping of Western music as in modern light music. We mostly find the composer in his natural elements trying to synthesize a musical expression in a medium 'native' to his sense of music. Even a later composer like Ilayaraja is original most of the times when he tries his hand at folk music with which he grew up with.

In contrast, today's tamil cine music seems to appeal to us only by the hi-fi sound effects and rarely by any musical sense. There is always the annoying monotony, one who has any musical sense, observes. I wouldn't say that the songs of the earlier period were all so creatively diverse in their compositions. One can't expect such a thing in a lesser form of music as light music. But then there was at least that part of experimenting and a genuine attempt to create something from the musical sense that was less falsified in its inspiration. The composer of those times, as one can observe, had a kind of devotion to music, which didn't just have commercial interests alone. It is seldom seen today.

It seems to me that it is more than a question of taste and listening pleasure alone when one responds to tamil film music of its formative period. Ain't it so?...

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Responses:

• From: comment (@ 63.226.195.173) on: Wed Feb 21 16:09:26 EST 2001
  
  seri seri, fliflo, please raise the ir-flag and start showing black flag to other mds
  NOM :)
  
  
• From: rajaG (@ 208.24.179.202) on: Wed Feb 21 16:39:46 EST 2001
  
  visvEsh: andha kaalaththula tune pOduvaa paaru, adhu tune. ippOvum pOdaraangaLEy..............indha maadhiri pEchchu, vayasaanadhukku ariguri:-):-)
  
  
• From: Venki (@ 12.35.64.19) on: Wed Feb 21 16:46:16 EST 2001
  
  Vishvesh Obla
  Thanks for the thread, I agree
  'today's tamil cine music seems to appeal to us only by the hi-fi sound effects and rarely by any musical sense'
  But Illayaraja have given melodious songs in the movies Bharathi, Kannukkul Nilavu, Hay Ram, Kakkai Chiraginile, Kaadhal Rojave etc.
  The songs in these movies are so melodious and stays uniquily out of the modern trend.
  
  My observation is that, the The Golden Era of Tamil Music... continues, and Raaja is making it happen.
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.149.4) on: Wed Feb 21 16:51:25 EST 2001
  
  Come on rajaG, visvesh's got a point. I dont think tunes 'flow' in the recent songs. I also think modern composers rely on sound effects far too much. I cannot elaborate on the first point as I dont know music technically. The second part I can. Now back to work ..exciting things happening at work !!!
  
  
• From: Vishvesh Obla (@ 206.189.24.8) on: Wed Feb 21 17:11:09 EST 2001
  
  Raja,
  You must first learn to see if someone speaks 'sense' before you utter some 'nonsense'. Well, I have no intention of quarelling with you anyway. If you are a musician you would know by yourself when you play the tune of most of the songs today as to how much they lack that 'fluidity' which is so essential for good music . They are nothing but mechanical repetition of some organized patterns, thats all. Why play the songs, just listen to most of the songs by removing the bass and the percussion beat which hype up the false musical appeal in us and what do you hear ? If that is what makes you guys feel young, God save you all, I would prefer to be a old man...
  
  
• From: kk (@ 207.0.105.173) on: Thu Feb 22 00:11:27 EST 2001
  
  vishvesh: unnidam mayanguhirEn is from the 70s surely and doesn't fall into the two decades from the 50s?? If it's 2 decades from the 'late' 50s IRaai mattum vilakkiyathu aen? I'm not an IR fan waiting for a chance to start a flame war, just curious...
  
  I'm listening to IR's 70s stuff as we speak and the songs seem just as melodious. Lyrics wise there is definite deterioration so may be we can use that to say the golden era is over.
  
  
• From: Vishvesh Obla (@ 206.189.24.8) on: Thu Feb 22 11:38:21 EST 2001
  
  KK,
  
  I wasn't very specific of the dates. I was referring to the general quality of music as was seen in Tamil Cine Music's formative days, which seems to me much distinct and far better from the music we see from the time of MSV & Ramamoorthy split (may be a little later, for MSV was still in his prime elements even after the split) and the advent of IllayaRaja. I don't know when that song "Unnidem Mayangugiraen" was composed, but it seems to me to have the older charm of the distinct organic fusion of the musical elements.That's the reason I referred to that song.
  
  My point was that those Music composers had some 'native' elements to express during that time, and that they were much less 'falsified' in their expressions, for they were seldom found to be 'aping' any kind of music alien to their background. Yes, they frequently did try their hands on popular western music at that time like 'Rock and Roll' and 'jazz', but if you see their works as a whole, they are found to have some natural elements, which gave a content to the genre of light music as developed by the Cine media during that time. They would stand in course of time for their original content while the music of today which has nothing new to offer (since it is mostly an imitation) would just create a sensation and vanish quickly as it appeared. There must be something original in an art form to survive. We see traces of it in the earlier MSV (&Ramamoorthy), and even minor composers of that time (even like Subbiah Naidu ), for they all were making some attempt to express something original, by the trend of that time, when even cine music was treated with reverence. It is still there in Illayaraja whenever his expressions have his native background of Folk music. Identifying that sense seems to me vital as one develops one’s taste in music.
  
  
• From: rajaG (@ 208.24.179.202) on: Thu Feb 22 12:43:00 EST 2001
  
  Visvesh:
  
  Please cool down! You, either did not notice the smileys at the end of my post or chose to ignore it. If you want to know my views on this topic, please go through the posts and the thoughts of the creator of this thread
  
  http://www.newtfmpage.com/forum/17723.15.43.14.html
  
  :-)
  
  
• From: kk (@ 198.4.92.5) on: Thu Feb 22 15:47:34 EST 2001
  
  Vishvesh,
  neenga solrathu onnu puriyala ..Do you mean as time went on the fluidity and naturalism has faded?. Songs are more and more of made up types?.
  
  Fellow IR fans,
  vishvesh hasnt said any bad about IR, he is just voicing his opinion.
  
  back to vishvesh,
  Can you give me example? Iam right now listening to 'Agaya gangai ..', I feel from the prelude to end, every thing seem to fluid. Its not a folk, but to my opinion it sounds like semiclassical and western. It sounds fluid and natural. Is this enough?. Please you too listen and tell me what you find wrong in it. You can also listen to 'Ramanin mohanam ..' Its not folk, it has simple melody for easy listeners and good interludes for the more hungry.
  
  I can give more IR examples. For non-IR songs how about vennelave vennilave?.
  
  And also what is organised patterns?
  
  
• From: kk (@ 198.4.92.5) on: Thu Feb 22 15:55:23 EST 2001
  
  BTW, Iam differnt kk
  
  
• From: kk (@ 207.0.108.241) on: Thu Feb 22 22:22:23 EST 2001
  
  I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the last couple posts by 'kk,' since I didn't remember writing any of this:-) In the interests of clarity , I'll change the name field to kik.
  
  
• From: shawn (@ ) on: Sat Nov 22 12:47:39 EST 2003
  
  post me yaaradi nee mogini from de movie uttama putthiran tamil ring tones
  
  
• From: S Ramaswamy (@ 61.1.68.33) on: Tue Nov 25 09:04:59 EST 2003
  
  Hi,
  
  I fully agree with the view proposed in this thread. The golden age of TFM was indeed the 1950s and 1960s when giants like GR, SV Venkatraman, VR, KVM, AMR, SMS, R Sudarsanam were ruling the roost and had the fantastic vocal support of playback giants like Mlv, P leela, PS, Jikki, TMS, PBS, SG, AMR etc. The music of that period is unmatchable. One can recollect each nuance in one's mind. The music of today, noise and nothing else.
  
  
• From: sim (@ 213.185.126.18) on: Tue Dec 2 00:45:53 EST 2003
  
  The best era, for me, is 1980 to 85.
  
  
• From: Shishir (@ ) on: Sun Dec 28 02:03:42 EST 2003
  
  I am not a Tamil speaker (born and raised in delhi). But I have heard some vintage Tamil and Malayalam music - esp. what has been sung by MS Subbulakshmi to S V venkatraman's music - and that is simply divine.
  
  The music being composed today - whether in the South or in the North - is frankly repetitive, cliched, and generally lacking in any melodic beauty, and often, when composers try to be expressive - it usually sounds out of tune.
  
  The golden era of Hindi songs started in the 30s and lasted till about the end of the 50s. I suspect it was roughly the same for music traditions elsewhere in the country.
  
  
• From: BEWARE! (@ 61.11.77.81) on: Sat Jan 3 23:39:22 EST 2004
  
  Dear Shisir
  You are right!
  The golden era of Hindi and Tamil music was upto
  early 1960s. What you hear now is only different rhytms not music or melody.
  
  

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