MD has to sit and compose at least 15 different tunes to satisfy the director.

The lyrics have to match the tune and the situation. After these two issues are solved - orchestration come into picture, has to hire musicians and sequence the score, book a studio, book singers (Dates are important),

The Recording day (often night) comes with pomp and galore, MDS goes round the studio explaining his score to musicians and explaining the placement etc. He wants his score to be recorded perfectly; the sound engineer has to cooperate with him.

Tune must be explained to the singer(s) along with BGM interludes, situation, pronunciation, feel etc. Each line is done at least 10 times to get the right one. It happens again with the musicians - it is not easy to obtain perfection in spite of the musician being a professional.

After all this! - Finally, the song is recorded. Next task is balancing. The fate of the song lies now in the hands of the sound engineer, (who often fails).

Balancing - Since all the instruments are recorded on separate tracks - their volume and other levels must be controlled, masalas like reverb, delay are added, panning is to done. If the Movie is on a DTS production - job becomes more difficult.

After all this, the album goes for tape/CD production - CD production is somewhat easy, except the cost. Tapes: The tape on which the work is duplicated must be good (which is often not), if not the entire work will end up in a mess.

After all this hard work!, he waits for the album release (worst part for an artist), his fate is in our (fans) hands. When we hear the tape, (which we buy or in most case we record it from someone.), We just utter a word on the album, which might be

1. Great

2. Ok

3. Waste

4. Copied

We are not aware how the production is done, how many work very hard for the

Srikanth

Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: DEVA_BASHER (@ webgate0.mot.com) on: Sat Sep 26 02:55:18 EDT 1998
  
  I don't think Deva needs any SE etc.What he needs is a kaoroake system and SPB /SJ around ;-))
  
  
• From: Nirupama (@ mut-53-0834.direct.ca) on: Sun Sep 27 02:00:44 EDT 1998
  
  Srikanth, I agree that you may not need formal training to follow the musical notes and with good ear music you can probably understand it just the same. Maybe IR thinks that knowledge of swaras might assure quality singing. Have you really witnessed any other recordings?
  
  Now ARR might be very efficient but I think his working style is his biggest disadvantage. Instead of spending hours on recording a small piece in different tracks, mixing and balancing all by himself, he could spend more time on composing new tunes. He can leave the rest to the sound engineer and to the other technicians and maybe supervise everything and make the final changes if necessary. This might enable him to be more productive.
  
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ slip-32-101-16-32.il.us.ibm.net) on: Sun Sep 27 09:53:43 EDT 1998
  
  Hi,
  Nirupama:
  Have you really witnessed any other recordings?
  I dont get it,
  
  
  Srikanth
  
  
• From: Senthil kumar (@ firewall.metamor.com) on: Sun Sep 27 16:30:19 EDT 1998
  
  Hi,
  
  My name is Senthil. I happen to browse this list and the interesting discussions on SPB and his
  kelvi gnanam.
  
  Well I wish to bring into SPB's family background here. His father used to be a Katha Kalasheba person, and I would certainly assume that, this is
  his (musical) family background helped him understand swaras to jathis.
  
  thanks
  
  
• From: Nirupama (@ mut-53-0746.direct.ca) on: Mon Sep 28 03:24:08 EDT 1998
  
  Hi Srikanth,
  I just wanted to know if you have seen any other recordings such as the "kuzhal uthum kannan" or "july matham" ones.
  
  
• From: aruvi (@ spc-isp-tor-uas-79-89.sprint.ca) on: Sun Nov 1 11:03:13 EST 1998
  
  When composing, how does one figure out what kind of raga, music, effects and all the other technical stuff should be. Also, when making the song, paadu pannaeka, how do they fit in the musical interludes to fit together, especially since some nice pieces might not fit together.
  
  
• From: P. Lankathas (@ spc-isp-stc-uas-07-17.sprint.ca) on: Wed Nov 4 23:49:29 EST 1998
  
  HERE WE GO
  Well first of all let me tell you why ARR does all the work such as track making, recoring, balancing mixing and much more rather than letting his assistance do it, simple IF HE LET THEM DO IT THEN EVENYONE WILL FIND OUT WHERE HE COPIES HIS TUNES FROM, just kidding, but there is a reason why ARR happens to be a great sound engineer, and we all know that when we are good at something we want to do the job ourself rather than let anyone else do it, because if we let them do and even if then do the best job possible - we will find some mistake in it. RIGHT, and also when things go into an another hand the quality start to go down because an MD cant explain exactly what he want in that song to a sound engineer 100%, because while explaining some percentage of it will be lost in the process of communication. So I guess this is why ARR does all the work himself because i remeber him once saying in an interview that quality is more important to him rather than quantity. And if you want quality then you have you spend more time on what you are doing right.
  
  I have not seen any recoding done by any indian MD but I have had some chance to talk to some play back singers when they visit Canada and here are some interesting facts that I got speaking with them.
  
  Vidayasagar only give his playback singers an hour to learn, practice and sing a song. when a singer goes to sing a song for him, he gives them the lyric, tell them the situation, give them the pitch and beat etc and play the mealody on his keyboard. Then the singer gets some time to practice the song by him/herself and the recording start. ALL THIS WITH IN AN HOUR.
  
  On the other hand Deva just do the melody and let his brothers worry about all the arrangements and the part about teaching the singer the songs and all the other stuff, because Deva dont have any time for that. REMEMBER HE HAS TO GO AN RECYCLE MORE TUNES.
  
  But ARR spends more time with his singers for a song. He usually doesnt do the music first. He gives his singers a song and play or hum the basic melody and ask the singers for elabration or more input and then only he does the recording. After the voice is done then he does the same thing with his music instrument players. He give them some notes asks them to play the tunes as they fell like, record them and then uses whatever his good for that peticular song.
  
  I got these information from HARINI when she visited Toronto in the early Oct of 1998, for a stage show. One of my friend, who happens to be a MD in Canada did recorded a song for his up coming CD while will be released in Canada and HARINI did a Duet song, and thats how I had a chace to meet and talk to her personally. A very nice experience indeed. Also ARR pays HARINI 6000 rupies(INDIAN MONEY) for a song.
  
  Unnikrishnan was in Canada too, late Oct 1998 and his story was interesting too. He says that ARR is open to ideas and its easier singing for him because there are only four people in the studio while the song is being recorded. The singer, ARR, the lyricist and the film director. While doing a song in KARUTAMA (thenmatku paruvakattU, Unnikrishnan & Chitra) Chitra did the recording first and then only Unnikrishnan sang because he wasnt sure about that song and was also scared because it was his first duet in the film field. In deva case, Deva or his brother in this case is always open to ideas and they will elabrate on songs as to the singers ideas too. Where are IR he know exactly what he wants and he will get exactly that. In the case of KR he always changes his mind during recoding and there might be several changes in the song for the time it was started to the time its finish, but I heard that its enjoyable doing recoring with him because he has a good sense of humar.
  
  One more souce, who was a tabala player for IR in the early age said that IR writes down all off the instrument players notes and gives it to them and in the early ages DEVAS brothers who used to do the arrangement for IR takes the notes to DEVA by lunch time and them do little changes in the piece and do a song with IRs notes, pretty sneeky hu. Some how IR found this out and now a days he collects all his notes after each recording and keeps it with himself.
  
  Well thats it for now, more stories will follow
  
  P. Lankathas
  
  
• From: Nirupama (@ mut-53-0307.direct.ca) on: Thu Nov 5 02:40:18 EST 1998
  
  Lankathas:
  Thanks a lot for sharing some very interesting info. about our MDs. This is something that I wanted to know for a long time, i.e the recording & teaching techniques of various MDs. Regarding Deva, I don't think he needs those music notes anymore:-)) I've heard that KJY once said that modulations in singing should also come from the MD. I think what he meant was that only a MD has the right idea of the final product and the singer should just follow his lead. I'm also curious to find out how much freedom IR gives to singers like SPB & SJ. They never fail to enrich his music through their singing.
  
  
• From: P. Lankathas (@ spc-isp-stc-uas-01-25.sprint.ca) on: Thu Nov 5 03:26:10 EST 1998
  
  Well Nirupama, I dont know about SPB & SJ but I know that HH once told in an interview that IR know what he wants and he will get what he wants from his singers. He usually doesn't give any open space for his singers, but in the case of SPB it might be different, I mean come on we are talking about probably(with some arguments from KJJ fans and others) the best singer not only India but also the World has seen. And in that sense I dont blame IR for getting exactly what he want from the singer insted of letting them elabrate, because if the song does'nt turn out good, who do we blame the MD - not the song writer, the singer, the SE, the director or anyone else - right.
  
  "BECASUE AS 'SRIKANTH' WOULD SAY THAT'S THE ADVANTAGE OF BEING A FAN".
  
  So in that sense what IR does is correct.
  
  Srikanth, I am waiting for you to talk about a typical discussion between a MD and a movie direcor, does the producer or the song writer has any input in this. PLEASE ELABRATE ON THIS
  
  P. Lankathas
  
  
• From: shankar (@ webgate0.mot.com) on: Thu Nov 5 08:03:10 EST 1998
  
  IR himself once said that he gave full freedom to SPB in the song konji konji and i don't have to talk about the outcome....
  
  
  

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