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IR or ARR

Topic started by M.Anand (@ ihproxy1.proxy.lucent.com) on Tue Jan 18 01:03:04 EST 2000.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

hi all, I am Anand from bangalore and a new visitor to the tfm page. I am a great fan of both ARR and IR. I browsed through all the earlier threads on ARR and IR. It seems to me that there are quite a few anti ARRs out here.

Let me tell you something about IRs music. IRs music became popular and sounded different because he tried to bring in a westernization of Carnatic ragas in his songs. Even a dappanguthu was in Lathaangi or sivaranjani. That actually made the difference. Otherwise he is no great MD. One might argue that such a westernization or incorporation of a carnatic raga in a dappanguthu or jazz is something that demands great applause. But IR doesn't deserve that because, if u say u are tuning a song in a particular raagam, you have to bring out the nuances, the laya and bhaava of the raagam in to the song. Just traversing the swaras in the raagam here and there does not mean that u have tuned a song in that raagam. Ilayaraaja has done just that, a mere traversal through the swaras. In many places, there were apaswaras also. ARR has tuned very few songs based on Carnatic ragas but they were classics. For example Mettu podu in Anjali is a beautiful song in Ananda Bhairavi. He has brought out every nuance of the raagam in that song. Minsaara Kanna in padaiyappa is an excellent piece in vasantha. En mel vizhunda mazhai tuliye is again a beautiful piece in kaapi. A real mix of the east and west. That is what u call fusion. Ilayaraaja boasts of having composed songs in rare raagas like chala nattai, kanakangi etc. For example pani vizhum malar vanam in chala nattai is again a pure note traversal. There was no attempt to bring out the nuances in the raaga. So IR knew how to make songs sound good but ARR gives a fine polish to each and every one of his songs. IR composed music for 700 odd films. Hey Ram is his 785th film. Considering 7 songs per movie, he has tuned almost 5500 songs. Huge number indeed but hardly 5% of those songs are listenable others are 100% pure junk. But 99.9% of ARRs songs are listenable and they are also good numbers. What do you say about this?

Regards,
Anand

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Athi (@ netcache32.mot.com) on: Tue Apr 11 13:48:09 EDT 2000
  
  Want to mention here that ARR is also called
  as Sound Engineer. I think a lay man will
  understand more from this name than all
  the esoteric explanations given by other
  tfm forum'rs. Also as IR was insinuating in
  his Hey Ram interview, most of ARR's
  sounds are from samples and I think he
  mainly focuses on mixing them properly(in
  many cases recycling(;-) them)(permutation
  and combination)
  
  Even the song Muqabla fits into this category
  of composed from music samples and the song
  it was compared to, Attama has all original composed music. This is in reference to the chat
  that was available in this thread a couple
  of days back.
  
  Athi
  
  
• From: aruLaracan (@ psiphi.umsl.edu) on: Tue Apr 11 13:48:29 EDT 2000
  
  rjay,
  
  good write-up. just a small addition/clarification to what you have written. in wcm practise, one can "write" down the volume dynamics (this is done by,as you properly put it, choosing the correct number of instruments and explicitly writing down the dynamics) and some of the gamakams. modern technology is adding more scope for dynamics. leonard bernstein calls wcm as "perfect" music, in the sense that the sound is the perfect reproduction of what the composer intended and wrote down! basically wcm is "wriiten" music!! (please don't denigrate me by calling me an expert :-) )
  
  
• From: kiru (@ surf0004.sybase.com) on: Tue Apr 11 14:13:31 EDT 2000
  
  rjay,
  very good writing. you have good skills of expression. Are you a prof, teaching asst ?
  I am no expert or a musician like Srikanth.
  I do understand digital technology for I have a degree in computer science and engineering. I am one of the strong proponents of digital technology for the cost/benefit ratio. Now and then I get into trouble with people here because they make it sound like ARR is the king of recording. I just want to make it clear he does POP recording well.
  I am following digital recording/playback technology for quite a while (16bit/44.1kHz, 24bit/96Khz, DVD-Audio, DSD etc) and understand them from first principles like Nyquist theorem. And I use an external DAC for normal listening at home.
  
  I mention these things mainly to make people understand there are various kinds of recordings. And people have preferences. The highest priced audio equipment are bought by people who like to hear playback that sounds like a live event. These people want to hear a violin as a violin. They even take pride in identifying the brand of piano used for the recording or the venue !!!
  
  KaviChandran Alexander is an expert recording engineer in the US. He has made grammy winning recordings. I am sure you will be interested in checking out his recordings. If you have a good stereo system you can have VM Bhatt or L Subramaniam play for you in your living room !!!
  
  BTW, I am sure your writings will be appreciated by many in the forum. Very educative.
  
  
• From: rjay (@ brkfw0005.navistar.com) on: Tue Apr 11 14:15:03 EDT 2000
  
  Arul,
  
  Here are my thoughts on Bernstein's viewpoint.
  Let me know what you think of it.
  
  Bernstein belongs to that school of western
  philosophical tradition which believes that
  only 'an examined life is worth living' and
  that you must be conscious of all that you
  write into your music.
  
  Past 30 years people have come away from that
  point of view, shocked by the world war caused
  by this world view of determinism. Now people
  realize that conscious mind in only say 3
  of our mind and are learning ways to
  get the subconscious come out more freely
  and fruitfully.
  
  Now, if you
  limit music to what can be written down, it
  is like saying 'perfect water is what I can
  take in my cup' when there is a whole ocean
  before you. Bernstein's viewpoint now strikes
  me as a composer who wants to be in total control.
  (I am not saying Bernstein was such a composer.)
  
  After all, most of the modern synthesizers
  allow you to synthesize almost any sound
  whether imitating a natural sound or totally new
  and they allow you loads of expression on that
  sound. We dont even have names for most of these
  instruments (may be you can name them by
  concatenating the parameter values you used!)
  How do you notate it?
  
  I see notation as a 'recording technology before
  Edison' and also a learning shorthand. And a good
  musician must go beyond it. At some point,
  notation distracts me from the sound.
  
  Thanks
  rjay
  
  
• From: kiru (@ surf0004.sybase.com) on: Tue Apr 11 14:15:26 EDT 2000
  
  Kavichandran Alexander's website - http://www.waterlilyacoustics.com
  I suggest 'A meeting by the River' as a good first album to buy.
  
  
• From: rjay (@ brkfw0005.navistar.com) on: Tue Apr 11 14:29:13 EDT 2000
  
  Kiru, you rightly put it. The aim of mixing and
  recording is to make the listener in a room
  feel that the orchestra or musicians are playing
  right inside the room.
  
  I am a computer science engineer by training
  and profession, too and composing and writing
  are my hobbies. Philosophising too!
  
  Kiru, Arul, I consider every good listener who can
  appreciate music is a music expert. If you can
  see the quality of musical ideas and musical
  sound and appreciate them with distinction, you are already an expert listener.
  
  The ability to create, then, is basically your ability to make your distinctions
  conscious and then experimenting with them
  and see how they affect music you make.
  
  Thanks for the info about KaviChandran Alexander.
  News to me.
  
  rjay
  
  PS : the last posting
  consciousness is only 3 of our mind, actually
  should read 'consciousness is only 3 percent
  of the mind'. TFM hub HTML viewers eat away
  percentage symbols!
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ host2.cvs.aa.net) on: Tue Apr 11 14:45:12 EDT 2000
  
  Athi, for you kind information, all the keyboard,drum machines, sound modules are all built using samples,
  the then famous DX7 keyboard best keyboard during 80-90's, all the MDs have used it in almost all the songs, this keyb has catrides which contains samples (FM).Later came the drum patterns, (used in many songsin 80's 90's, then when samplers came into picture, drum loops became popular.
  
  Also Samplers can be used for pitch correction, meaning I can sing like me and then transform it similar to RajaG's voice
  
  Ravi how about analysing about samples,
  since we had lot of discussions here most of them blindly blames usage of samples is incorrect. Can someone really explain what is sample is all about .,
  
  Arr uses some wiered samples (samples are superior version of patches) like in sakalababy you will hear a tape rewinding sound, you might not consider this to be music, but he places this so perfectly it suites the music very well.
  
  Like raja using synth claps! or synth tambourine formations. As someone said, raja should have sent his kids to western countries to learn and exploit these technology, They would have easily matched arr in every aspect. :)) of sound engineering and music production. which includes
  composing, arranging, balacing, mixing recording and finally marketing it.
  
  (someone here will add - lifting to the list :))
  
  
  
• From: rjay (@ brkfw0005.navistar.com) on: Tue Apr 11 15:02:47 EDT 2000
  
  Srikanth,
  Recording a song is itself sampling!! ;)
  We can write a primer on sampling and digital
  recording, if many people would read.
  
  Kiru
  Thanks for the link to the intriguing
  Kavi's site. I read his manifesto and
  his reasons for minimalist miking and
  analog techniques. It is a surprising
  viewpoint.
  His points are these:
  1. Digital technology is basically sampling
  and so, cannot be fast enough to capture all
  the movements in sound. We are talking about
  nanosecond movements maybe!
  2. Digital sampling adds odd overtones that
  spoil the tonality of the sound.
  3. Multiple mikes destroy real phase information.
  4. Mixing engineers destroy conductors intent.
  5. Record in acoustic buildings.
  
  So, he says, just keep two very high quality
  mikes where a listener would sit and capture
  on analog tape, using analog amplifiers directly
  to two tracks. No mixing, balancing, limiting.
  
  I think for the purposes of classical music
  and music played on stage by orchestra, this
  sounds to be a good idea.
  
  But, Kiru, you must only say if there is such a
  distinct improvement in the listener's experience
  as claimed. And funnily, I dont know what
  Kavi calls himself, because during the actual
  recording he does nothing!!
  
  There are a few contradictions in his viewpoints-
  he talks about 'technologies created by a
  mechanistic world view' and forgets that
  analog tubes and mikes are also such things.
  and finally he sells CDs instead of analog tapes!
  Ideally the way his manifesto started, he should
  not even record and sell CDs. He should just
  invite people to good concerts and keep quiet.
  (just joking. we all have conflicting ideas and
  still can create excellence!)
  
  
  
  
• From: kiru (@ surf0004.sybase.com) on: Tue Apr 11 15:47:01 EDT 2000
  
  Well, this is interesting and keep reading this instead of doing my work !!
  Anyway, dont jump to conclusions about Kavi Alexander. He is a recording engineer but he also owns the company. So he decides what to record. He is deep into music and beleives the future is in East-West fusion. So almost all his company's albums are a kind of fusion.
  Selling CDs is not his main business. He makes LPs for passion. He sells CDs for food :).
  Yes, I am an audiophile and so am comfortable with some crazy people :). But watch out DSD is coming. This is what they call the analog killer. But majority of the people would not care for recordings like this or may not have equipment to playback. There is only one audiophile company in India with speaker prices starting at Rs80,000.
  So for the majority of focus, just DAT tapes mixed on PCs with Sonic Foundry or something like that should be okay. The major thing going for ARR is not just use of technology.He has what I call - 'aural aesthetics'. The whole tone of his recording is 'sweet' and at the same time 'full'. (Sometimes in IR's recording the violins can give you an ear bleed)
  
  I dont know where you are, I would invite you guys over to my place for a listen, even though I have only a half-decent system. But you will like it.
  
  BTW, just get the album I suggested and read the CD liner notes. So many things ..so litte time to learn !!!
  
  

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