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IR's interview on Sun TV

Topic started by Hari Prasad A (@ dail.pppmad.vsnl.net.in) on Wed Jan 26 12:38:51 EST 2000.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Sun Tvyil Ilayaraajavin interview paarthen. About the music, in His own words, " Indhiya thirai isai ulaga varalaatrile migapperiya thuvakkam, idhai pola yaarum panniyadhum illai, pannapovadhum illai" enru solli irukkkirar. Eppadi irukka poginradhu endru ninaithaale manadhil nadukkam pirakkindradhu...

The BGM, as we all know, has been played by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. IR talked proudly about how much He enjoyed working with them, and how the conductor appreciated His work. He talked about how this was the first time a symphony orchestra has played for a film in Indian history, and how superior he felt the quality of sound and feel would be.

Later, He became sentimental about how people in India do not respect the artists we have. He felt really sad that while every small town in Europe had a symphony orchestra, there was nothing here.. One could detect even a touch of anger, when He said - " Bombayil Tata Opera Hall katti irukkanga. Yaaru vasikkappora? Adhukkum velinaattu aalungala dhan kooppiduveenga... Yenna maadhiri aalunga ellam edhukku irukkirom? naan oru film music director, yennaala symphony orchestrakkaga ellam ezhudha mudiyadhu paarunga..."

I am dying to see and listen to the movie ....

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Srikanth (@ wdslppp129.sttl.uswest.net) on: Sat Feb 5 02:13:35 EST 2000
  
  We should notice a fundamental difference between the Western system of scale building compared to the Melakarta scheme. In the Western classical music, you started off on a specific key, used the algorithm to generate the next key, which in turn led you to the third key of the scale and so forth. You sequentially generated the keys one after another by just shifting a whole tone or half a tone. By a curious coincidence even the Ilikkramam algorithm in Silappadhikaram is a similar 'Mode shifting' or 'tone shifting' algorithm. By contrast, the Melakarta scheme is a brutally mathematical scheme where you selected 7 keys out of a possible 12 keys, subject to certain constraints - here you figured out the frequency relationship between the keys much later. One important consequence: In the Western scale system, the keys in a scale are not more than a 'whole tone' apart, i. e, in any Major or Minor scale, you 'skip' at the maximum just one key. Whereas in Melakarta scheme, you can choose Key 1, Key 2, Key 3, Key 7, key 8, key 11 and key 12 by the algorithm. (This corresponds to Ragam Raghupriya) Notice the big gap between key 3 and key 7 (between the 'ga' and 'ma') where we skipped over three keys (This amounts to skipping two whole tones or four semitones)
  (i read the above somewhere in the web)
  
  This small note shift gives birth to many ragas!. In wc form of music there is nothing called as rAgas, there are only sclaes!...C to B
  and gamakaas, brigas are not found in wc!,
  
  Most of the scores in Wc are related to chirtianity, eg; bach was a religious composer in a church!...he wrote his scores for church music only.
  
  Music being bhakthi etc makes no differnce, the beauty of carnaric music is that it can give new dimension to the same song sung by different people, whereus if London phil harmoinc plays a bach's score or madras philharmonic plays the same bach's score, perfomance quality might sound better but the score or the music has to be same.
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ wdslppp129.sttl.uswest.net) on: Sat Feb 5 02:25:00 EST 2000
  
  also i saw the unity etc,
  Hope we all remember the spirt of unity concerts,
  all the concerts organized for this purpose went full and are still being broadcast in DD.
  And spicmacy, --- for studentds, all the concerts are well attended. Also Mr.Ravi, you have listed just 2 carnatic musicians you know, it is a pity, I wish you that you ponder more on carnatic music and its greatness. To enjoy wc, you need to know counterpoints, chord progression etc. but to under stand the counter points and chord progression you need to have done about 8 grades of WC, (it is vey tough to identify and enjoy a 8 part counter point score!.)
  but belive it or not to understand and enjoy carnatic music I just went and sat there in concerts, i began to get things automatically.
  
  
• From: ravi k.s.ravichandran (@ pub-dial62.aclis.utah.edu) on: Sat Feb 5 14:59:47 EST 2000
  
  Srikant: Thanks for the input.. Helped to learn a bit more especially from the link for Todd McComb's thoughts about Carnatic music and WCM. It seemed to me that Todd in fact pointed out some interesting views that were indicated in my positing. I agree with Todds profound explanations of subtleties in Carnatic and how he cherishes as to how it had helped him to understand the nuances of musical expressions in western medieval music. It is a very good and balanced article and I would recommend the readers of this forum to carefully review it.
  
  Look at Todd's reference as to how similar are the primarily vocal-based Western Medieval Music to the Carnatic, "Like Carnatic music, Western medieval music is concerned more with the song than with the symphony, and indeed the voice must be seen as its supreme instrument as well…"
  
  To explore further his comments here, I would like to quote from the book: Discovering Great Music by Roy Hemming, pages, 27-31. Roy writes, "…until Renaissance, European music was primarily vocal music (what Todd calls as western medieval music)….Very little of this early music was written down, for there was no consistent system of musical notation until the late 10th and 11th centuries when Pope John XIX endorsed the system organized by Guido of Arezza, that still forms the basis of modern notation….Roy continues , "…the renaissance witnessed a rich and profuse development of the art of music….the essential feature of renaissance vocal music is its polyphonic (many voiced) texture-that is simultaneous in melodic lines, with all of them having roughly same degree of activity and importance….Rhythmically, music of the renaissance is steady and continuous, lacking in extreme contrasts…Its harmony is mild, its melodic lines restrained and carefully balanced. In comparison to later styles (meaning the musical forms starting from Baroque era, after about 1600) this music (referring to medieval music) is nondramatic, although beautiful in its own terms….
  Roy then switches to explain the music of the Baroque era (new music) and that of the subsequent period: "…purely instrumental music began to come into its own during the renaissance period…During the 16th century, kings, princes and other nobles sought out musicians to compose and perform for their courts…they also began to train more and more instrumental players as well as singers…and the development of music printing made possible the increasingly wide distribution of musical works…The early 17th century ushered in vast change in style-changes so great that the course of music history was profoundly affected. This period of music history, known as Baroque was born in a group of Florence scholars known as Camerata…this group, rejecting the tenets of the vocal polyphony (medieval) of the renaissance, and developed what they called the new music…the new music of the Camerata was secular, rather than sacred, dramatic and passionate, rather than ceremonial…its (new music) rhythms were generally lively, its harmonies expressive, its melodies designed to reflect the meaning and the spirit of words..this work eventually culminated in Baroque…Among the first composers to employ these new techniques was Claudio Monteverdi…he was the first to writeout scores in which not only he used a large number of instruments but also specified exactly which instruments were to play which note.." (like IR does in his composings).
  
  Let me summarize here: It is clear that Roy characterizes pre-middle-renaissance music (what Todd calls as western medieval music) as vocal polyphony, less dramatic, rhythmically steady, lacking in extreme contrasts, ceremonial but beautiful and carefully balanced and religious. Roy then contrasts this with the present form of WCM, that began with Monteverdi, which is secular, lively rhythms, passionate and having expressive harmonies. And recall how Todd compares Carnatic to western medieval music ! I think Roy and Todd actually summarized eloquently what has been nagging in my mind for a long time and my own struggles to understand what is there/or not there in the WCM versus the Carnatic. The essential point here is that when Western Medieval Music underwent a dramatic change, sometime 400 years ago, it changed to a new form, accompanied by writing down of musical notes and being particular as to what instrument should play what and when, the Carnatic music, apparently (seemingly this is what I can understand Todd's comments) has largely retained its form (similar to that of western medieval music, I think Todd says) till today. Does Todd then suggest that Carnatic music, has not underwent any changes that are comparable to that happened to medieval music? May be!
  
  Todd aptly says, "Carnatic music is at a crossroads on the issue of aesthetic diversity, especially as its international reputation increases. It is already true that some of the most successful performers in worldly terms are able to make a living by touring the West, and not by representing Carnatic music in its most pure
  form. Of course there is a very real sense in which an art form must develop and adjust in order to make the same impact on its audience," Todds comments are right on the money, and seemingly reflecting parts of the comments of IR on various occasions. Todd goes on to say,"…..and Carnatic music knows this fact better than most…". Is this true? If so are such changes taking place? I do not know. May be some Carnatic experts can give some opinions here.
  
  Todds's discussion, "..Of course the meaning of the lyrics revolves around acts of religious devotion. One can rightly ask both concerning the relevance of devotion in our modern age of technology and selfishness, as well as the ability of a Westerner to apprehend and appreciate it. Indeed, it would be presumptuous of me to suggest that I fully understand the songs of the Trinity…." Sort of connects to my thoughts in my posting. This part of Todd's discussion actually says better what I have said in my comment. With the essential components of Carnatic deeply entrenched in bakhthi and spiritual terms, I do not know, how it can and when it would transcend to the way the present day WCM transcended from western medieval music.
  
  I think some of the folks surfing here, may have, at least sometime or other, felt along the lines I described in my postings. Atleast to me, now I am beginning to make sense of why IR makes statements like those in his Sun-TV interview and other occasions, and why Kamal may have found WCM form as particularly suiting for his dramatic and, may be, emotionally intense movie, Hey Ram !
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ wdslppp129.sttl.uswest.net) on: Sat Feb 5 16:20:54 EST 2000
  
  RAVI, Dramatic effect --- same ilyaraja has given scores with a sitar and a tabla and impressed us, instead of 16/24 member string section,
  If you had seen Xfiles, there are some thrilling scenes where only a sole tabla is used!..at times a flute is placed over the tabla.
  
  so we can do some dramatic scores with indian form of music, basically the wcm lacks the smoothness that indian classical music has.
  
  One more issue we cannot use WC for a emotional scoring, infact western musicians here go for east music for an emotional music sequence.(like pathos!), (ofcourse there are many scores which will bring a out romantic moods!), Indian form of music suits emotion very well, it closly interacts with your emotion.
  each and Every raga has a feel and emotion (we call it sAyal) but wc scales does not have such things., they are just emajor, just go up and down thats it.
  
  WC is great!, no doubt( thats why I happen to complete 8 grades), but still IMHO, Indian Classical Music is far superior because of its similicity.
  
  Good discussion!...let us continue.
  
  

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