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:

• From: Udhaya (@ 205.218.142.217) on: Thu Sep 17 13:26:40 EDT 1998
  
  This is the kind of stuff I've been expecting from you, Srikanth. I didn't realize there were this many variables involved in recording a song. This explains why many soundtracks sound half-baked.
  
  
• From: Anand Mahadevan (@ carefree.proxy.lucent.com) on: Thu Sep 17 15:13:59 EDT 1998
  
  "MD has to sit and compose at least 15 different tunes to satisfy the director."
  
  well,he can stand & compose!!Getting serious, MD's do'nt have to satisfy the director.Gone are the days when film directors had
  taste in music.These days the songs are predictable and MD need only to rehash old tunes.
  
  "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)"
  
  This is no big deal.writing "humma humma" or "Aala gula" is no great shakes.There is no Orchestration for rehashed tunes.Guess the top MD in India does recording in his garage.Infact the other day I was wondering thru a music store in Allentown,PA and one could get a 16 track digital mixer for $3000 and another $1000 for the rythym box for rythym loops.A Koorg synth, typically costs about 2 grand.A 6 grand take can get you the state of the art and you are in business.
  I do'nt think we need to book Anuradha sriram's or the likes for the quality of output they churn out.
  
  "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"
  
  All they need to do is play the original(gloria estafan or enigma) and the singers can figure out the composition.
  
  Balancing and other techno gizzmos are done by the sound engineers.
  No great shakes as far as the current MD job profile goes.Be smart and listen to a lot of western tapes and success will be at your door step.
  
  My take on this is , being an MD is a difficult job provided you are sincere to your profession.Creativity is the core and the heart of this job.Its tough to be original and truthful.
  The 60's,70's & 80's had some demanding directors but 90's is really a piece of cake for the MDs.
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ proxy1.dpn.deere.com) on: Thu Sep 17 15:26:28 EDT 1998
  
  Hi anand,
  This is the traditional way what Msv, Raja and others have followed,
  (what Modern MDS does is different.)
  Here I am not talking about quality of their output, I am trying to tell the hardships.
  Most of the things you have told are just verbal, you will know the reality only if you venture into it. I am serious about this, TRy recording you voice on a wav files and try to sync it with other manual instruments like tabla, - brother it is very hard. Composing a tune might be easy but to impress the mass is very hard.
  
  You have replied so easily - that is the advantage of being a fan.
  Srikanth
  
  
• From: Anand Mahadevan (@ carefree.proxy.lucent.com) on: Thu Sep 17 17:22:16 EDT 1998
  
  Fair enough on the degree of difficulty.But my contention is that the toughest part of the job is the creative one.All the rest is more of co-ordination and manegerial in nature, which any corporate white collared manager can perform .
  
  Art gets reflected in the mental thought process and the rest is clerical.Thats why I inisist that when the creative process gets subjected to corruption any amount clerical input makes it worthless.This is purely a reflection of the current state of TFM.
  If you consider music to be an art then purity is quintessential to its sustenance.
  
  
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ proxy1.dpn.deere.com) on: Thu Sep 17 17:27:01 EDT 1998
  
  Exactly: Anand: Imagine writing scores for all the instruments - one must not sound like another, all the songs must be different.
  I will tell more how Raja and MSV works on thier re-recording, I will go home and type it.
  
  Srikanth
  
  
• From: balaji (@ schubert.crhc.uiuc.edu) on: Thu Sep 17 17:32:13 EDT 1998
  
  in an interview, IR sketched how difficult it is while composing a symphony. he said when he gets a small piece, he has to think about putting it on 50 instruments and by the time he sits down to write the idea might have evaporated. so, "creativity is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration". the 99% part cannot be brushed aside as a managerial one.
  
  
• From: Anand mahadevan (@ maxtnt03-phl-55.fast.net) on: Thu Sep 17 18:21:34 EDT 1998
  
  without the 1% inspiration ,99% perspiration makes no sense, if thats the way you want to split the work.
  I can live without the 99% perspiration, if that 1% inspiration is true and genuine.
  Creativity can be simply expressed in sheet of paper by notations.I think Orchestration is important and it gives additional weight to the creation.
  
  I still feel co-ordination and recording is really secondary if one has to describe the job profile of a music composer.
  Somewhere down the line we have role of a composer and a conducter mixed up.I recently purchased India 24 hrs CD and in that it was mentioned, composed by Illayaraja and conducted by Uttam singh.
  If we have to describe the profile of a conducter then most of srikanth's attributes fit in.
  
  
  
  
• From: A Fan (@ chcgb108-07.splitrock.net) on: Thu Sep 17 19:44:23 EDT 1998
  
  Anand and Srikanth, excellent topic and enlightening, to imagine that we had music composers like IR and MSV who carried out the full process in their days, without delegating the tasks tehy did the creating and managing various musicians. i think you and i can make our clones music composers with today's technology and so very less expectations and musicla standards
  
  
• From: Nirupama (@ mut-53-0235.direct.ca) on: Thu Sep 17 19:59:43 EDT 1998
  
  Srikanth,
  Thanks for the break-down on the duties of an MD. It sure is a very difficult task to be creative, original and productive at the same time. That is one reason I try to be fair to all these MDs. But don't you think that their efforts are compensated enough by the money they are being paid? As listeners, we are also spending our hard-earned money on these albums and in many cases I feel cheated or disappointed with the performance of these current MDs. Especially, with all the media publicity, we are lured into buying some useless albums with only one or two good songs. Maybe the fault lies on the hands of the fans who justify whatever produced by their favourite MD. Srikanth, I'm waiting for your write-up on IR and MSV's re-recording techniques.
  
  
• From: Srikanth (@ proxy2.sch.prodigy.net) on: Thu Sep 17 20:26:08 EDT 1998
  
  Hi,
  Msv: This was a recording for a movie called Rasathi Kalyanam - (a major flop).
  I was there in AVM E studio sitting beside the keyboard player.
  MSV did his duty pretty well. Basically recording has to be timed well, some use stop watch to place the exact score. Msv calculates using his teeth!, belive it or he count the seconds in this teeth and conducts perfectly.
  He sees the scene, walks around - he lifts and ties his dhoti like a shorts - walks humming a tune - his assts pick the basic notes in that - comes before the harmonium - litrally bangs few excellent bars along with his usual humings - goes to Roy - his bass guitarist - he is a cat - as MSV tells him the chord progression - he plays the bass pattern. Goes to SivaMani tells him few things (tum num dhum tum num dhum) Tell him the punches, strings section is also ready with the score.
  Goes to the keyboard player - Ronnie - asks him for metalic combination -Ronnie plays 100 of them - MSV picks up one from that - plays the notes on his keyboard- Ronnie who is unable to play the speed at which MSV played sequences it on his sequencer quickly before the take.
  
  The scene starts MSV conducts like a 20 year old school boy. first take goes wrong due to the sound engineer - who forgets to shut down the a/c in the studio.
  Next take is also stopped, Believe it or not.
  MSV shouts "Olar ran Olar ran" - 4th violin in the 3rd row is out of tune - He ask his asst Guna to tune it. - Yes! the violin was out of scale.
  Take goes on well.This took about 2 hrs.
  Frankly : The scene was dragging for too long without any weightage, but after the bgm score
  the scene was lifted very much.
  
  Have any one heard the song -
  "Rasathi enai thedi varuvaye Raja Raja."
  from Rasathi kalyanam = excellent song sung by
  Chitra.
  
  Next i will post about my experience with Raja and MSV together. Recording of Kuzal oothum Kannauku.
  
  Srikanth
  
  
• From: A Fan (@ chcgb112-39.splitrock.net) on: Thu Sep 17 23:10:12 EDT 1998
  
  Srikanth
  
  I can' wait. Thanks
  
  

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