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MEASURING ONE'S MUSICAL MATURITY - HOW TO NAME IT!!!!!!!!

Topic started by Gyan (Devastated by How To Name It for good!!!!) (@ 4.159.244.175) on Tue Jun 15 23:31:27 EDT 2004.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

I think every music lover or composer who thinks they are on a higher musical plane has to ask one thing before they think they are: Can they appreciate the depth and beauty of IR' How To Name It.

Why I say this is, in my young days I used to be "instantly" fascinated by Western Classical Music, thinkin it was the ultimate,and Indian classical all stupid!!! How wrong I am now!!!

I had heard IR' HTNI in 89 and I just couldn't figure it out what the heck it was. Even a decade later, I could not understand how it could be called great or even enjoyable. I've seen only folks who enjoy Carnatic music call it great and that made me dislike Carnatic music even more.

Now, I call HTNI, the FINAL FRONTIER OF MUSIC, Avant-Garde, light years ahead, Masterpiece of all classical albums I've heard, etc... It is also how I now measure a person's depth of music appreciation. Recently, I gave it to an elderly couple who goes to Symphonies. They just returned it saying they could not follow it at all!!!!

So, Western classical music lovers cannot accept HTNI, because it is so profound and not instant jingle bells and also my fascination with Western Classical these days is skin-deep only, nothing mean about it, just that I want deeper music that never cease to bewilder me. I still love Western classical, pop etc... but HTNI is giving me a new understanding of how much complex music can get for the true everlasting beauty that remains to be discovered in it depth!!!!!!

Can I say the same of many TFM dfers other than Carnatic music lovers in this forum - that many could not just understand HTNI for several years initially, but they now see the beauty of it, finally?

Also, those who liked it first time itself, please explain the basis, whether it was Carnatic background or yours or just your own musical perception. Would you consider this as this album as the best measure of a music lover or composer' musical growth or maturity? Or, is there another measure?

My other question is: Is Nothing But Wind also as profound as HTNI? ( I could not enjoy NBW because of muted flute notes at times, but I did not get back to it as I did with HTNI) Did anyone feel it was not fully astounding as HTNI.

Q3: Does "SSSSA" know if IR will come out with more HTNI type albums?!!! That is a legacy for the next 1000 years of music, i feel.

Also, the more intriguing question, do you think HTNI with a full fledged Symphonic Orchestra would've been fulfilling?!!!!!!!! (by the way was L Vaidyanathan the dual violinist with Narasimhan?)

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Responses:

• From: Thops (@ 24.163.66.143) on: Wed Jun 16 01:56:44 EDT 2004
  
  // Q3: Does "SSSSA" know if IR will come out with more HTNI type albums?!!! //
  
  I don't think even IR knows :-))...
  
  
• From: C~P (@ 61.95.159.19) on: Wed Jun 16 02:21:14 EDT 2004
  
  Idha naan sollirundha ranagalam aagirukkum! :-)
  
  
• From: Gyan (@ 4.158.117.137) on: Wed Jun 16 09:14:25 EDT 2004
  
  just a correction: i made some immature and unworthy statements and i apologize.
  
  sorry, in the late night postings, i lose judgement and kinda get immature. (This is called Night Disfection for me.)
  
  quite wrong the following swept away like statements, just because I find Carnatic music in general or Hindustani (like renditions of Bhimsen Joshi) profound, does not mean that I should find something else to put down and justify the reason for my new found maturity.
  
  ................also my fascination with Western Classical these days is skin-deep only, nothing mean about it, just that I want deeper music that never cease to bewilder me. I still love Western classical, pop etc... but HTNI is giving me a new understanding of how much complex music can get for the true everlasting beauty that remains to be discovered in it depth!!!!!! ..................
  
  Of course, Western Classical is always fascinating and some compositions are very complex and too good to be true, like that of Chopin', Mozart', Elgar, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and look at the elegance and pleasing nature of Strauss Waltzes.
  
  About Symphony orchestra' for HTNI, I just wondered if it would've mattered and given HTNI a hypersonic feel ;---)
  
  
• From: cho (@ 209.47.143.226) on: Wed Jun 16 10:40:33 EDT 2004
  
  HTNI is THE BEST non-filmy album that any indian composer has ever composed so far!!. What's stunned me was IR took just a few weeks to compose this extraordinary album... I still remember, during it's cassette release function actor Sivakumar asked Ilayaraja "Did you create this album bcos you got sick and tired of film music and you wanted to try out something new?". IR replied that "No, I had this concept in my mind for a long time and it took me just a few weeks to put them all together... that's the time I normally take to compose BGM for an average movie".... Isn't amazing?!!!!
  
  The album was released in 1983. It's more than 20 years now... The sad part is that this extraordinary album from such a Genius did not get it's due credit..
  
  
  
• From: eden (@ 136.1.1.101) on: Wed Jun 16 11:52:11 EDT 2004
  
  I remember getting the HTNI echo cassette in '86 when I was 21 and started living in Kerala. I still remember appreciating the folkish number more than others at that time, rewinding and playing in my walkman skipping others (is it 'Do anything' as the CD cover says?)..probably because I used to love the solo flute more than solo violin those days...there should be group of violins to thrill me then (like the second interlude of 'madai thiRandhu' or the last interlude of 'vizhiyilE malarndhadhu' or the pieces in EdhO mOham)...
  
  The other numbers of HTNI, as I rated in '86, were less than even the rAjapArvai piece (because they lacked the flute / drum / guitar accompaniments):-)) & probably my young mind was so much influenced by Sujatha's great praises in Kumudam for the Kamal piece just before it got released...
  
  Looking back, that was my taste then, and at that time I've started listening to Paul Mauriat a lot (again influenced by IR showering praises on him and the claimed appreciation by PM of one of my all time favourites 'EdhO mOham' in an article about IR's trip to Europe) That time I also started listening to more Malayalam songs, attended a KJY concert to get mesmerised...
  
  When I got NBW just about the same time, I liked it better (solo flute preference, some techno sounds) with repeated listenings...that cassette is still at my home in India while HTNI cassette was long lost and gone...
  
  Then after a decade, I think in 97 or 98, I got the HTNI CD from a store in Mumbai. By this time, my taste has either expanded / changed / improved or worsened:-)), partly by the visits to newtfmpage, age-responsibilities, more exposure to non-TFM, increased appreciation of ICM due to living in Kerala for more than a decade etc...
  
  I am surprised at the contrasting experience this time...Wow! What a masterpiece! The folkish piece and the one with drum sounds - the cover said mad mod fugue with sivamani contribution- normally get skipped nowadays:-) It's those others that thrill me more, including the majestic opening piece, the feeling that it evokes cannot be described in words ...
  
  Tastes can change and can be influenced, both drastically IMHO:-) The NBW that's collecting dust in India and the HTNI which reverberates in my ears are testimony to that:-))
  
  
• From: eden (@ 136.1.1.101) on: Wed Jun 16 11:59:52 EDT 2004
  
  Just realised a factual error in my posting above...my walkman didn't have a `rewind' button in '86. I had to turn the sides and do a FF:-)))
  
  
• From: SSSSA (@ 199.90.34.67) on: Wed Jun 16 12:17:02 EDT 2004
  
  In answer to the Q#3, although he just din't express in so many words as a direct answer, he did say that he wants to such types of albums only in the future just for his fans by forming a Fans' Club exclusively for this purpose enrolling those who are interested in such works and releasing the Cd's once in 3 months. After TiS is completed in Sep,'04, you may get the call, if interested. Thanks.[thoppus also knows this!]
  Pl. visit www.sulekha.com/tis if you don't mind.
  YIA!!
  p.s. I had a hearty laugh at your comments,C~P! That was funny!
  
  
• From: Osho (@ 203.197.136.34) on: Wed Jun 16 12:41:02 EDT 2004
  
  Gyan, To appreciate HTNI?, you need to mature as a musical listener. All depends on your exposure to any one kind of genre, be it Indian classical music or western classical music. Coz, HTNI? to me is a pure Fusion album. An album where fusion is explored to greater heights. A fusion album unlike any other you had ever heard and i doubt you will ever hear, unless its by IR again.
  
  The first time when i heard it, i was a 16 year boy then, and i would fast forward it to hear only the “Mad mod mood fugue” track as it had a funky beat rhythm, that was what drove me. But now i analyze the album as a whole and see how brilliantly a fusion between two forms of music has been achieved.
  
  You got to know at least what fugue is, what counterpoint composition is, at the least in WCM or the raga’s and other such stuffs in Indian classical form. If you know that, it would be a much more pleasant experience to hear it. If not it may, still be good listening experience.
  
  What’s disgusting about the whole cd packaging is the wrong ordering of HTNI?. Naming the second track as “Mad mod mood fugue “ is horrendous. When you listen to it, you will hear no trace of fugue composition. A discerning musical ear will easily find this out. Correct ordering of the tracks may further elevate this musical masterpiece to further levels.
  
  HTNI? And NBW are the two greatest albums ever produced in india. And to me, these are the only albums which is gonna be discussed centuries from now on as what we are doing it now for mozart’s symphonies.
  
  
• From: SSSSA (@ 199.90.34.67) on: Wed Jun 16 12:59:01 EDT 2004
  
  Mr.Osho,
  May be you should add "as of today" in your statement on HTNI&NBW in your last paragraph as TiS is just around the corner!!
  
  
• From: Gyan (@ 4.158.117.49) on: Wed Jun 16 14:37:45 EDT 2004
  
  SSSSA, hopefully in the next couple of months i can give some good news especially after you said IR can feed us thirsty fans of music every now and then with some exclusive album, somehow I pray we can all get together after TiS and do something together by all being together in person with IR. (I have myself fantastic and plausible ideas to incorporate IR into a great movie production, but absolutely i have no inspiration as I am personally a tired man.)
  
  But, Osho coming to the main points you made about fusion, that is how we always have concluded about IR' style.
  
  But, with HTNI, have you ever wondered that there IR is not doing fusion ever, since fusion could be a weak prejudiced term if you think deeply about it. I begin to think deeply about Western and Indian classical and theri comin together as fusion is something that is an illusion perhaps. Western music is inhibited, Indian is not.
  
  Let us put it this way. It is just 1 & 0, 0 for low voltage, 1 for high voltage. It is just muting of 1 to 0 by IR as I begin to understand IR' view of music. Indian classical and film or folk is all about the 1s, high voltage, microtonal, spontaneous, unrestrained, continuous - ANALOGUE IN NATURE, a complete wave form, speaks to the soul, speaks to the divine thru sheer fondness of the form of communication itslef.
  
  Western is the 0s, they inhibit the flow, bring the knife and fork, restrain showing the turns,gamakas and higher frequencies - because they lag behind in musical maturity by several centuries - not their fault as people in warmer regions were ahead in settling down.
  
  This is what I felt after feeling stuck with HTNI - Look at this way, IR transitions, overlaps 1s and 0s for the harmonic structure, but in the violin or (non-harmonic ) IR is unrestrained, communicating fluently and without any inhibition or containing himself just revealing the maturity and difference of that form of communication at the same time superimposing on the harmonic orchestra.
  
  I might be crazy, but this is why Carnatic is more or less opposite of harmonic or Western presentation, more profound (more centuries to evolve and get used to unhibited musical communication ) and does not believe in distraction of the harmonics since the melody is the most important structure and requires no harmony.
  
  A Swami was asked by a Western disciple, when there is so much war, poverty and sickness around you in India, how do you say that you do not have pity for the poor or even fear for yourself? The Swami replied: "In my World of Penance, there is no fear or pain. As I attempt to seek oneness with the Supreme." The analogy I think would be in "his" melodic peaceful world, harmony is built in within himself. Anyone in contact with him will feel the harmony. Unless "each one" seeks melody within, harmony is not possible.
  
  So, IR' music right from the beginning always would've been about the sinlge melody and harmonic notations just fall in place, harmonic and stylistic fusion has always been present in the melody itself.
  
  I think IR has only believed always that there is no thing as fusion, it is all one within the melody itself. That is how his orchestration i've found is always seamless, no distinct separation from Indian classical or Western classical.
  
  I may be thinking too deep or contradictory here, Osho, but think about it. Is there a need for the concept of fusion at all, when melody is divine and harmony is different peoples trying to be one with the divine? ;---)
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 68.16.25.50) on: Wed Jun 16 19:10:59 EDT 2004
  
  HTNI and NBW are fine. But the fan in me demands more "Guru"s from IR. Hope he doesnt give up on film music which still has the potential to bring out different things from him, atleast in MFM. Osho, have you written about "Aruna Girana" from Guru? Actually IR does need to do atleast a few good films a year if he wants his non-filmi albums to commercially do well. He has to be in constant touch with the public. Otherwise, apart from a few IR fans no one would come to know or care about his commendable non-filmi efforts.
  In fact if TIS were released right after Pithamagan, say for example, it would have made decent business. ARR is doing the smart thing by making a splash in world music and non-filmi ventures while his market is still good in Mumbai and Chennai. I hope people here who are in close touch with IR(SSA?) would pass this on to him when they get a chance to meet him next time.
  
  

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