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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: Scottraja (@ bkj-cache82.jaring.my) on: Tue Jan 18 06:52:26 EST 2000
  
  Dear Mr Anand I think u got your facts GROSSLy Wrong!!! Its totally Useless to argue with one who does not recognise good music.
  
  
• From: vijanth (@ conpc007.ee.qub.ac.uk) on: Tue Jan 18 06:54:17 EST 2000
  
  Oh What a world going on here. At first
  Mr Anand did tell that he is a IR fan and then
  his word scewed towards pro ARR then he went
  to Thiagaraja.
  Mr. Anand if you pakka Tamil you must stand in one
  side. IR and ARR are indians and even south
  indians. Though I am not a indian in Citizen this
  two guys that bring together indian throughout
  the world , to be particular tamils( Malaysia , India , Sri Langkaan Singapore , Canada , Australain and All Europe continent ). IR who
  taught the mind of south indians that even south
  could compose music better than the north, Hindi.
  Before IR time , all tamils will prefer Hindi
  music. ARR taught us , even tamils song could be
  heard by other community ( In Malaysia even Malay
  and Chinese do listen to his songs )
  Please Mr. Anand think how IR spend his time
  composing the BGM for 3 hours reel ( Just a movie)
  Then times with 785 movie. Every scene diffent
  character and every movie you could hear different
  starting tune.
  I think you might made wrong decision to come
  out with such a thread. Your first comment 100%
  pure junk and second comment on boot lickers
  shows your improfessionalism.
  I think you better look at Network research problem in Lucent rather than giving comments
  on Ragas.
  Please TFM page web admin, if there is any
  chance or mean possibility please do terminate this thread which might turn out to be nasty
  
  
• From: RA (@ bay-71.pppmad.vsnl.net.in) on: Tue Jan 18 07:04:26 EST 2000
  
  Hi Folks,
  
  Don't waste your time on this thread. This man M Anand just doesn't know what he is talking about. There is no point in wasting time with some one who has no idea about either carnatic music or western classical music. Above all he needs enlightenment in music in particular and constructive debate in general. Just pity and ignore him.
  
  It is high time Ravi steps in and has a review before allowing any new thread to become live. After all we have many similar threads on this lines in our archives, isn't it?
  
  
  RA
  
  
• From: saravanan (@ 212.57.28.212) on: Tue Jan 18 07:11:20 EST 2000
  
  Thamizh paesa theriyathavargalay thamızh paattay paada vaıthu pizhayppu (Thamızh Kolay)nadathum ARRn padalgal 99.9% siranthavay endru koorum Anand niengal sariyana mandu,mandu maramanday.
  
  
• From: M.Anand (@ ihproxy2.proxy.lucent.com) on: Tue Jan 18 07:39:21 EST 2000
  
  hi all, I think this is going really bad. First of all I apologize for my mistake about nivedha.
  I visited this site only a couple of days back and read all the forum archives. What I found was mere ARR bashing and IR praising. That is the only reason, that prompted me to start this thread. There might be some inconsistencies in my postings. I accept that. Thats because I wrote what came to my mind. Let me make a few things clear.
  Never at any point in time, did I mention that ARR is superior to IR. IRs music is great. I accept that. I also told you that I am a great fan of IR. I am a fan of Maragathamani also. Remember the great music in Azhagan (think it was Maragathamani).
  In the most of the threads, most of you had come out with ARR bashing and pointing out that all his songs were junk and copied. I just wanted to point out that IR is no better, only that their sources (from where they copy) are different. I definitely agree that IR is definitely better that ARR when it comes to Re-recording (he had lifted tunes even there) but it was good work. Mahaanadi had an excellent Re-recording.
  Most of you say that IRs songs are listenable even after so many years but ARRs songs die soon. Thats true. But there is a reason I would like to offer. Tamil people though most of them don't listen to our traditional music, have those genes in them. So any song with a carnatic touch definitely becomes popular. Even Raasave chitterumbu enna kadikkudu was based on a carnatic raaga. IR was prudent enough to realize this very early in his career and tried to tune most of his songs by traversing swaras. They became hits and being based on traditional music rules, they had an inherent melody and melancholy in them which made them all time hits. That is the reason for IRs success. If you come across songs by KV Mahadevan or MSV ( in his earlier days), their music was far superior to that of IRs. Thats because they were great musicians and brought out the nuances of raagas in their songs. When IR came in to the scene and tuned for annakili, people were not ready to accept him, the same what ARR is facing today. But slowly taste of people changed. The Gamakas in Carnatic music could not be incorporated in film music very simply because people wanted music to be more simple. So IR could just do by just traversing the swaras in a particular raga, churn a tune out of it and deliver a song. People liked that.
  Now when a lot of influence has come from the west, IR could not catch up with that and thats were ARR stands, he tries to bring in nuances of pop, reggae etc in to Tamil Music and when the influence of the west has started to pour in, he came in to the scene and churned out tunes catering to this change. So both of them are copy cats, great analysers of situations and hence making money. So there is no point in saying that IR is better than ARR and vice versa. IR is better than ARR in certain aspects and vice versa.
  So I find no sense in claiming that IR is the greatest MD tamil cinema or world music ever had.
  Since you people were making those claims directly or indirectly in your postings both in this thread and elsewhere, I had to land heavily on IR in my previous post.
  So if you don't like ARR, I think there is no reason why you should bash him up by words in all the threads.
  If you feel that this thread is going nowhere, you could just ignore it. I shall do it too. I thought it will be a good forum where we could discuss how trends change without any bias (towards ARR or IR).
  Let me get on to my Network Research Problem.
  
  Anand
  
  
• From: eden (@ 202.54.71.159) on: Tue Jan 18 07:54:22 EST 2000
  
  Your last line makes a lot of sense, Mr Anand! Good for you and the forum (it had seen enough IR v/s ARR acrimony, no need for you to stir it up all over again)!
  
  
• From: kooththan (@ mail1.pmc-vacc.com) on: Tue Jan 18 10:04:39 EST 2000
  
  This Anand dude is really funny!
  
  Eden, I think he should write more:-)
  
  ....laer
  
  
• From: Manna Dey (@ kcecfp01.sprint.com) on: Tue Jan 18 10:43:33 EST 2000
  
  Anand,
  
  " It is better to be quiet and let others think that you are stupid, than speak up and remove all doubt" - Edho unga post a paarththa udanEy thONiththu adhaan post paNNinEn:-)
  
  Also another quote - " Nobody is utterly useless. They can always be used as a 'bad' example". Anand, thanks for your contribution to (the TFMDF) society.
  
  
• From: maangadu virumandi (@ 157.182.82.117) on: Tue Jan 18 11:01:54 EST 2000
  
  Mr.Anand,
  My hearty congrajulations...
  pineeteenga...
  sincerely,
  M.Virumandi
  
  
• From: Sabesan (@ pppa40-resalesanfranciscometro1-1r7194.saturn.bbn.com) on: Tue Jan 18 11:02:25 EST 2000
  
  Manna Dey good punch :-))))))
  
  
• From: maangadu virumandi (@ 157.182.82.117) on: Tue Jan 18 11:08:40 EST 2000
  
  Annan mannadey avargale,
  
  Adage-galai neengal thirampada ubayogikireergal...
  nallathu...
  " maatraan veetu thotathu malligaiyum mannakum"
  endru anna sonnathai kazhagak kanmanigal,
  thavaraga ubayogioathu pola,
  
  neengalum thavaraga ubayogipathu kandu manam
  varuthamadaikirathu...
  eninum ithu endra nambikaiyil...
  Sincerely,
  ANBUTH THAMBI VIRUMANDI
  
  
  
  
• From: Ravi (@ ip250.minneapolis7.mn.pub-ip.psi.net) on: Tue Jan 18 11:30:40 EST 2000
  
  As Anand said when he started this thread, there are numerous such threads in the archives. Please continue discussions in one such thread. Let this thread die a natural death. :-)
  
  
• From: Madhan (@ 202.41.117.3) on: Tue Jan 18 11:34:56 EST 2000
  
  Dear Mr.Anand, Semmangudi Srinivasa Aiyar, the doyen of Carnatic music ( "The Isai Gyani title is very apt for IR - he is not only a king in film music, but also a genius in classical music - may God bless him with more Grace for his continued service to music" - this is recorded live in AVM's cassette of IR's classical compositions played by Mandolin U.Srinivas), Pt.Hariprasad Chaurasia ("IR does everything - composing, arranging,orchestration and conducting and that too without much help from others ! It was a privelege for me to have worked with him in Nothing But Wind"),Maestro. Lalgudi Jayaraman ("I was moved to tears after listening to How to Name It "), a former Principal of Kalakshetra School of Arts in Chennai ("Nobody has brought out the nuances of Raag Kedaram as beautifully as IR has done in "Pon malai pozhudu" in Nizhalgal"), TV Gopalakrishnan ("IR was/is my most talented / best student in music"), veteran composer Naushad Ali ("what IR has achieved is 100 times more than what any of us have
  achieved in this field - only time can tell the quantum of his achievements"), the late composer RD Burman ("IR is ahead of all of us by at least 10 years", after listening to "yedho mogam" from Kozhi Koovudhu), L.Subramaniam ("IR is as good as any other composer in the world"),Sir.John Scott, noted composer of English films like "Bridge on the River Kwai", "Cleopatra" ("Meeting with IR was very special for me - his was a very original music, straight from the copyists' pen - we were all very thrilled to listen to sounds, rhythms and melodies very new and very different" after recording IR's Symphony in 1993), Subbudu the famous music critic, whose acerbic comments spare none ("Nowadays Mohanam sounds mostly like Mohana kalyani - but IR makes Mohanam sound like Mohanam even though he composes film songs with it - I think IR has a mole on his back - he is a great gift of God - I am growing old- before I die, I pray that I get an oppurtunity to listen to his Symphony") - how about calling, branding all of
  these people as IR's boot lickers - would you dare to do so ? or maybe you are more knowledgeable in music than any of the doyens mentioned above !
  Tell me something, if a Physics professor teaches Newtons law of gravity by dropping a stone instead of drawing a picture of a stone falling , would you call that "TRAVERSING THE LAW OF GRAVITATION WITHOUT ACTUALLY GIVING THE NUANCES OF IT" - theory is one thing, application is different - how one uses a particular Raagam, or any concept like counterpoint,chords in Western classical music is more important than sheer theory ! even if one goes by theory, "Sangeedhamey yen dheivamey" from Kovil Pura speaks eloquent of IR's usage of Rasikapriya which prompted none other than Subbudu to say that IR "transcends time and takes us back to the G.Ramanathan days of rich usage of Carnatic music" in this song - how would you expect a composer to compose a song for a situation like that of the song "Kandupiduchen" from GURU SISHYAN ? give a classical Keerthanam ? give me a break ! IR used Panthuvarali (or a related Raaga) , essentially a sad Raagam to give a jolly- joyous effect - that is what creativity is all about -
  Mr.Anand, you are treading on a minefield - be careful of your statements here - if 90% of what IR gave is junk, then 25 of the 29 centuries scored by Sir.Donald Bradman were flukes !
  I can go on, but I am just tired of self-proclaimed intellectuals like you who think that others around are moronic imbeciles - if you have any doubts about your own identity, take a look at yourself in a good, clean mirror
  
  

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