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A request to amateur composers who visit this page

Topic started by Vijay (@ 212.137.205.127) on Thu Nov 16 16:58:22 EST 2000.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

I'd like to request amateur composers who visit this page to tell me if they've uploaded any of their work onto the internet and if they have, please tell me where I can listen to it. Thank You.

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Some composers to check out (in no particular order): Jay, Srikanth, Ganesh, Eswar, Sridhar Seetharaman, Kumar, Rjay. Vishwesh Obla

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: MS (@ 129.252.134.147) on: Tue Nov 18 12:04:31 EST 2003
  
  rjay:
  
  I beg to differ. What I usually do is compose a tune, record it in my voice and later muse over it. I do not compose many tunes for the same pallavi and pick the 'best'. The reason is that I believe professionalism is mainly in the delivery of many of the tunes. We see so many good singers, say for e.g., the ragamalika programme in Jeya TV. We see they have a strong hold on shruthi, thaaLam and ragam. So what are they missing out on ? IMO:
  
  (1) Timbre of the voice
  (2) Expressiveness
  (3) Style - as in not singing a ghazal in a carnatic fashion etc.
  (4) tonality - the tone must appeal to the ears. This is purely a function of time. These days voices like those of TMS are good only for carnatic concerts and not light music.
  
  I was fortunate to witness a programme judged by Srinivas in which I found the marked difference between his rendition and the rendition of the participants inspite of their strong hold on the music. What clearly distinguishes a professional song from an amatuer song is the extra life that is imparted by the singer.
  
  One classic example is the recycleable set of songs composed by SAR. But for SPB, Sujatha and Chitra none woudl dare to listen to songs like "engaL veettil ellaa naaLum kaarthigai". If somebody like deepan chakravarty had sung it it would have become even more intolerable. Such lifeless tunes also get groomed up by the professional singers.
  
  Similarly simple tunes like pottu vaiththa vatta nila have gone to become hits if not for KJY. So the singer and his ability to add a new texture to a composition is one of the deciding factors other than the melody or the orchestration. Hence what may sound like an unimpressive tune to the composer in the beginning, may, in the hands of a professional singe, sound extremely pleasing and a great song. It is basically the ability of the composer to be able to conceive the melody in the most professional way in the mind, that matters. A professional singer like SPB, can understand the limitations of the composer's singing ability and can go on improvising till the composer gives the final nod. But the conception should be clear in the mind of the composer. Hence it is NOT necessary you go on composing multiple tunes. But it is necessary to improve on the basic skeleton to an extent that it looks all fleshy with nice skin and finally as a solid package. Just IMHO.
  
  
• From: UV (@ 134.113.4.207) on: Tue Nov 18 12:18:43 EST 2003
  
  Kicha/Swamiji
  need a favour
  Can you do midi version of the song 'Ponn Manai Theduthe' from the movie 'O Manae Manae' this song is sung by Kamal. Very interesting composition.
  thanks
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.122) on: Tue Nov 18 12:40:37 EST 2003
  
  MS
  
  Doing multiple tunes is like approaching the same subject from different angles and providing different views. At least in my case, the first few attempts are formulaic and predictable. If I can get a clear conception in the mind, in one attempt, that is excellent!
  
  
  
• From: MS (@ 129.252.25.77) on: Tue Nov 18 13:28:52 EST 2003
  
  rjay:
  
  If I can get a clear conception in the mind, in one attempt, that is excellent!
  
  None gets it I believe barring few masters like MSV may be :-) The conception will not be clear in one attempt but only in multiple attempts. By attempt, I do not mean composing different tunes for the same lyrics but polishing the rough edges of the skeleton that you would have conceived initially.
  
  For e.g. when I looked at Udhaya's lyrics, the way I composed had a series of steps:
  
  (1) mugile mugile..inithe inithe..mmm some rhyme and inherent rhythm..I should captialize on this.
  
  (2) udhaya said it is a happy dance number in the rain..so it has to be peppy and make ppl dance.
  
  (3) every line has a complimentary second line..except the last line of pallavi and charanam. So it is possible to tune this song for 2 voices (since the lyrics are also gender neutral)
  
  (4) since pallavi and charanam end in lines which have almost the same meter, I can use the same tune for both and link charanam back to pallavi.
  
  (5) What raga to choose ? hamsanadham has been chosen by kaumudi already. So one peppy raga off my arsenal is gone. Why not try something like a delicate raga like mohanam and sprinkle it with "anya raga" swaras to embellish, if, as I compose, they would appear naturally.
  
  (6) Now I have the preliminary idea of how the song should be. Next step is a little tricky
  
  (7) After this initial idea I open the lyrics and sit before the computer. I start singing arbitrarily in a rhythm that catches my mind first. I find the first two lines are easily accommodated in the rhythm I conceived "completely" out of the blue. OK fine. I got the start of the song.
  
  (8) Next four lines are in different meter from the first two but all are same. Once agian I sing something arbitrarily out of the blue., trying to fit the lyrics in the beat used earlier.
  
  (9) Last line of pallavi - hmm..this has to be different and properly connect back to pallavi's beginning for a resinging of pallavi. once again arbitrary singing and fitting in the beat.
  
  (10) Now I have the pallavi's skeleton ready. Now I play the recorded wav files. SO many apaswaras, thaaLa problems, predictable turnarounds, unexpressively rendered phrases etc..I listen to it over and over to understand what I tried to make.
  
  (11) And then the pattern emerges, I fix the rough edges. Change some phrases here and there and obtian the full structure of the pallavi. Same case applies to charanam also.
  
  (12) After composing charanam I reflect over the tune for a day or adding improvs also improving the diction and expression - all mentally.
  
  (13) Towards the end of the day I get a clear picture of the song. And I muse over it one more night/day. Then I record and save it as the final tune.
  
  This is usually how I work on a song / tune. That is why I said the conception itself may not be complete in one attempt save geniuses. But it is indeed possible to muse over, rectify and embellish.
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.122) on: Tue Nov 18 14:48:59 EST 2003
  
  Excellent MS!
  
  Before I read your second posting, I was mulling over what you had written and got the point: Instead of searching for better tunes, we must invest the effort in polishing the ones we got!
  
  Your recent post nails it down.
  
  What you have written is amazing. In AI research, there is this 'think aloud protocol' where expert chess players, painters etc are asked to speak out the intermediate thinking so that the steps in their process and the decisions that they habitually make become more visible to the researchers. PBS painter Bob Ross does this talk-through as he paints. This is the first time I have read a think aloud transcript from a composer. Good job!
  
  
• From: rjay (@ 156.77.105.122) on: Tue Nov 18 14:52:03 EST 2003
  
  A little bit of Ilayaraja's think aloud is recorded in Guna casette.
  
  Writer Sujatha's think aloud for Karaiyellam Shenbgappoo story and other stories is an interesting one too. (In his essay - Kadhai Pirantha Kadhai)
  
  
  
• From: MS (@ 129.252.25.77) on: Tue Nov 18 17:48:08 EST 2003
  
  rjay:
  
  thanks. But this is just one way of composing (which suits my needs :-)). In case of making an arbitrary tune for which lyrics are yet to be written, we sometimes use other appraoches. Why don't you share your method of composing with us ? I am sure you will have more inputs which we will enlighten us.
  
  Vijay and divakar:
  
  Thanks. Divakar - when is your version coming out ?
  
  
• From: Kaumudi (@ 136.142.153.186) on: Tue Nov 18 18:06:51 EST 2003
  
  MS
  Listened to your tune. Interesting! Definitely unpredictable charanam. Nice!
  
  Rjay
  Your ballad tune was more likable to me. Since you have the instruments, it sounds even more melodious.
  
  
  
• From: Divakar (@ 68.106.96.22) on: Wed Nov 19 11:06:19 EST 2003
  
  Hello Folks, Cant wait to release my full version of Mugile Mugile.....Obviously, many artists here are inspired by Udhaya's lyrics and shared their great tunes for the lyrics, here's one such attempt but its a collaboration between Radhika and me and ofcourse Udhaya. Radhika had not only sung the song well but also improvised on my melody superbly and most of charanam is completely improvised by Radhika, I only sung to her the melodic outline for the song and she also came up with very many ideas for the song.....Lyrics truly inspired many here! Ok, here's the song itself: titled Mugile Mugile Please follow this link to download the song..
  
  http://www.geocities.com/dbhowman/Tunesforlyrics
  
  Please feel free to send in your thoughts about the song...
  
  
• From: Divakar (@ 68.106.96.22) on: Wed Nov 19 11:47:18 EST 2003
  
  never mind geocities....had chance to upload at 1sound.com
  
  here's the link for the song
  http://artists.1sound.com/DivakarBhowman
  
  
• From: Mahati (@ 160.231.5.174) on: Wed Nov 19 12:47:32 EST 2003
  
  Mahati is drenched in rain and some drops rubbed ears which brough some kind of melodic familiarity journeying Hameer Kalyani, saaranga and hindusthani behag...Very Nice and Good Presentation.
  
  Team should check interference caused by the musical note on which singer stops the sindhipogum...I don't think this is the problem with composer or singer abilities, but definitely with geographical coordination of team which resulted in some differences in sruthi.
  
  
• From: IR (@ 170.153.204.132) on: Wed Nov 19 12:58:13 EST 2003
  
  Divakar,
  
  Did you use live instruments?? The tail end piece was simply superb.
  
  Tune was very pleasant and melodious and good singing Radhika.
  
  Recording quality was also very good.
  
  

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