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Malaysian Deepavali Show - RAJANNA RAJA THAAN - From Annakkili to Azhagi

Topic started by Manisekaran (@ 202.156.2.8) on Sun Nov 7 05:23:27 EST 2004.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Last year I did a show on Ilayaraja for Deepavali. IT was so great a hit that the ASTRO Private TV Station is repeating on 9 NOvember at 4.00 pm Malaysian time. This is called RAJANNA RAJATHAAN- covering 25 years of Raja's music contribution. From Annakkili to Azhagi. A great hit. If you can, pls do catch it. You can post your comments on the show here, and I'll respond to them.
Thanks.

Archive of the older songs: http://forumhub.lunarpages.com/hub/f13.html .
If you want to post comments on older songs, pls go to this archive. There you'll find the previous songs/episodes indexed as separate threads. Post your comments on the appropriate thread.

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: yvs mani (@ 164.100.97.2) on: Fri Dec 17 07:01:53 EST 2004
  
  If I am correct, chembaruthy had a song by IR, kadalilae ezhumbra alaigalae keladi o maanae
  ( my first posting in this thread)
  
  
• From: eden (@ 136.1.1.33) on: Fri Dec 17 11:37:05 EST 2004
  
  What great interludes in siRu ponmaNi! Switching from a majestic group of violins to veena (or guitar or synth:-)), so characteristic of IR, in the first interlude is one of my all-time favourites!
  
  Another favourite part of this song is the rhythm (with great bass guitar combo too) which is so good and was quite new when it was released (probably Raja reused this later on for some songs, but this was the first I think).
  
  Especially on big speakers in the tea-shop in our village, from a philips stereo-gramaphone player, this was awesome by the standards of those days! All the other songs of this movie -kotha mallippoovE, eNNaththil EdhO jillendRadhu, thOppiloru nAdagam nadakkudhu -all had sounds and pleasure to listen, sweet.
  
  kallukkuL eeram had excellent recording too, that is based on my listening from the vinyl record on that old Philips system; but they weren't sounding so good either on radio or from any cassette produced later on. I still cannot understand why many of those songs of late 70's & early 80's (like Guru, Johny, nenjaththai kiLLAdhE, garjanai etc.) sound so pathetic in `company' cassettes or even today's `original' CD's while they were so good on the vinyl record with those old speaker systems...Priya seems to be an exception which sounds good on the inreco CD...why not others? The worst was one HMV special release cassette (golden jubilee or something like that) which I got with great expectations...it had the siRu ponmaNi with partly truncated interludes:-( what atrocity by the recording companies:-((
  
  
• From: eden (@ 136.1.1.33) on: Fri Dec 17 11:38:32 EST 2004
  
  Typo:
  'all had sounds ' to read 'all had soothing sounds'
  
  
• From: * (@ 209.142.209.161) on: Fri Dec 17 12:44:00 EST 2004
  
  
  
  Hi RR
  I was not aware of the virus popup on that page sorry! it was a problem with the provider and not my file!!
  you may enable that link if it is fine with you - there is no virus now.
  
  
• From: Ras (@ 194.170.246.121) on: Sat Dec 18 02:18:01 EST 2004
  
  Talking of the landmark song "Ilaya Nila", the fact that it won the hearts of millions both South and North of the Vindhyas (although via Kalyanji-Anandji's rehash of his tune in the Hindi film, "Kalakaar", a remake of "PayanangaL Mudivathillay" - the song is "Neele neele Ambar Pe"). The popularity of this song only proves a point to IR's detractors who say his songs were too 'Tamilish', whatever that means. Even last year's re-mix of this number was a big success, in spite of teh fact that it was by a non-singer called Nitin Bali, who, like most of today's re-mix parasites, gives interviews and talks about the song as if it were his own composition.
  
  Even now, most Tamil Music Nite programmes be it on professional stage or in college campuses, are never complete without "Ilaya nila" and "Pani Vizhum Malarvanam".
  
  
• From: senthilv.com (@ 68.88.73.155) on: Sat Dec 18 17:56:54 EST 2004
  
  SIRU PONMANI ASAYUM:
  
  I like this song but I don’t know the song situation. Going by raaja’s score, I guess the situation to be comparatively a simple one. Here’s some observation/guess work.
  
  Generally, Raaja leaves the singers to dominate the song. You can observe that Raaja took full inspiration from the cool opening line:
  
  SIRU PONMANI ASAYUM
  ATHIL THERIKKUM PUTHU ISAYUM
  IRU KANMANI PON IMAIGALIL THAALALAYAM
  
  The “sprinkling” bell sounds in the song clearly is connected to THERIKKUM PONMANI.
  
  PRELUDE: Sets-up the main tune idea with the violin piece. (SIRU PONMANI ASAYUM) Then introduces the interlude violin theme followed by a good transition of the musical progression to THERIKKUM bell sounds ;) The ascension of the bell sound is similar to the main stanza line -- NITHAMUM THODARUM KANAVUM ITHU MAARATHU. It paves way for a piece which I think sets up an outdoor milieu. I guess the song is an outdoor lover’s song ;)
  There’s some beautiful intermingling of the violin theme and the bell sounds, something deeper is going on here, I can’t figure it out. Finally, ends with the tune played with the bells. (And rightly so) The prelude in essence is a simple yet poetic musical treatment of the lyrics.
  
  MAIN STANZA:
  
  Listen to bell piece after the IRU KANMANI PON IMAIGALIL THAALALAYAM, a literal musical translation (echo) of the same line? (Anyone remember blinking eyelids of actress Saroja devi in old movies? ;))
  
  Observe how the bells repeatedly revisits the interludes. Both interludes are extremely interesting to follow.
  
  Senthil
  
  
• From: kannan (@ 195.39.191.178) on: Sun Dec 19 05:50:15 EST 2004
  
  There is another soft IR song with shailaja,
  sAmakOzhi kUvuthammA from ponnu Urukku puthusu, which has great music
  
  
• From: bharani (@ 213.132.254.2) on: Sun Dec 19 08:35:20 EST 2004
  
  appadiya
  
  
• From: .. (@ 213.132.254.2) on: Sun Dec 19 08:36:39 EST 2004
  
  .
  
  
• From: SN (@ 220.227.179.5) on: Mon Dec 20 00:32:04 EST 2004
  
  Manisekaran, Senthil: If am correct, the song Siru ponmani asayum is not sequenced as a full song in the picture. It comes in bits where V.Nirmala and Sudhakar (both act as cine stars) sing this in a dance seq shooting. As part of audience, Aruna keeping looking at the director (BR) and goes out with karpanai.
  
  Oru nalla paattu, full-aa padam aaga villai.
  
  SJ is very neat in this low pitched song, where IR could chosen some other singer, may be Jayachandran in place of him :)
  
  
• From: Madhu (@ 61.246.245.2) on: Mon Dec 20 07:43:33 EST 2004
  
  Mani Sir - forgive me for the digression. I would like to clarify the participants of this thread with respect to the discussion on Ilayanila.
  
  Ilayaraja's full-time guitarists consists of
  
  1)LEAD GUITAR - Mr. S. Sadanandan - A senior to Ilayaraja in Dhanraj Master's School, son of veteran music director R. Sudarsanam who is a very close associate of Ilayaraja since 1968. He has played and is playing the lead guitar for almost all the songs composed by IR.
  
  2)Mr. Chandrasekar - He used to play Rhythm guitar or sometimes the lead guitar.
  
  3) Sashikumar - Bass Guitar.
  
  Ilayaraja decides on who plays what instrument in a song - there are various factors like
  
  *instruments used in the song
  *availability of musicians
  *output of a musician on a instrument
  
  As far as Ilayanila pozhigiradhE, during the rehearsal IR played the lead guitar, Sadhanandam played rhythm guitar. But IR considered it to be too heavy Chandrasekar played the lead guitar during recording instead of IR.
  
  I came across two comments posted in this thread.
  
  1) IR has never played guitar for his compositions - Definitely NO! There are songs where he himself played guitar... one example is "naanE nAnA" from azhagae unnai aaradhikiraen
  
  2) A senior guitarist to IR was able to produce only 10% of what he demonstrated. There may be comments like these ...If one is able to produce only 10% of what IR demonstrates ... he would not be in IR's troupe as IR would expect 100% from everybody - That is IR's approach. PLEASE DO NOT DEGRADE GREAT MUSICIANS JUST FOR THE SAKE OF APPRECIATING IR. EVEN THOUGH SUCH COMMENTS RISE, PLEASE DONT SPREAD IT.
  
  As far as the cine music industry is concerned the only orchestra that consists of the best band of perfect musicians is sitting at Prasad Studios.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 68.16.25.50) on: Mon Dec 20 09:41:58 EST 2004
  
  "A senior guitarist to IR was able to produce only 10% of what he demonstrated. There may be comments like these ...If one is able to produce only 10% of what IR demonstrates ... he would not be in IR's troupe as IR would expect 100% from everybody"
  
  Madhu, that 10% output comment was made by IR himself recently :-)
  
  Even I have heard on separate occasions IR's complaints about lack of musicians to play some of the more difficult scores. I guess maybe he took the 10 as 100 out of lack of choice :-)
  
  
• From: senthilv.com (@ 69.148.95.105) on: Mon Dec 20 10:32:08 EST 2004
  
  SN:
  
  Thanks for the info. I've never seen the movie or the song picturization, I only know the song.
  
  Vijay:
  
  I remember reading something in that lines but if I'm not wrong, I think raaja made that comment with respect to orchestral score in mind where he needs 100's of quality musician and not with individual musicians in mind.
  
  Senthil
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 68.16.25.50) on: Mon Dec 20 13:11:25 EST 2004
  
  Senthil, no, it was for his filmi scores. He was talking about the lack of quality musicians/instrumentalists in the early 80s.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 68.16.25.50) on: Mon Dec 20 13:12:58 EST 2004
  
  But IR should have been more worried about the lack of quality singers IMO. Malaysia Vasudevan, Arunmozhi and Mano re-defined mediocrity(in singing) in a way in which only they can :-)
  
  
• From: Genesis (@ 136.1.1.154) on: Mon Dec 20 14:14:04 EST 2004
  
  Vijay,
  
  Is it really lack of availability? Or choice? I think Arunmozhi, Mano and IR himself were IR's favourite singers. It is unfortunate.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 68.16.25.50) on: Mon Dec 20 15:46:24 EST 2004
  
  Genesis, a combo of both I guess. Recently IR had said(to one of the TIS guys who met him) that he had to pick Mano in the mid-80s because SPB was busy in Telugu at that time(while I hear stories that IR wanted to replace SPB and tried his best but could'nt). Not sure if IR was being genuine or if he was just sidestepping the issue. Arunmozhi singing for Kamal in Soorasamhaaram baffles me everytime. Naan enbadhu neeyallavo - a delightful song marred by his voice :-( Arumbum thaLire from Chandralekha and KolangaL songs kill me everytime too.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 68.16.25.50) on: Mon Dec 20 15:50:01 EST 2004
  
  Regarding "Siru ponmaNi" - one of the rare opportunities GA got to prove his poetic skills to his brother in a good composition
  
  

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