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IR-ARR usage of instruments

Topic started by cram (@ 206.103.12.102) on Sat Apr 15 02:38:14 EDT 2000.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

get ready for another round, guys (timepass panna venaam:-))]. no IR or ARR bashing, please, muthallaye sollitten. let's just discuss how each of them has used various instruments. for instance, IR's use of acoustic guitar is unparalleled, while ARR rarely uses it. similarly, IR `pales' before ARR when it comes to electric guitar or keyboards (strictly IMHO, everyone's welcome to disagree). start shooting.

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Kamesh (@ 203.106.110.117) on: Wed Apr 26 02:23:42 EDT 2000
  
  Dear Naveen,
  Thanks for the advice. I am worried now. Just recently did I have his option of choosing between a piano course and an organ course and I decided for the later. Am I wrong? I hope there is something good about organs too.
  
  
• From: Kamesh (@ 203.106.110.117) on: Wed Apr 26 02:26:23 EDT 2000
  
  Srikanth
  
  Thanks for the wishes.
  
  Cool man. Dont scare Pentium away. I am sure he can be of some use to this forum too. Hope u don't scare him off.
  :-)))
  
  
• From: Naveen (@ pppa35-resaledavenport1-3r7231.saturn.bbn.com) on: Wed Apr 26 08:08:23 EDT 2000
  
  Dear Kamesh,
  
  There is nothing wrong. Organ is a beautiful instrument. best instrument to learn four or more parts music. As your daughter is playing well, I suggest you to teach her Handel's or Bach's Organ Pieces. It is good to learn classical music first. She'll get the real understanding of harmony & contrapuntal styles. another advice.. any intelligent kid will ask too many questions regarding the chord progression, why we are playing this? why can't I play this etc. advice the teacher to give minimum explanation and concentrate only on practising exactly as in the notes. sometimes analysing too much is a kind of diversion. let she analyse when she is grown up. By that time, she can sight read (reading any music notes at the spot) any difficult piece and understand the real meaning of that piece. If you get a chance, let her learn piano too. This is the best age to train the fingers as you wish.
  While playing make sure her shoulder is not moving and she is not putting the hand weight on the piano. only the finger weight has to be applied on the keys. This is very useful while playing fast runs.
  Keyboard is fine for practising organ pieces. Most of the churches have replaced organ with electronic organ.
  
  I think I'm going out of topic. :)
  
  
• From: rjay (@ brkfw0005.navistar.com) on: Wed Apr 26 10:36:50 EDT 2000
  
  Naveen
  
  The thread itself is going out of topic,
  but I suspect, in the right direction.
  
  I agree with Naveen's advice to go for
  an acoustic instrument and to stay away from
  autoaccompaniment and other distractions. Let
  her learn singing (any style is OK). That would
  be the best support for any music learning.
  
  I do not agree with Naveen's advice regarding
  questioning. If I were the teacher who taught the
  kid, if I knew the answer I would answer it and
  if I didn't, I would say, I dont know, that is
  a great question and you might have to find the
  answer, tell me what you think? Encourage
  questioning. Questions transform us from passive
  listeners to active thinkers and masters.
  
  But I think what Naveen says is to avoid analysis-paralysis. Most learners (especially older ones like us), when faced with a problem in playing a piece, would like an analytic explanation thinking that we can master anything immediately if we get the right explanation. (Most of the technical discussions in any forum are examples!)
  Many times, complex things like art have to be
  grasped in a shot and can be! Kids know this and
  do this! We call this intuition.
  My stance is intuition first, explanation immediately next! (There goes the thread's
  direction!)
  
  Srikanth put the module explanation pretty
  clearly and practical manner.
  
  Surprised to know pentium programmed drum
  patterns in Roja, I thought Rahman used
  Mac! ;) Sorry for the joke, welcome pentium,
  to the discussion and we are eager to hear
  from your experience. We can learn a lot.
  
  Kamesh, any musical instrument is good as
  long as the teacher loves to teach and the
  kid loves to learn. Take any road and travel
  unceasingly and you reach where you got to!
  
  If possible, get her to learn singing simple Carnatic songs from someone at home (may be you).
  This will go a long way bridging various parts of
  the brain. And please make sure you do not burn
  her out with your ambition! Let her set her
  pace. And distract her with nonmusical hobbies
  equally. (Any other opinions?)
  
  
  
• From: rjay (@ brkfw0005.navistar.com) on: Wed Apr 26 10:54:32 EDT 2000
  
  Clarification:
  Most of the technical discussions in this forum
  is good example :
  
  I meant our current discussions
  specifically. For example, as I write
  something here, I believe that if
  we know how a MD uses instruments and if I know
  what instruments he uses to create an effect, then
  I can do that too! This may be childish or
  scholarly, depending on whether we fail or
  succeed!
  
  
• From: Krishnan (@ fw2.torolab.ibm.com) on: Wed Apr 26 11:21:10 EDT 2000
  
  Srikanth/Naveen/Rjay,
  
  Though I dont know much about keyboard/synthesizers (but I can recognize many acoustic instruments used (not all) in a song/music), I am really enjoying this discussion. Learning a lot about these things in your discussions. Great going guys ! Srikanth, its a great revelation that the starting piece of "Nee paartha paarvai" is from a keyboard ! Rjay, you are right that the flute piece in "Enna seyya pogirai" is just great (though its only for a short duration).
  
  I am really enjoying this !
  
  Keep it up & Enjoy !
  
  Krishnan
  
  
• From: aruLaracan (@ psiphi.umsl.edu) on: Wed Apr 26 12:45:21 EDT 2000
  
  great show guys,
  
  keep continuing.
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ host2.cvs.aa.net) on: Wed Apr 26 12:50:07 EDT 2000
  
  Somethings I thought:
  
  During MSV days, there were not many keyboards, ofcourse there were couple of old models, they are huge in size and have about 20 tones like organ, vocorder, humanvoice, violin, piano etc, but the sound quality clearly indicate they are artificial. (these were later converted to calling bellsļ)
  Hear the wonderful organ piece in 2nd bgm of Engeyum Eppothum.... people still struggle to play this piece, I have heard this was played by a person called Ben, msv first played it in the harmonium and then Ben played it on the organ, ben used to be an accordion player.
  
  Later when Mr.techGee grew up many keyboards came in, and raja had a lot at his disposal, without wasting time he used the already available sounds (there more than 10,000+ sounds),
  there were not many new sounds created or there was not a need, people were happy with the sounds.
  
  The Famous sound of raja I would put it is
  the electric piano or the dx7 elec piano, many songs have this, this will sound like a crystal and piano,
  (eg: the second bgm of nan enbathu nee ...etc song from Surasamharam), raja he uses this sound till date. (Every keyboard player likes this sound, when we buy a keyboard we see that the electric piano sounds like DX7 Ep., also check the timpani sound¡K.check the lower octaves, if there is a distrotion, the sound quality is poor)
  
  But Raja did not create any sound, factory pre-set sounds were utilized 100%.
  I see raja has a composer, I felt often he was not worried about the sound etc, he would just write a score for instrument (eg: piano), it was conductor's (Assts.) job to pickup sound with the help of the keyboard player. One of main reason was , the keyboards of 80¡¦s were little bit complicated , also due to time constraint there were not many experiments, but raja never failed to use any new factory sounds. Like bgm scores of surasmaharam, he used the then famous voice sounds from the Korg M1 keyboards. There are plenty of examples, this will be a Phd. thesis if I start writing them.
  
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ host2.cvs.aa.net) on: Wed Apr 26 12:55:21 EDT 2000
  
  When you hear a western music rock song, you might find the keyboards sounds are very unique, especially people like MJ, Madonna, Steve wonder, Phil Collins etc spent time in getting a new sound rather than using the factory set sound
  When Arr came in he did the same, ofcourse technology helped him a lot, the keyboards have better GUIs to control, and have PC/MAC based software interfaces etc,
  People of this generation, (We ) grew up learning computers. Arr also grew like us learning computer and other tech stuff, he explores a lot on sounds, basically the interest he had them is key here, many would not bother to get a new sound just for the reason there are a million factory set sounds around,
  every other music director has access to same resources to what Arr, has but none till date could briog the sounds etc to his level. Frankly the recording standard has improved to great extent, we match west, in fact some of the track balancing is superior to them.
  
  Finally, being a keyboard (baically tranied piano) player it hurts at time when people make comments that playing keyb is nothing ,
  I think keyboard as a tool, it is like electronic brush which gives colors at a press of button but to mix the colors and create a great piece of art you need to have talent. Just by pressing the keyboard will get you now where, at the most it might sound like like calling bell.
  
  Thanks to ravi for making me write so much.
  
  
  
• From: Krishnan (@ fw2.torolab.ibm.com) on: Wed Apr 26 13:50:22 EDT 2000
  
  Srikanth, have you heard the song "Vaanathil irundhu kudhichi vandhenna" from "Poonthottam". When I heard that song for the first time, I was heavily impressed with the beginning of the first interlude . It creates a real pathos feeling. I felt, it was a very different sound that gave a pathos feeling. Similarly, in the same movie, the second interlude of the song "Iniya malargal malarum" (chorus mixed with some type of keyboard sound and drum beats) impressed me a lot as it was very different and created a good effect. Actually, I liked both the interludes of this song. First one had a great sax piece and the entire interlude was great again.
  
  Krishnan
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ host2.cvs.aa.net) on: Wed Apr 26 13:53:51 EDT 2000
  
  I was reading about the flute piece...
  
  This is for just about 8 bars length, but the idea or the thought to place the raga bhairavi (has a great weight) is the key and he uses pure raw flute...without any foriegn sound..i am sure for any average listener, he knows the raga or not would think a little about this piece, he will get attracted,
  
  for a person who knows it is bhairavi...ears will pop up as bug bunnies ears :))
  
  He did somethings simlar, when he added the malayalam vocals in Nejinele.....
  he could have used flute or strings there but
  to give a different kind of music, he used vocals instead, he does not stop there, he added backing vocals as harmony to a indian classical melody, IMHO this is not easy,
  
  Mixing vocals is an art, Arr knows this art very well. IMHO: Chorus or backing vocals of arr are far superior.
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ host2.cvs.aa.net) on: Wed Apr 26 14:01:09 EDT 2000
  
  to balance my views :)), there are also many small pieces of raja which many dont note,
  
  in the song vanam enanku from anaji, see for a bass part that come at the end of the each saranams...an average md will leave it blank or play a drum filler, but raja, a different breed of musician places a nice keyboard bass...hear it and feel it.
  
  Similary in the song thalata varuvayo...there is a piano counter point that is placed on first 4 lines of the saranam...very very good piece.
  
  Small color oranaments make a chrismas tree else it will just be a tree..
  
  
  If anyone interested i will try to pin point small pieces like this,
  I love to play this small things on stage...
  many bands miss them, but bands like A.V ramanams musiano take pains to note these and they play it live.
  
  

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