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HOW TO NAME IT? IT TOOK ME OVER 12 YEARS TO APPRECIATE IT FINALLY!

Topic started by Ilayaraaja For Earth 24 Hours (@ 65.56.133.147) on Mon Apr 29 01:35:32 EDT 2002.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Has any of you had this feeling? Initially many things just feel stupid but later than sooner you just see how amazing that something is? In my case, it has happened to me with many a Ilayaraaja song and most particularly with the strange non-filmy album of the Maestro HOW TO NAME IT? Unlike many popular songs that appealed right away and felt stupid later on, How To Name IT suddenly took me by storm. Is it because I began to understand the science of music over the years and I needed that to truly appreciate the wavelength of thought and complexity of the compositions? Or, is it because there is no really great music out there anymore? Or, the film music is take a nowhere to go turn? Whatever said, I think How To Name It is IsaiGnani's answer to Bach's Brandberg's concertos and Vivaldi's Four Seasons put together!!!! All the 10 compositions are truly of a level that took me many years of musical listening to appreciate past Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and of course our own A R Rahman ;--) Now, I have to get hold of Nothing But Wind, cassette of which I gave off to someone because I thought the compositions were just inscrutable. Has any of you felt the same way like people like me have? I did have problems with India 24 Hours too? But, after a couple of years I listened to it again and my joy is unbounded. I heard IR was coming up with Moods of Ilayaraaja? What happened to it? I just can't wait to get hold of all the non-filmy albums of IR including the Symphony? My God, I can now believe the Saappadu IR was talking about. The film music was Appalam and Oorugai! Imagine that! I can't. My head is spinning at the thought of just taking my mind away from How To Name It? for some time to come!!!!

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Responses:

• From: Ilayaraaja For Earth 24 Hours with Film and Non-Film albums (@ 65.56.133.147) on: Mon Apr 29 01:46:26 EDT 2002
  
  "Unlike many popular songs..." I did not mean IR's popular songs, but the ones that all over the place in recent years post 1992 from self-styled composers who use computers with midi software and use firewire ports with their synths to edit, cut, paste, rotate, zoom, dim etc.. and to be more specific create songs all of which sound like instant coffee jinlges ;-)
  
  
• From: raycas (@ 193.171.155.155) on: Mon Apr 29 03:00:48 EDT 2002
  
  yeah, 'how to name it' is indeed a great song...especially the beginning...u get this feeling of a combination of western classical music and carnatic music...sorry, don't have much technical knowledge, so can't be more specific.
  all i didn't like about the song is the title. aren't songs usually composed based upon a certain inspiration? so to call it 'how to name it' is somehow a lack of creativity. just my humble opinion. but the song is great...no doubt.
  
  raycas
  
  
• From: brian laul?! (@ 65.56.133.147) on: Mon Apr 29 03:53:12 EDT 2002
  
  http://www.studio-systems.com/Playback&Fastforward/PlayBack/1988/July/80July.htm
  
  
• From: Peter Pan (@ 170.140.252.57) on: Tue Apr 30 14:45:09 EDT 2002
  
  Thanks for the link on the article on IR.
  
  Looks like an online version of a 1988 magazine archive. Interesting articles all over...
  That explains the author's statistics (10 years, 425 films)
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 208.61.227.242) on: Tue Apr 30 17:25:45 EDT 2002
  
  Thanks for the link, nice articles.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 208.61.227.242) on: Tue Apr 30 17:35:14 EDT 2002
  
  This is also a rare one
  http://studio-systems.com/Playback&Fastforward/PlayBack/1990/JanMar/30.htm
  
  
• From: ravi k.s. ravichandran (@ 128.110.251.55) on: Tue Apr 30 19:45:06 EDT 2002
  
  It is not surpising that you feel it took so long to appreciate fully "How to Name It". One needs to really listen to a variety of Western Classical in order to feel the depth. I am glad you did it. For a long time, the tamil film music relied on native instruments, with little effort to introduce orchestral sytle found in WCM. MSV had done in bits and pieces, but IR probably introduced more intensely in films. I guess he was feeling the limitations of even BGM situations to fully compose a orchestral piece. Probably this was his interest that motivated to complete the two albums, How to Name it and Nothing But Wind. These are really remarkable albums, considering his background and where from he is coming.
  
  In USA, it is common to send children to Piano or Violin classes. They begin with very fundamentals about notes and scales and begin with practice books where they show kids how a simple song like those kindergarden songs can be written in notes.
  You need a formal education to compose full length WCM. It seems only IR has passed formal WCM education therefore, he finds it so interesting and compelling to write notes and compose such music. There are so many composers in the west do do this, yet only pieces of Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi have become masterpieces. This is because those were composed during periods of noncommercial or church or kingdom music events, therefore you can see they have been really passionate. I hear John Williams sometimes doing well,and he has composed some albums himself. But he is quite commercialized too.
  
  There are very few to appreciate IR's two albums in India, I think. They tend to be those who have lived in West and heard WCM to some extent, so they can relate to it. Have you noticed that MOzart's "Eline Klein Naughtmusik"(I am not sure about spelling) used to be played as a closing theme music in Madras 2 Vividha Bharathi those days! It is a travesty that there is no mechanism to intorduce and popularize WCM in India. We are too caughtup in this Carnatic music business and there are big egos. Needless to say that we carry this over sometimes to (some) say Carnatic music is the most wonderful thing that they have heard not realizing that those vidwans do not know to sit down and write notes of what they are singing !. How do you then standardize it? Thus it becomes hear say or it is according to those who have the power! This is probably why IR sometimes says who knows whether this stuff or that stuff in Carnatic is original, since no one has written down! You cannot say this in WCM, because original transcripts of many works have been preserved or restored and it is avaialble for anyone to see..So there is no dispute.
  
  It is my thinking that IR has understood this and have sometimes agonized over this.
  
  In my opinion I have found immense joy in listen to WCM of those great guys, partly because the original scores were used in playing and recording. If 50 years from now somebody plans to record Bach's Brandenburg concertos, they would for sure use the original scores. But I do not think the same thing can not be said about the compositions in Carnatic. Who knows what is authentic. Subbudu might say this is correct or this is wrong..but how does he know? What does he consult to make sure his comments are accurate?
  Everyone finds him entertaining, because not only he is brutal but can be comical at times. Can musicians follow what he says and reference it with something a written standard?
  
  May be this is not the best forum to say these things, but I felt compelled to write this. I think IR probably the first to break this out and trying to figure out something to do. This may be the result of his two albums.
  
  Anyway, I have some recommendations for you guys to listen to, in WCM. You will find it amazing that how many of IR's bits and pieces sound parallel to those found in the following (just examples) at places.
  
  Vivaldi's complete Flute Concertos (Phillips 2 CDS)
  
  Arcangelo Correlli's Concerto Grosso OPUS 2 (2 CDs)
  
  Teleman's English Concerto
  
  Hayden's Water Music
  
  Bach's Suite No. 1
  
  Taichovsky's Piano Concerto No.1, Nutcracker Suite etc
  
  Johannes Strauss Waltzs
  
  Beethovens Moonlight Sonnata
  
  I will recommend more later. Bye for now !
  
  
  
  
  
• From: vengayam (@ 203.200.84.66) on: Tue Apr 30 23:21:09 EDT 2002
  
  How about " All Hot air" " aInflated egos in I minor".
  
  
• From: hari (@ 66.68.96.108) on: Wed May 1 00:59:16 EDT 2002
  
  ravi,
  
  I am just beginning to learn Piano, and I d like to point out one thing in ur post -
  
  In WCM, its not as if the written work indicates everything about the piece. If you buy a piano concerto score from a store, its published by a certain editor, and he makes it from the original score, but he makes changes as he sees fit.
  
  For example, I was playing a piece called a toccata written by a Russian composer called Dmitri Kabalevsky. Now there are a number of ways of playing it from the score. These involve the tempo (allegro, andante, presto etc are all just indications) So I practised in a way I thought was correct. Then when I played it for my teacher, she told me I got it completely wrong. Reason - i was playing it like a sad piece, while it is meant to be a music for the circus. She had a knowledge of Kabalevsky, and the context in which he wrote the piece. And she told me how the emphasis should be, and how I should play this movement as if the clowns were coming in, and stuff like that. She asked me to ignore a few "editorials" (pedal markings, staccato etc) because the editor didnt necessarily know the context correctly.
  
  The point is not if the editor knows Kabalevsky better or my teacher does...The point is, its not as is the score indicates everything about the piece. Its your interpretation to a great extent. The same piece sounds much different unless you understand the context, or rather in the way u interpret iy. Even after that, there is scope for improvisation and stuff. Any classical person will tell u this -- The editor of the score doesnt know what Mozart or Bach had in mind while writing the piece... It is left to the performer to interpret it... that is why conductor/arranger plays such a big part in western orchestra, even though they dont always compose.
  
  In carnatic music, again you have the framework for the piece - the basic melody in the raagam the composer wrote the song in. Now nobody knows if thyagaraja sang the same sangathis that bmk sings, but thats the beauty of this music.. its total improvisation and creativity of the performer. I believe that jazz is similar school of thought (I havent listened to much jazz).
  
  Hope you understood what I meant.
  
  
• From: raycas (@ 212.186.40.21) on: Wed May 1 02:41:08 EDT 2002
  
  ravi k.s. ravichandran,
  
  the spelling is 'Eine Kleine Nachtmusik' (a small nightmusic)
  
  raycas
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.150.249) on: Wed May 1 15:10:44 EDT 2002
  
  Hari, that was informative and that is my understanding as well. I came to know about this when I was curious why certain pieces of the same thing (say Four Seasons) varied in the duration of the play. Also, the 'texture' of the sound can be varied by the 'arranger' because he can choose his choice of instruments for the bass/treble/alto part.
  Anyways, the Westerners have much better tradition of documenting stuff than us. The notation is surely better than nothing.
  IR is not only a composer but also an expert on tamil traditions of music. Somebody posted an URL of an interview where talks about 'panjamarabu' which mentions string/woodwind/brass/percussion/vocals parts of the music.
  So IR is focussed on the basics. In this interview, he also lamented about how his orchestra musicians loose concentration even within a few bars of respite. WCM is very representative of Western culture - organised, disciplined and orchestrated (just like the roman army tradition).
  The point about carnatic music is - it is also composition. Our carnatic musicians are singing a composition (say by Thiagaraja) but improvising on it. (Hari ..this is an FYI for others). IR is also a Carnatic music composer, as he sets songs to a rAgam, but because of the harmony layers in it, it cannot be improvised. Still, songs like in bArathy are full of gamakams and so I guess will lend itself well for stage performances with improvisation.
  
  
• From: Sam (@ 132.235.18.15) on: Wed May 1 17:20:19 EDT 2002
  
  http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2000/09/chopin1.htm
  
  Hari, to further ur point.
  
  

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