Home   Forum   Wiki   Notes   Register   FAQ   Sitemap   About Us   Contact Us  

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

---

Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: rjay (@ brkfw0005.navistar.com) on: Mon Apr 10 17:09:15 EDT 2000
  
  As I was writing 'choice of instrument' as a
  factor in texture, I remembered a good illustration - 'Singara velane deva' by Janaki
  (konjum chalangai).
  
  In that song, she sings and the nadhaswaram
  repeats the melody. We are amazed by how
  close to Janaki's voice the instrument sound is.
  
  The MD is a genius to have chosen that instrument,
  because he has such an ear for its texture.
  As an experiment, try playing the repeat in
  flute, or guitar or piano, it might still be
  good, but the effect would not be so moving.
  
  Having said that, the four aspects are
  just aspects they have interrelationships.
  Some melody lines are very rythmic. MSV
  has used very many of such lines. Some
  rhtym instruments are tonal (implying a
  melody). Melody itself has inbuilt rythm
  (called chandam - note durations and repetitive
  structure) and so on. So these aspects are
  aspects and not components. It is just a
  useful point of view that helps you to limit
  your attention to one or few things at a time.
  
  And you dont have to agree to my broad-brush-stroke painting of each MD.
  When Raja gets trained in Western classical
  and sees what is lacking in latest MSV songs,
  he sees the lack of effective use of Harmony
  to embellish the score, so he specializes there.
  When Rahman plays with latest recording gear
  and synths he sees what is missing in latest
  Raja scores - newer and newer dynamic timbres
  and crystal clear sound mixing.
  
  This is my view. Aim is not to point out
  lack of any MD. The aim is to look at music
  in a different way, not at MDs.
  
  
• From: MS (@ 129.252.26.235) on: Mon Apr 10 17:38:34 EDT 2000
  
  rjay:
  
  I must admit. You are amazing !
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 129.252.26.123) on: Mon Apr 10 17:52:21 EDT 2000
  
  Nice discussion rjay! now if u could elaborate with some examples on how IR has made better use of harmony it would be even more enlightening;)
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ host2.cvs.aa.net) on: Mon Apr 10 18:23:42 EDT 2000
  
  ravi, great going, nobody could explain it better
  sound texture....i am playing with now with the new roland gig.
  
  
• From: chandy (@ ws025038.coba.siu.edu) on: Mon Apr 10 18:32:08 EDT 2000
  
  rjay,
  
  Excellent elaboration and good points!And a refreshingly different posting in this thread! way to go!
  
  chandy
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ host2.cvs.aa.net) on: Mon Apr 10 18:34:17 EDT 2000
  
  
  The aim is to look at music
  in a different way, not at MDs
  
  Ravi:
  These lines needs to be printed and framed.
  
  
  
  
  
• From: aruLaracan (@ psiphi.umsl.edu) on: Mon Apr 10 18:36:43 EDT 2000
  
  rjay,
  
  this is good. for once, i feel, newtfmpage is looking good after a long time.
  
  your definition of texture is an extension of the classic definition of texture. your quoting the usilampatti prelude is more an example of dynamics than texture, imo, though you are absolutely correct when you talk about doubling (same melody in two separated by an octave - raja uses this a lot; he also makes many instruments play the same melody at the same time giving a richer sound) and counterpoints. doubling, contrary to what you call, is not a pseudo-harmony. it is a very very effective way making the music sound full and rich. i would rather call, homophonic, polyphonic (contrapuntal) and monophonic as the texture and what you have mentioned (like panning, volume dynamics) as just, you guessed it, dynamics. selecting the correct timber (= instruments) is an essential part of establishing a texture. a choral piece played on the strings will sound extremely different (a classic ex., beethovan's ninth symphony).
  
  i am writting in a scattershot manner. i will continue later with good examples.
  
  (btw, my disagreement with your classification of the mds is meant in zest, not to create another lousy war that goes on here.)
  
  take a listen to http://psiphi.umsl.edu/rajan/sample2.mp3 . eventhough the same melody keeps playing the texture changes at 17th second, then at 32nd second, and again at 52 it becomes a contrapuntal texture (what a beauty!), then finally again at 1:26 notice the change. these are all in my opinion textural changes. other discernible changes you might find in this piece are, imo, dynamics in nature. just thought would share with you all this masterpiece.
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ host2.cvs.aa.net) on: Mon Apr 10 18:46:47 EDT 2000
  
  arul,
  these looks like the tempo change overs
  
  I think texture is a tonal ability or different , like at point in the score you suddently hear a wide horns blow that gives a wider dimention.
  
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ host2.cvs.aa.net) on: Mon Apr 10 18:48:39 EDT 2000
  
  at 1:24
  
  
• From: aruLaracan (@ psiphi.umsl.edu) on: Mon Apr 10 20:00:20 EDT 2000
  
  srikanth,
  
  if there is, there is a tempo changeover at 32 (and reverts back at 52), imo. i will confirm it soon. that horn thing starts way back at 1:20 and it gets an embellishment(?) at 1:25. of course, there is a textural change there. (for a similar effect listen to the first interlude of iravu pagalaith thEda of kaNNukkuL nilavu; following the aria like effect created by the drums and piano(?), the strings (way at the back) and brass (trumpets?) play the chord. one word to describe: "wow!")
  
  yes, that was the word i was waiting for: tonality! how can you change the tonality. play a chord, play it as an arpeggiation. there you go, you have changed the texture. here (http://psiphi.umsl.edu/rajan/sample3.mp3 ) is an example from Rimsky Korsakov (from his excellent book "Principle of Orchestration"). this piece contains just the B dim chord. the first two measures are in one texture, the second two are in a different texture and the third two in a different one. the fourth two are the same as the second ones. texture, in essence, means the musical (perceptual) field over which the given musical idea is expressed. this is imvho. the tonality can also be changed by changing the instrumentation, orchestration, or by changing the technique (monophonic, polyphonic or homophonic).
  
  i feel like i am nitpicking! :-( anyways, you get the idea.
  
  
• From: kiru (@ surf0004.sybase.com) on: Mon Apr 10 20:28:09 EDT 2000
  
  We can all get the definition of texture from text books. But I think rjay is trying to point out that ARR is using electronic/synths to add to the texture which would not have been possible with real instruments. If that is what his point I will surely agree with him. ARR uses 'electronic drones' whereas we would have had only the tambura if we used live instruments. These kind of synth sounds fill up the sonic backdrop of a song and gives an ambience. ARR does not like to leave silent passages (so that Srikanth can see that the spectrum analyser is full :)).
  Yes, ARR is fond of this technique, which is widely used by artistes in 'World Music' category to give a 'ethereal/exotic' feel to their recordings.
  Parallel to this is IR's bass guitar which comes from Baroque music's 'basso continous' or something similar in italian/latin.
  
  Otherwise, I remember texture as mix/choice of instruments. For eg. you can 'arrange' a symphony with less number of pieces, losing out on the texture but you would still get the same music.
  
  Coming back to rhythm - I dont think ARR felt there was a lack of rhythm and tried to address that area CONSCIOUSLY. I think he has been foll. the POP/Dance music in western world and found that our Film Music to be different and probably lagging behind in techniques (from his point of view). So he decided to do songs that way. Many artistes from other countries are experimenting in the 'World Music' category and so he is adding those techniques to his repertoire.
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ wdslppp129.sttl.uswest.net) on: Mon Apr 10 21:13:42 EDT 2000
  
  Basically, tonal concepts come with the usage of instruments,I cannot play a muted guitar whamp for a heavy kind of scene, I need to search for tones like heavy cello (like in god father), Proper (rather unquie) tonality selection came into picture more prominantly when arr came into the scene, he thinks about his tone (at times quite a bit), also many have a misnorm that arr uses 100% synth, The basic scores are built using a synth, later he sits and mixes them with oringinal tones, that is reason he takes a longer time than others.
  If you hear arr's violin section, it will be some what different from other MDs, he gets a special tone,
  
  The texture is attained a right point,
  for example the opening piece in SWeet dreams by eurythmics, that feel can be bought only by that special tone. it is kind of synth cello
  or beverly cops opening them, play that with a flute, it will not sound nice. but if played with the sin waved synth sound, you will hear something totally different.
  
  Raja is composer, he aim was to compose a great arrangement, which he did perfectly.
  Most of his scores are arragened by Conductors, conductors play an important role in WC music, Their interpretation of the score is the final product we hear, they will correct the score if some where things are written incorrectly, (I have heard from many that rajas scores are often perfect), The tonality or tone quality are told or selected by the condutors.
  
  
• From: srikanth (@ wdslppp129.sttl.uswest.net) on: Mon Apr 10 21:21:57 EDT 2000
  
  Also sound engineers in western countries are different from Indian SEng. During old days Indian SE just balanced the sound and were mere human mixers. There were able to give a balanced sound. Period., later things developed,
  Here in us, I have had contacts with few good SE's, I played my album tracks, they started suggesting me the tones to be used,
  if I had violin , they suggests me what kind of reverb I should use , he also asked the lyrics and told me what kind of effects should be placed for the song. Hearing my score, he told me where to place the instruments in a stero spectrum. He also told something about delays or echo, he asked to program the echo with the beat and based on the songs tempo he told where to start the echo and end it...things are very complicated.
  
  If this is done for a very tiny musicians like me, thinking of arr who has a tons of gigs (including sridhar:)) at his disposal, he exploits it pretty well.
  
  If we could re-record raja's score like this I am sure things will sound great,
  Raja's scores has the basic essence called as good arrangement in his score.
  
  

---

List all pages of this thread

Post comments