New age IR's Raga Choices

[RR]

KV, It's a sticky thread. As you say, since no updates, will unsticky it.

[Sureshs65]

RR,
Eh? I thought it was the orchestration /rhythm which caught everyone's fancy in "Chandrabimbathin'. Or are you talking about the second interlude drumming? The tabla in the pallavi was the killer I thought.

[vel]

vel, I linked it on top of this thread. But I don't see any problem with tfm front page. It lists only the 5 most recent, so other more active threads may be taking precedence. In fact, I can see ROS thread now..

hi RR, thanks for linking it on the top of the thread.

Regarding front page, well there are some 30 links listed under the heading called "NEWS" at the home page. This Genres thread is not there in that group. Just wondering why?

[thumburu]

On the song "sanku chakraala" -
Point taken.I would rather buy Suresh’s reasoning that it caters to the director’s sensibilities or V_S’s connecting it with the dhobi ethos or plum/aakarsh’s vouch for Andra folk authenticity than the claims it is based on Saraswathi or whatever.
Plum that "thaana vandha" was not meant to be an apple to apple comparison. It was to counter the false implication that few of us are expecting some high brow kutchery stuff[gamakam etal] and followed by the "sermoning"
the musical aspect has to be diluted to make the song true to folk. For all that I may care, Raja would have simply rehashed an existing folk song for this as Suresh already hinted a KVM connection. I did get a ”heard before” feel to this song.
V_S, this song was never in my mind when I summed up my review of SRR. My mild "munumunuppu" was towards “decent” melodies in Suddhadhanyasi/Mohanam/SindhuBhairavi. Afterall, naam ellaam
“azhagi varaa” ve [ULiOasai] thangindu irukkom idhu emmathiram? I was provoked to make that harsh remark. It seems to ruffle many a feather

[Plum]

T, as I said, I fast forward the folk "pattu cheera" and even "dharmam saranam" and "chinnari ponnari"(a erstwhile fav) while listening to Swathi muthyam now. Hence the note on sanku chakrala. Otoh, rama kanavemiraa, I can hear any number of times. As of now, don't feel Sri Rama lera or the 3 story-moving songs are any lesser than that. My point is this is what I expect - it doesn't matter what raga these are. Your expectation seems to be different - fair enough but as I said, good lukc because it seems to me IR is more in line with my thinking than yours as of now

[thumburu]

Kamal,

There was a sepcific reason why I was saying Sahana and Nattakurunji. These are restrictive in the sense they are vakra ragas and have special prayogas. So whether you like it or not you need to come to those prayogas in order to highlight the raga. If not you will skip into the territory of other ragas. Whereas ragas like Kalyani, MMG and the pentatonic scale ragas (Mohanam, Sudhadhanyasi, Sudhasaveri, Hindolam etc) don't have this restrictions. For example, you will find lot more songs in Madhyamavathi than in Sree Ragam. They both share the same arohana but the Sreeraga avarohana is vakara and that becomes a restriction. You need to keep using that phrase 'snpdn' or 'rigarisa' else the song will sound like Madhyamavathi. These are some technical points why some scale get explored more than others. Another reason why MMG or Kalyani or Keeravani or the pentatonics get explored more is that they are the scales which are often used in Western music.

Suresh, while Iam fully with you on SriRagam vs Madhyamavathi, why do u say that for Sahana or Naattakurinji?
Haven't we got a classic in tfm in Sahana in the form of "paarthen sirithen" or even cming to recent times, Vidhyasagar's "poi solla Udaadhu kaNmaNi", ARR's "Ranjana Ranjana" in Paarthaale paravasam?
Even MSV has tuned the wonderful "idhu thaan mudhal raathiri"[KJY/VJ duet] in Sahana.MSV has also used Dwijavanthi, that resembles Sahaana in the "amudha thamizhil" from Madurai meeta sundarapandiyan that was a huge hit. It does baffle me why Raja never uses Sahaana . ARR used bit of Sahana only during the sax portion in the interlude of "Sahana saaral " from Sivaji. Not sure why he didnt compose for the whole song
Naatakurinji - Many Tamil folk songs are based in this ragam[paal vadiyum mugham"]. ARR's "kaNNAmoochi yenadA" predominantly employs this. Any IR's song? Not sure.
Suresh, what prayogam of these ragas does IR have reservation ? I have heard Gana ragas like Thodi, Bhairavi etc are difficult to dilute and use for film songs and that is why we have very few songs in Gana ragas.

[thumburu]

aakarsh, that was just a jest. Nothing serious

[Sureshs65]

thumburu,

Maybe I should have made myself more clear but what I meant there about Sahana and Natakurunji is not that you cannot tune in them. More that it is difficult to give lot of songs in these ragas and display variety because of their inherent structure. Ofcourse KVM gave that lovely 'pathen sirithen' which till date happens to be the best Sahana in film music. Natakurunji has been used in MKT's day ('raagathil sirandhadhu naatakurunji' goes one line in that song.) 'Kannamoochi' predominantly takes the same raga swaroopa that 'Paal Vadiyum Mugam' displays. As you say it is predominantly Naatakurunji but then wanders away.

'Sahana' is one ragam which everyone asks me as to whether there are any Raja songs in. Upon hearing a negative reply, they wonder why he hasn't composed in that ragam. I have no clue why. When he can some lovely stuff with Bilahari and Saranga. Sahana and Naatakurunji should not be hard. But then the composer has to feel the need to compose in that raga. It is very difficult to say what is running in a composer's head. In case of a composer like Raja it is almost impossible to tell

Raja did tune an excellent Todi in Varusham 16 ('Gangai Karai Mannanadi') though I don't think he has done a standalone song in Bhairavi. MSV has a nice Bhairavi in a Malayalam movie. The song pallavi / movie name eludes me. Similarly in Malayalam music, Raja's guru, Dakshinamurthy Swami has tune in Sahana ('Swapnangal Swapnangale) as a part of ragamalika. He has also tune a lovely Begada('innale nee oru').

Ofcourse if one of us meets Raja, I think our first request would be to ask him for a tune in Sahana

[Plum]

Actually, a cousin of mine is close to Karthikeyan and offerred to take me to Prasad studio - enaku dhaan dhairyam varala.

[KV]

thumburu, I understand that these are aadhangams of a (theevira?) rasigai, but I'm curious to know if there's a solid reason to rant or if this is just a longing. Like Suresh said, if we can ask why he hasn't composed in Sahana (or ragam x or y), the negative converse (at self: huh?) should also be logical, right? As in, why should he choose these scales? This isn't some silly defense point that I'm trying to make. When you have a guy who has composed in such a wide array of ragams, either purely in one scale or weaving two or more into one composition, if we are to pick on some particular ragams not being explored, then we're just being selfish (of course, as his fans, we are entitled to that). It's like whining that Sachin isn't scoring his 100th 100 while comfortably ingoring the fact that the man already has a insane total of runs and a truck full of records to his name.
I'm not against what you're wanting to get because that's what I want as well! But I think we should rather put it like Kamal in Dasa - I'm not saying his songs in certain ragams are not there, but just saying that it'd be better if there were!