Ramesh on Music: December 2005

Raa Raa

In one of my previous posts, I talked about shruthibedham taking the kavithai kelungal song as an example. Now lets analyze the "Raa Raa" song from Chandramukhi. Vidyasagar has done a similar experiment with shruthibedham in this song. In this film, at one place, the chandramukhi character asks rajini to sing a song in Sudhadhanyasi raagam. But this song is not exactly in Sudhadhanyasi. The kannada version, from Apthamithra, which also begins with the same Raa Raa is in sudhadhanyasi, I believe.

This song, from Chandramukhi, is set in F minor (4 kattai). Sudhadhanyasi in F minor is F G# A# C D# F (or) Sa Ga2 Ma1 Pa Ni2 Sa, whereas the scale of this song is F G# A# C E F (or) Sa Ga2 Ma1 Pa Ni3 Sa - Just a half note difference. This scale is the same as "Sindhiya venmani" song in a Vijayakanth film. I read somewhere that this scale is the Srothaswini raga.

In the later half of the first interlude (after the thom thom thom portion), he does a tonal shift and changes the shruthi to E major (3 kattai) in Pantuvarali raagam. i.e., The Ni3 now becomes the Sa. The scale of this is E F G# A# B C D# E (or) Sa Ri1 Ga3 Ma2 P Dha1 Ni3 Sa. Then in the 1st charanam he again goes back to the original scale in F minor (4 kattai) and stays there in the second interlude too. This second interlude, with all those trumpets and strings, has more of sudhadhanyasi shades, with an occassional Ri2 popping up.

In the second charanam, the scale shifts to Hindolam raagam in C minor (1 kattai). The scale of hindolam is C D# F G# A# C (or) Sa Ga1 Ma1 Dha1 Ni2 Sa. It again goes back to F minor (4 kattai) during the pallavi after the stanza.

If you see compare the scales of the different raagams and the corresponding tonal shifts (shruthibedham), you can see that many of the notes (absolute notes) are the same, but are played in a different scale / shruthi. Here is a table comparing the various notes.

Srothaswini
(in 4 kattai)

...

Pantuvaraali
(in 3 kattai)

Dha

...

Hindolam
(in 1 kattai)

Dha

...

Western Notes

...

It is a wonderful composition and looks like he has followed IR's footsteps with respect to the tonal shifts (shruthibedham). One difficult thing in such a composition is the shruthi of the mridangam should also be changed as the shruthi changes. I don't think Vidyasagar has done that here. But IR has done that and is easily identifiyable in the song Vaidehi Raman.

On the whole this is a very good composition and suits the climax situation very well. It creates an anxiety of what would happen next. The singers Binny and Tippu have done full justice to the song. It was a pleasant surprise to hear Tippu in a classical song.

Summa Nachchunnu Irukku

No, this is not about Thamizh Murasu. Heard a song from Pudhukottaiyilirundhu Saravanan on radio yesterday. It is a 'kuthu' song - "Naatusarakku nachchunuthaan irukku" sung by Dhanush himself.

Let me tell you upfront that I HATE this song. May be because of the lyrics or may be because of the tune or whatever. Generally kuthu songs make one dance instantly due to the fast nature of the beats (6/8 is generally faster than 4/4). And actually now a days there are a lot of kuthu songs being composed in Tamil films, most of them relying solely on the dhabankuthu beats, and not all succeed. So in addition to the rhythm, a good melody(??#!!?@!) ingredient is also needed, I guess.

Actually, this song is in the scale of Shanmugapriya raagam. Dhanush does a fair job in singing in scale. It is really tough, believe me, for a person who is not a natural / trained singer to sing correctly in scale. Interestingly, the tunes of the 3rd and 4th lines of this song (enna size-u ithu...) is exactly the same as one of the interludes of "Ooru vittu ooru vandhu" song from Karakaatakaaran. It is also in the same shanmugapriya ragam, but much much better. Yuvan seems to be influenced by his dad's music - like a small part in the theme music of 7G RC resembling the theme music from Johnny.

Speaking of Yuvan, Dhanush and 7G, 'Pudhupettai' audio is launching today I guess. Yuvan seems to save the best for Selvaraghavan and we can expect good music from them. And as usual, they would probably release a seperate OST album after everyone buys the Cassettes / CDs. And there would also be people to buy both. I myself bought kaadhal konden cassette first and then bought it once again (just for that 'thathi thathi' song) after some 4 bit songs were added and released seperately.

Kavithai Kelungal

Randow Walker analyzed the Vaidehi Raman song in his blog. I would suggest you to read the above post first before continuing. Ilaiyaraaja has used the concept of shruthibedham in many of his film songs and albums such as "How To Name It", "Nothing But Wind" and "Thiruvasagam". Today I will deal with one such song - "Kavithai Kelungal" from Punnagai Mannan.

It is a wonderful composition. The song starts with a small hindustani kind of alaap. The prelude and the pallavi is in raag Jog. It is in C scale (oru kattai). The timing is 4/4 adhi thalam.

When the pallavi ends, there is a small male humming which ends in the note D# (Ga1). From here the scale shifts to D#. This Ga1 now becomes the Sa from there on. Now we are in the first interlude and the scale is rendarai kattai. There are some jathis and nadais in tabla after which the first saranam starts in Malayamarutham ragam in the D# scale (rendarai kattai) which was shifted after the pallavi. Interestingly the saranam starts with the line "netru en paatil shruthiyum vilagiyadhe" !!

When the first saranam ends, the pallavi again shifts back to C scale (oru kattai) Jog. Again just before the second BGM interlude, the scale shifts to D# (2 1/2 kattai). The timing also changes to 6/8 (tha ki ta | tha thi mi) jagana jagana... The rest of the song is based on the raag chakravagam (ahir bhairav?) which is somewhat close to malayamarutham.

To give you the relationship between these 3 raagams and the scale shifts, refer the following :

Jog
(in 1 kattai)

Dha

...

Malayamarutham
(in 2 1/2 kattai)

Dha

...

Chakravaagam
(in 2 1/2 kattai)

Dha

...

Western Notes

...

Most of the absolute notes are the same, but the shruthi is different. I think this is called shruthibedham and in western, tonal shift. Very interesting compostion !! Ilayaraja has done lot of such stuff. For example refer here: http://www.raajangahm.com/music2.html

Vidyasagar has also tried this approach in Raa Raa song from Chandramukhi, which I will analyze in my next post.

Regards,
Ramesh

Importance of bhavam

Have you heard the different renditions of the "shenbagame" song from Enga ooru paatukaaran? One is a happy version by Mano and Sunandha. The other one is a sad version by Asha Bhonsle. Both versions are basically the same tune and with the same tempo, but you can experience different emotions by the way the singers render the song. First listen to the duet, which is the happy version. Now look at the way Asha renders the song for the sad version. The singer has to basically get into the mood of the song to get the right emotion. This song taught me the importance of bhavam.

Someone observed that Ilaiyaraaja uses the same tempo for both happy and sad versions of a song. For eg) Povoma Oorgolam, Vaa Vaa Anbe Poojai Undu, Vellai pura ondru yenguthu, etc., while many other music directors reduce the tempo for the sad versions. For eg) Poraale ponnuthaiyee, Nila Kaaigirathu (this one is an excellent song), etc. Ilaiyaraaja uses the same tempo and almost the same beats and yet achieves the required emotions. The singer has a major role in such songs. BTW, even IR has uses slow tempo for sad versions such as "Kuyil paatu o vandhadhenna ila maane".

Coming back to the shenbagame song, it is an excellent soothing melody. I especially like the prelude very much. I read that it is based on the scale of sindhubhairavi raag, which seems to be one of IR's favorites. Enjoy the song !