Recent songs that caught my attention

Here are couple of recent songs that caught my attention (apart from the chartbusters like Sivaji / Cheeni Kum):

  1. "Engivalai Naan Perave" from Ninaithu Ninaithu Parthen (Music: Joshua Sridhar)
    This is a very nice song that I have been recently listening on radio. The thing that caught my attachment is the pallavi where the tune in plain notes has nice overlaps in the upper octave in carnatic style. I thought this is based on Raag Hansdhwani (or Hamsadhwani) but I have my doubts on it. Infact in the second interlude, when the singer sings swaras he includes the Ma note. So it seems to have the notes Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Ni and Sa in the Shankarabharanam scale. But I don't think it is Kedaram or Nalinakanthi. Or may be I am wrong. Please correct if I am wrong. And by the way, this song is sung by Gowtham who I think was one of the finalists of Airtel Super Singer.

  2. "Uppu Kallu" from Karuppusamy Kuthagaitharar (2007) (Music: Dhina)
    This is again a nice melody that I keep listening to often in radio or on TV. Though some phrases in the song sounds familiar, it is a nice melody overall. Bombay Jayashree's vocals makes it even more enjoyable.
What do you think on these songs?

8 comments:

  1. the female back-ground humminig i guess its harini sudhakar( according to raaga ) sounds like Hamasandhawani..

    rest theriyal let me check n tell u.

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  2. The song sounds okay overall.

    However, this is not a pure one raga based song.

    Like you said, definitely it begins with hamsadhwani in pallavi, but the music that follows pallavi (before 1st anupallavi) - the violin piece is purely based/copied from azhagana ratchasi(mudhalvan), so it jumps to reetigowla there!

    next, again the 1st anupallavi - 1st line sounds exactly stolen tune from the song - Yen Manadhai Kollai Aditthavale (kalluri vasal)- which is in hamsadhwani. Dono if same music director did the songs for that movie also.

    Again the music after that - the swaras are totally out of shruthi, i really cannot understand how someone can sing like this and jumble up the ragas, i definitely dont know the raga of this music!

    2nd anupallavi - yes, hamsadhwani again!

    To give you a suggestion - lots of film songs are raga based for sure, but lot of people mix up the ragas coz their creativity is not questioned, their experimentation is unbounded. So they tend to do this a lot. So please dont get confused and its better to avoid such songs for analysis. :)

    rgds,
    chiroti

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  3. hey, the comments were for the first song from Ninaithu Ninaithu Paarthen...:)

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  4. Thanks Adiya and Chiroti for the comments and providing some insight into the song.

    Chiroti, yes we should not analyze each and every song, but I thought the composer would have explicitly wanted to compose in a particular raga (eventhough if it is for a small part of a song) and that is why I tried to find out.

    For example: I haven't analyzed the raga for the Uppu Kallu song mentioned in this same post. Because I think the composer didn't go for a particular raga, rather composed the song in a simple minor scale (equivalent to the notes in natabhairavi) with some anya swaras.

    And yes I believe the composer can experiment and not stick to a particular scale / raga / format / rules.

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  5. True. Glad that you agree too. You have some good posts. Continue your good job. Interesting for us to read. :)

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  6. Anonymous10:47 PM

    Uppu Kallu sounds a lot like a very old song - Gangai Karai Oram, Kanni Pengal Kootam, Ethilum Avan Kurale'. Thoughts?

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  7. Thanks Anon. Yes, the Gangai Karai Oram phrase does sound similar. But still the song is enjoyable.

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  8. Anonymous8:28 PM

    I don't understand Raaga and Thaala..but The song Ninaithu Ninaithu Paarthen is very good one and will stand times and its more than OK...as mentioned earlier..

    --Saravana

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