Rajapaarvai background piece - shruthibedam again

Talking about Rajapaarvai, listen to the following background music (re-recording) from the same film. It is a very nice piece.



Hope you enjoyed it. Here is a comment by an user on that video:

i'm an atheist...but this music makes me think twice. Divine!

Now for the technically inclined:

While listening to it I realized that this piece starts in raag Jog in 1.5 kattai (C#) and at 00:26 secs it shifts to raag Subhapantuvaraali in 4 kattai (F) - basically the Ga of Jog becomes the Sa of Subhapantuvaraali with the same notes. It again comes back to Jog later. Kindly correct me if I am wrong.

Raaja has done this kind of shruthibedam / tonal shifts lot of times. This same Jog-Subhapantuvaraali shruthibedam was done in the album "How to name it" too.

I had earlier written about some songs were shruthibedam was used in tamil film songs. Here are the links to those posts:

BGM piece - Alaigal Oyvadhillai

Kavithai Kelungal - Punnagai Mannan

Raa Raa - Chandramukhi

Rajapaarvai Violin Concerto

Listen to this wonderful Violin Concerto composed by Ilaiyaraaja for the film "Raja Paarvai". Nice blend of Carnatic and Western styles (typical ilaiyaraaja). This composition is in raag Pantuvaraali. Sit back and enjoy.



Some observations:

1. Till 1:35 secs in the video, it is carnatic style. You will notice that Kamal sits and plays the violin as in carnatic style. At 1:36 it changes to western classical style and you will notice Kamal standing and playing the violin.

2. From around 2:04 to 2:24, for about 20 secs the Sa and Pa notes are not at all played. This song is in 2 kattai (D) and in this Pantuvaraali scale in D, except Sa and Pa all others are half notes - either sharp/flat (black keys on the keyboard). So for these 20 seconds, there are no natural notes played. i.e. only black keys while playing on the keyboard. And at 2:24 after heightening the tension, it lands at Shadjamam and then from there, the drums take off. The violins, lead guitar and bass guitar go in a frenzy along with the drums. Finally it comes to a finish with the main theme played in unison.

I tried re-creating this number on my computer few years back by doing some basic midi sequencing. Here is the midi file in case you are interested on the notes of the song. By the way, I have omitted a few lines and I think there are some wrong notes in the midi file that I created.

Buying Audio CDs

When I was in college, I used to buy new audio cassettes (esp of ARR) as they get released and keep listening to it. Later, with the spread of computers, internet and TV channels, this habit was gradually reduced. However I used to purchase select audio CDs (mostly albums).

Here are the audio CDs recently purchased by me in the last 5 years:

Albums

Thiruvasagam by Ilaiyaraaja
A musical rendering of the epic Tamil verses. This is a Classical Crossover album and Ilaiyaraaja seamlessly fuses both Indian classical and western classical.

Mozart meets India
After Thiruvasagam, this album was widely publisized. But it was disappointing.

Maaya - Sikkil Gurucharan and Anil Srinivasan
Indian classical songs with piano accompaniment. Really very nice. I especially like the soothing numbers "Suttum vizhi" in Rathipathipriya and "Hari tum haro" in Darbari kaanada.

Resonance - V S Narasimhan
Carnatic songs performed by a String Quartet headed by V S Narasimhan. Again different and really nice.

Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia - Flute (I don't remember the exact name)
If you like Hindustani music, then you will like this instrumental album. This has got an hindustani rendering of 'vatapi ganapathim bhaje' in raag Hansdhwani. Very nice rendering.

Classically Mild - Sonu Nigam
Semi-classical songs in hindi with western orchestration. Appealing.

Rafi Resurrected - Sonu Nigam with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
This is a tribute to Mohd. Rafi. An Evening in London - Classic old hindi songs rendered by Sonu Nigam along with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Kavithai Gundar - Tamil Hiphop
oops... Rs. 500 for this. Not worth in my opinion.

Movie Albums

Ada - A R Rahman
This was not because I want to listen to it but because I was participating in this remix contest.

Modhi Vilayaadu - Hariharan and Leslie (of Colonial Cousins fame)
Pretty decent. Except 1 or 2 songs, rest were nice.

Modhi Vilayadu is one of the first filmi albums that I bought in recent times. I heard it was good and went for it. It was a nice experience of buying it, listening to it excitedly for the first time (on my car system) and liking it. Reminds me of the olden days. So next time if I badly want to listen to a movie album, may be I will directly purchase it.

It is also interesting how they promote CDs these days. It has almost come down to the cost of cassettes. Audio CDs are available for Rs.55, Rs.75, Rs.99, etc. Modhi Vilayadu was priced at Rs.99. It had a free audio CD of another recent movie. The free CD was of Panthayam by Vijay Antony. Couple of songs were nice in that. There was also a Rs.200 gift coupon from "naturals" beauty saloon/spa. These are some nice approaches to tackle piracy. 'Kavithai Gundar' CD included a free belt (with large letters of KG) and a DVD (probably their music video). Still the Rs. 500 price tag is not worth it.

Are you listening to songs by purchasing CDs / cassettes? If not, give it a thought.