Tata DOCOMO Jingle Contest

I posted about the contest in my last post.

Here are my entries to the contest.

http://create.tatadocomo.com/createMusic/user/default.aspx?user=sripathyramesh

Let me know your feedback.

The results have been announced and here are the winners.

Tata DOCOMO - Create Music Contest

It has been ages since I wrote in my blog. Was quite busy and did not know what to write. I came to know of this TATA DOCOMO Create Music contest, which I am planning to participate. Some of you might be interested as well. More information available in the following website.

http://create.tatadocomo.com/

My old compositions

In this post, I am going to share some of my initial compositions. These compositions are all instrumental and most of these are around 10 years old. This was done in my early days when I was learning music through books and fiddling with a small keyboard. I knew very little about things like bass and chords. In fact if you notice, some songs won't contain any bass or contain very little bass, same goes for chords. So the compositions will be quite immature.

My interest in music started during the college (13 years ago). My first computer based tool to sequence music was a qbasic program using the Play command. Then I got interested in keyboard seeing my college mate Ranjesh play the keyboard. During the 2nd year of college, I got myself my first keyboard - a small one - Casio SA 21. I still have it. I used to read some carnatic books on various ragas and try to play it on keyboard. I was even surfing the net reading about the various ragas. Film songs set in different ragas interested me. My mother, who can identify ragas, helped me further. She also helped correct the wrong notes that I played on the keyboard. Another college friend of mine, Venkat Sundar, a guitarist taught me some basics of chords and that kindled my interest further. Then my good friend, Vasanth, got a computer in his hostel room and there was this Noteworthy express software that he got along with it. I used to hang in around his computer trying to compose on it. Then, he got Cakewalk Express software CD and that was even better. I was hooked to it and all of these tunes were composed in that. All these songs were sequenced as MIDI files using Cakewalk Express software. And they were mostly played via the default MIDI output of "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth". I either entered the notes directly or played it on the normal computer keyboard used for typing.

I have posted 20 tracks here and all these instrumental pieces are about 1 minute or 2 minutes. You can listen the songs from the box below. You can hover your mouse over the file name or the player to read the description of the song. Names given are very random. They are an after thought. Most of the songs weren't composed with the given name in mind. Kindly listen to them and leave your comments here.


A couple of years after passing out of college, I got myself a Yamaha PSR 350 keyboard. Then there was this music band being formed in my office and I was somehow part of the band. Playing all those film songs (especially Ilaiyaraaja's) taught me a whole lot of things about music. And of course, am still learning. No one can learn music fully.

Brindavana Saranga by various Film Composers

In my last post, I mentioned about the Raag Brindavana Saranga. In this post, I am going to list down the film songs composed in this raag by various music directors. Many music directors have used this raag in their compositions. Here is the list grouped by the composer.

Vishwanathan-Ramamoorthy
Ponn Ondru Kanden - Padithaal Mattum Podhuma
(listen to this rendition by Shankar Mahadevan and Hariharan. The song starts at 0:50 secs in the video.)

Ilaiyaraaja
Aathaadi Paavada Kaathaada - Poovilangu
Intha Jilla Muzhukka Nalla Theriyum - Priyanka
Maadathile Kanni Maadathile - Veera

A R Rahman
Konjum Mainakkale - Kandukonden Kandukonden
Adadadada Muthu Muthu - Mr. Romeo

Vidyasagar
Radhai Mandhil - Snehidhiye
Chella Nam Veetukkul - Poovellam Un Vaasam
Kanden Kanden - Madurai

Bharadwaj
Ye Samba Ye Samba - Pandavar Bhoomi

Vijay Antony
Ninjakootil Neeye Nirkiraai - Dishyum

Hariharan-Leslie
Paadhi Kaadhal - Modhi Vilayadu

Deva
Kookoo Kookoo Kuyil Paatu - Vaaymaye Vellum
(Pallavi lifted from the Colonial cousins song, Indian Rain, which is also in Brindavana Saranga).

If you need to add any other song to this list, kindly leave your comment below.

I have also updated this list in my Wiki website for Ragas in film songs. Let me know if you are willing to contribute to the wiki site.

Recent Raga Sightings

I noticed some raga usages in recent tamil film songs. Here are the songs and the ragas.

Song	Movie	Composer	Raag
Paadhi Kadhal	Modhi Vilayadu	Hariharan-Leslie	Brindavan Saranga
Unnai Enakku	Azhagar Malai	Ilaiyaraaja	Hamsadhwani
Enna Senjalum	Azhagar Malai	Ilaiyaraaja	Mayamalavagowlai

Paadhi Kadhal is a nice song from Modhi Vilayaadu. It is set in the Brindavan Saranga raga. You will find similarities between this song and the "Indian Rain" song from Colonial Cousins in the usage of the raga and the instruments (guitar and trumpet). Interesting aspect about this song is the contrast between the 2 lead vocals. Bombay Jayashree sings in the indian classical style while Sunitha Sarathy sings almost the same tune in western style.

Unnai Enakku from Azhagar Malai is set in Raag Hansdhwani/Hamsadhwani. Ilaiyaraaja has composed only a handful of songs in Hamsadhwani when compared with other raagas that he has used. There is lot of classical touches in the way this song has been sung. In recent times, he has composed another song in Hamsadhwani from the film "Oru Naal Oru Kanavu". It is called "Enna paatu vennum unakku" sung by Sonu Nigam. That is yet another good song. Refer this wiki page for some songs in this raga.

Enna Senjalum from Azhagar Malai is set in Raag Mayamalavagowlai. Ilayaraaja has done lot of classic songs in this Raga. But somehow this song doesn't impress.