Ramesh on Music: shruthibedham

Showing posts with label shruthibedham. Show all posts

Nenjathai Killadhe

The song Paruvame Pudhiya Paadal from Nenjathai Killadhe was performed at the Ilaiyaraaja concert and it was so nice. SPB's voice, the jogging rhythm simulated by tapping on the thighs, the 1st interlude - Sada's classical guitar, the Strings section, harmonium, etc., were the highlights.

A few months back, Vicky had written about the title score of Nenjathai Killladhe. The title score was very good and quite interesting with the various mood changes. It starts with the same jogging rhythm used in the Paruvame song. Read more about this title score and listen to it on Vicky's blog.

Since it uses the same rhythm and the same relative scales - E Major and C# minor, I thought it would have been even better if the orchestra had played the Nenjathai Killadhe Title score and then continued to the Paruvame song. That would have just been awesome. Here is a mix I tried with the title score and the original song. I had slowed down the tempo of the title score to suit the Paruvame song.

Nenjathai Killadhe - Title Music and Paruvame by sripathyramesh-1

Endrendrum Raja - My experience at the concert

I attended the "Endrendrum Raja" live concert by Ilaiyaraaja earlier this week. It was a great experience similar to the previous Ilaiyaraaja live concert which happened in chennai around 6 years back. I absolutely loved the 34 piece Strings section. The sound of the violins was magical and they played it to near perfection. The numbers I enjoyed the most were Schubert Symphony No. 8 along with Idhayam Pogudhey, Paruvame, Chinna Kannan Azhaikiran, Poove Sempoove, Edho Mogam, Madai Thiranthu, Ayiram Thamarai, Sundari Kannal Oru, and Title music of Azhagarsamiyin Kudhirai. The others were good too. As I left before the show ended, I missed out on classics like Idhu Oru Nila Kaalam, Ilamai Idho Idho.

This concert was not as perfect as the last Raja concert in Chennai held 6 years back. There were a few issues with sound balance, certain singers did not prepare enough, etc. The previous concert was much better to me in terms of near perfect performances, even better selection of songs, lot of singers, less errors, etc. But above all, this concert was still worthwhile and there were enough magical moments. Expecting more such concerts.

This concert will be telecast on Jaya TV during the Pongal holidays. The making, rehearsals, etc will be telecast on Jan 14th and the concert itself on 15th and 16th. Don't miss it!

Before winding off, here is the video of a small demo of a 2-note composition by Ilaiyaraaja - just 2 lines.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=348203421872881

Raja uses only the notes Sa and Ri in the scale of Dm. He sings Sa Ri Ri Ri | Ri Sa Sa Sa | Sa Ri Ri Ri | Ri Sa Sa Sa | Sa Ri Ri Ri | Ri Sa Sa Sa | Sa - - - | with the note D as the Shadjamam. So he basically sings D E E E | E D D D | .... Then he asks to give the chords A and Dm to give a color to the song and sings it again. Then he changes shruthi and asks to give chords F#7 and Bm alternatively while continuing to sing the same notes D E E E | E D D D || In effect the notes in the new shruthi become Ga Ma Ma Ma | Ma Ga Ga Ga || Interesting to note this!

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

BGM piece from Alaigal Oyvathillai

Here is a BGM piece from Alaigal Oyvathillai with music by Ilaiyaraaja. This piece comes when Karthik runs behind Radha on the beach and holds her hand. The piece was so good when watched along with the visuals. This is in Raag Hindolam, conveying the same mood as in "Dharisanam kidaikaadha" song which appears earlier in the film. Towards the end of the piece you will notice a mood change with an emotional male humming. Now listen to the piece and then read further.

As I said earlier, this piece is in Hindolam. But when the male humming starts, it changes to Srothaswani raga (Ni3 counterpart of Sudhdha dhanyasi) in a different shruthi. The madhyamam of hindolam becomes the shadjamam of srothaswani. And that is why the female humming ends at Sa ma ga ma, Sa ma ga ma, Sa ma ga ma, Sa ma ga ma, and the shruthi changes and the male humming starts at the upper Sa which is equivalent to the ma of hindolam. This technique of changing the shruthi is being called as shruthibedam. Lets look at the notes of the scales and see how the transformation was done and why it didn't sound odd when both the ragam and shruthi changes.

Hindolam (in 1/2 kattai)

Dha

Srothaswani (in 4 1/2 kattai)

Western Notes

So as you can see above, even though the scale changes, almost all the notes which will be played / sung are the same. It is only with the relative base shruthi that you identify with the swaras and the ragas.

Some of my earlier posts on Shruthibedam in film songs - Kavithai Kelungal and Raa Raa. Infact Raa Raa is also based on Srothaswani.

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.

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