Music as i understand..

The new Ipod nano coming into my life has been a welcome change. The old one, a cute white shuffle, gifted by the sweet lady in love was hardly used thanks to that missing charger cable. But the new one, a video nano, which I got as a prize, she is a beauty! And it has revived my musical sense. Such cool mp3 players sing to your soul. They find their way through your cochlea and strike a chord with the sinews of the heart.

And lemme confess am no expert in assessing music, but given the ear, cochlea and the heart and ofcourse the ipod, I thought I would explain what I think about music and also raise my grouse against the music composers of today.

Music like anything else has beginning, middle and an end. But our composers hardly seem to care beyond the first stanza, They give the song a sehwag like start. And then midway the song squeaks and merely leads to the end, which again yawns and stops.

Let me give you a recent example, am just returning from this movie love aaj kal, decent attempt I should say.(Deepika! Deepika!), but what stayed on my mind and lingered long after the movie got over was this song, “Yeh Duriyaan”. I like the way the singer in sadness serenades the initial lines and hopefully says “Fanah ho sabhi dhuriyaan”. Wow! I liked that line. I run back to my laptop. Download the song. Load it onto the ipod and here I am listening to it.

The song begins with a stylish whistle, and the nice bit I mentioned earlier. Now what happened! I suddenly feel too many unnecessary instruments coming into the composition. Like a sudden symphony kind of an arrangement and then from nowhere a peppy flute for a pretty long time towards the end (this bit reminds me of some song of rahman) and to make things worse few carol singers yelling something in english, Come on! where is the connection. “There is no flow in this presentation” An angry boss would have exploded and laid you off. All these pieces make sense separately, but together, No! This is manipulation. It’s a commercial hit riding on a beautiful start.

I think many Hindi songs follow this trend, Tamil songs too. Harris and Yuvan, Awesome start and that’s that. I guess that’s what software music can achieve. The composer can layer in a lot of instruments and is too absorbed in showing it off. Doesn’t every carnatic raga have a beginning, middle and end. So would Hindustani or classical I presume.

And then there are songs like Saawariya from Swades, a normal low profile start, but the way it builds up, Gayathri Joshi seems to be liking Sharukh more with every line, Woah! the second stanza is better than the first and the final one just took me to another plane..“Jabse mili sajna, tujhse najariya”, nobody can sing those lines with their eyes open, she must have sure prepared herself for this late onslaught!, what a song, Who is this singer? Alga Yagnik?

I think Illayaraja orchestrates the better compositions. I just finished with “Mandram Vandha” from Mouna Raagam and “Kaadhalin Deepam Ondru” from Thambiki endha ooru (yes the one where superstar walks and sings)

Each song has a life, one line leading to the other, I, the listener, am waiting for the next line am actually looking forward to it. Music ought to be a mere facilitator in the entire scheme of things .

I cant remember the second stanzas from Rahman’s ghajini songs or his compositions for Shankar movies (I like uppu karuvaadu and yen vittu thotathil!), but do clearly remember the middle and end portion of Kadhal Rojave, Pachai Nirame or Kannamoochi yenada. While the former is merely notice worthy, the others engage you all through.

Ok next song please…!

Mak