” Music.. It just hap­pens ” — IR.

Part I  -  http://www.pixmonk.com/2009/05/10/few-grams-from-the-gold-mine/ 

Part II — http://www.pixmonk.com/2009/09/25/few-grams-from-the-gold-mine-part-ii/

The best way to know about a cre­ation is through inter­views. I glance the inter­views of the direc­tors before writ­ing  a movie review [ உன்னை யார்னா கேட்டாங்க‌ளா ? :)  ]. It’s where the orig­i­nal idea of cre­ation comes into light. Also, I am inter­ested more in the cre­ation rather then the cre­ator itself. One of the finest inter­views series was Naiyandi Dur­baar con­ducted by Yugi Sethu in Vijay TV.  Also, I like SUN TV’s Nerukku Ner inter­views [ mostly polit­i­cal ] con­ducted by Suba. Veerapandiayan.

The inter­viewer has to have proper knowl­edge about the sub­ject, cre­ation and the cre­ator too [  some inter­est too ! ]. The film per­son­al­i­ties inter­views that came in Naiyandi Dur­bar are still fresh in my mem­o­ries. Janakaraj, K.Bhagyaraj, SPB, Crazy Mohan inter­views were fan­tas­tic.  To under­stand, let me give some exam­ples of worst interviews.

1. Vijayasarathy [ க‌ஷ்ட‌ம் ! ] once hap­pened to meet Mani­rat­nam for an inter­view in sun TV [ What a golden chance ! ]. He asked the first ques­tion as “With whom you were work­ing as an assis­tant direc­tor ?” .. What a junk question ?!  [ சுய‌ம்பு லிங்க‌த்துகிட்ட‌ போய் உங்க‌ம்மா அப்பா யார்னு கேக்க‌லாமா ?!].

2. Once a Bruhspa­thy in DD chan­nel asked Mam­mooty “Do you take your fam­ily to the shoot­ing spot ?”. Mam­mooty got irri­tated and whacked the inter­viewer back .. “Do you take your kids daily to office ?” .

3. BBC Sam­pathku­mar asked IR ” How do you clas­sify west­ern, car­natic, folk and hin­dus­tani music ? ” Ha..ha.. விழுந்துது பாருங்க‌ அவ‌ருக்கு.. :).

  Per­fect n inter­est­ing ques­tions to the mas­ters fetch the best out of them. The BBC inter­view with IR con­ducted by Sam­pathku­mar  was junk [ only his ques­tions ] but some inter­est­ing snip­pets came out of it.

- SJanaki didn’t have much songs before IR came into existance. IR gave more songs to her and SPB, avoiding the con­tem­po­raries of that time. You know.. SJanaki too got slumps in her career and 2 songs revived her career.. ‘Oru Naall” from Devad­hai and “Nen­jinile” from Uyire are the songs that trig­gered her next rounds.

- IR was the first one to use Shehnai for happy mood and com­i­cal songs too. Till then it was mostly used for pathos.

- ” Azhage thamizhe ”  in Kovil puraa was the song which uses voice as the back­ground or sec­ond music instead of an instru­ment. Of course, the sit­u­a­tion was to teach music to another girl. IR was try­ing to break the rou­tine pat­terns applied in the film music. Per­son­ally, I like ‘Ved­ham nee’ sung by KJY and ‘Sangeethame en dheivame’ by SJ in Kovil Puraa.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHQgPE0cUj8

- “Yamu­nai aat­trile” from Tha­l­a­ba­thy — Sitar n flute was ele­gantly used in this 2 mins bit song [ extra­or­di­nary visu­als too ! ]. This was sung by Mithaali, a  north Indian singer.  She also sang one more song in “Sen­got­tai” along with Har­i­ha­ran.. Uchi mud­hal paad­ham varai [ One of the best of Vidyasagar — he used sax those days ].  She dis­ap­peared after that song. :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXct5c5nUUs - Yamu­nai Aatrile

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7VZTTMbI6Y - Uchchi mud­hal paad­ham varai

- There was a slump in tamil film indus­try before IR came in and thats where Hindi film songs were played in the light music orches­tras [ Aarad­hana, Yaad­hon ki bharath, Bobby etc., ]. Then it was changed by IR. We have 9 FM chan­nels play­ing Tamil songs 24 x 7. 

- “Oram pO Oram pO ” was penned keep­ing IR’s crit­ics in mind to say that ‘Keep away ’ :). Inter­est­ingly, this song was banned by All India Radio those times, con­sid­er­ing it as an eve teas­ing song. Did AIR lis­ten the recent “Vaada maapille ” song — an Adam teas­ing song ?

- IR has dou­ble opin­ion about the selec­tion of songs.. He once said it’s the direc­tor who has to pick up what he com­poses and the song becomes a hit as per the director’s choice.. Like BR, Mani­rath­nam. On the other hand, he said like ‘Do you think the direc­tor has asked me and I gave a song like “Maalaiyil yaaro’ in Chathriyan for a very ordi­nary and usual sit­u­a­tion — hero­ine singing about her lone­li­ness  ? .. True..

Do you think Chem­baruthi or Sel­va­mani or that great sit­u­a­tion [??!! ] demand such a won­der­ful song like ‘Nilaa kaayum neram saranam’ ?  [ Lyrics was junk :( ].

- How did Nasser select the tune for ‘Then­dral vandhu’ song in Avatharam ?

- Did IR know Pan­dit Ajoy Chakravarty before ‘Isayail tho­dan­gud­hamma’ song in Hey Ram ?

- Did IR ever answer in tech­ni­cal terms of music  rather than spritually ?

- Why IR said ”இழுக்குடைய‌ பாட்டிற்கு இசை அழ‌கு ” ?

Let’s see them in the next part. Till then, happy listening.

:)

Toto.

Related Posts B

1. Few grams from the gold mine — part II.
2. Few grams from the gold mine IV
3. Few grams from the gold mine
4. Nei­ther Gold nor diamond..