Art of Compilation

Compiling the selected pieces of music from a composer's illustrious body of work could be an immensely satisfying exercise. Here is five and half hours of selected music pieces from A.R.Rahman's repertoire strung together in a way you wouldn't have heard before

Tamasha - A.R.Rahman, Irshad Kamil, Imtiaz Ali

I like it when a song’s end is punctuated with a bold musical period, instead of a series of dots diminishing in its size, for, arriving to a definite musical period requires a song to make its organic way to its end, which provides a musically satisfying closure, whereas, the fading dots — a musical riff gradually fading into silence, hints at an easy or rather lazy shortcut to touch the finishing line. Every song in A.R.Rahman’s latest movie soundtrack Tamasha has that perfect end, and that is a naive way of mine in gauging the completeness of an album. Matarghasti has that perfect end not only at the end but also at the end of each section of the song leading to the next; the flow is endearing and comforting. However, without harming the innate flow, Rahman throws in a surprise in the third act, where the song breaks away from its infectious jauntiness to a tender melody with a nostalgic tinge of the songs of yore. With an irresistible hook, Mohit Chauhan’s swagger in the voice, sprightly plucked strings of all variety that is out there — this song is a bundle of joy that delivers on its promise in every second of its length. This is a song that makes me want to gently pinch the cheeks of it and smile at it as if it were a cute baby continuously starring at me with a sparkle in its eyes and innocence in its smile. Matargashti is a spin-off of Masakkali, but one that easily cuts its umbilical cord off from its source and finds its own identity quite soon.

However, it must be said, finding new by lanes in already travelled paths while making melodies is turning out to be a daunting task. The effort is very evident when Rahman turns to the signature bhangra motif in the interludes of Heer Toh Badi Sad Hai, where the melody goes zig-zag in its path to find something cleverly new on its way. I love it. I don’t know what Mika Singh brings to the song, which no other singer would have, except for his blocked nose. There are some refreshing instrument choices in the arrangements, like the boldly mixed bass guitar and god-knows-what-instrument sounds with bhangra beats, and the frentic percussive crescendo at the end is sheer madness that screams the songs out of its monotony.

Speaking of refreshing arrangements, the heavenly opening of Tum Saath Ho teaches a thing or two on how its done without doing much. I would like to call that looping phrase or riff the piano drops. Preceded by an affecting piano melody and accompanied by immense silence, the piano drops is sheer serenity. Reminded me of the short flute riff that carried on its shoulders the entire Dheemi Dheemi song in 1947: Earth. As for the song itself, it is the one haunting melody of pain every love story longs for. More often than not, in our film songs, the technique of doubling the voice in two varied octaves has mostly been used as an additional ornamentation, but in here, it is part of the emotional fabric of the song. Arijith Singh’s vocal timbre in different pitches — besides the exquisitely tuneful melody and Irshad Kamil’s poetry — brings a whiff of fresh air to the way the emotive premise of a song of this genre is often delivered. Besides, the mixing is just right, the neither of the vocal layers sound too close or too far from us or from each other.

Arijith Singh (along with Sashwat Singh) gets to lighten up in the addictive Wat Wat Wat, a slight and mid-tempo bhangra, a genre for which A.R.Rahman still manages to find a refreshing rhythm pattern. Song doesn’t get complacent with it's captivating rhythm pattern, instead it soars when it takes a soft and sweet melodic turn in the middle. There is nothing more comforting in movie music than hearing a conventional melody sitting tight and right in a foot-tapping rhythm, and in the respect, Wat Wat Wat is one of the most comforting listening experiences in recent times.

This being an A.R.Rahman album, how can everything be so easy, comforting, and instantly accessible, it has to go far and beyond, and Rahman needs his space to indulge after having given you what you want and he creates that space with the second half of the soundtrack.

With theatrical Chali Kahani, Rahman returns to one of his favourite swinging games (Thee Thee, In Lamhon Ki Daaman Mein, Solli Vidu Solli Vidu, Naanae Varugiraen, Pal Pal Bahari, Idhyam Nazhuvi) where he gets to jump between storm and slumber. Sukhwinder Singh is perfect here; he whips up the storm in the way he sings the staccato lines with a biting teeth and force, and equally effective in contrast is Haricharan and Haripriya’s quiet singing of a heartening melody. The classical-orchestral instrumental sections aren’t musically complex harmonies but are a unison where all the sections of the orchestra and chorus perform same melody in the same or adjacent together, but because the melodies are exquisite, layering aesthetic, and the production values crisp, it is effectively grandiose. It just takes a drag and drop of a virtual box in a software to choose a specific instrument for a specific section in a song, and that brings with it a million possibilities and I don’t think the refreshing choice of an Accordion on the fore against a full-throttled orchestra in the final crescendo of Chali Kahani could be one such drag-and-drop happenstance.

Neither are the array of instruments playing variety of short tunes one each for an instrument (including the irresistible Naa-Naa-Na hook from Matargashti) seamlessly woven together in the sprightly Parade De La Bastille. The opening of the track comes from a totally different dreamy space with Rahman crooning a short melodic riff with middle-eastern inflections and with so many instruments clamouring around and trying to imitate what the voice is singing. That is a soundscape still only Rahman can paint.

And sometimes he can use his soundscapes to stall things and do nothing for reasons I cannot fathom, like he does in the only interlude in Safarnama. There is nothing much happening in here musically, a lot of voices circling around murmuring the motif of the song, a guitar going totally extempore after having started with a defined theme. But, the song itself is a melodic trip albeit short. The long stretched phrases in each melodic line kept me thinking; does every song about a journey or about a philosophical search have that? Feels like a musical technique (along with right accompaniments like in this song) that helps to immediately sing the premise of the song’s narrative. It works and how well it does I got to know only at the end of last song, and of the album - Tu Koi Aur Hai, in which after wandering for far too long amidst muddled chorus and directionless strings orchestra, the song returns to Safarnama, defining the song the home of Tamasha.

The direction Rahman takes in Tu Koi Aur Hai seems to be his latest favourite, where he lets the melody take a shape while phrasing around each word in the lyrics and its expression, with no respect to any musical rhythm or meter. The song lingers on each word before moving on to the next and is in no hurry to shape its final melody, or rather there is none to be shaped. There is just stillness, and we move from one moment of stillness to the other and you never know what will happen next, and through the journey Rahman touches some affecting emotional nodes but somehow Tu Koi Aur hai feels a notch below Dil Gira Daftan or Rehna Tu or even Moonlight in its overall impact.

A.R.Rahman always has a simmering urge to rebel with conventional song structures and arrangements, but when Raunaq released he mentioned that it is important to have classic, conventional songs in ones repertoire and that explains the whole range of songs (Kahaan Hoon Mein, Saans Mein Teri, Dil Beqasoor, Kismet Se Tum, Innum Konjam Neram, Malargal Kaetten, Nazar Laayae, Unmai Orunaal Vellum, Chinna Chinna Nakshathiram) he made in recent times with conventional melodies and modest orchestration with no quirk in its overall design. There is still a lot of beauty to be found in these musical terrains where many of Rahman’s predecessors and contemporaries have been and done that. In Tamasha, Rahman strikes a fine balance, while mostly sticking to simple and comforting templates in the melody, goes all out for freshness, vibrancy and extravagance with lush and seductive sound palettes (like he did in “I”) in the arrangements, and am I complaining. Having seen what Imtiaz Ali did with Rahman’s quiet and modest Highway music, I can’t wait to see Tamasha. And I hope Rahman’s journey with Imtiaz Ali continues for long.

OK Kanmani - A.R.Rahman

Parandhu Sella Vaa. It could have been another Hai Rama Yeh Kya Hua - with its restless rhythms and raaga based melody that sounds like a song Rahman conjured for the visuals of the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho coming to life to make love. It could have been a Maja Maja Maaja (Jillunu Oru Kaadhal) or a Thazhuvudhu (Anbe Aaruyirae) loaded with tribal rhythms and many musical moments filled with incessant moaning that goes with the idea of making love as a mere carnal pleasure with no bigger emotional heft whatsoever attached to the experience. Or it could have been all about the breezy romance, the fun and froth in the moments when a couple in love live together for the first time - Kaadhal Sadugudu (Alaipayuthey). Or it could have been something that ambles between the quiet slumber and passionate crescendo like In Lamhon Ki Daaman men (Jodha Akbar). In OK Kanmani, Rahman thinks of something refreshing for the situation in question and gives us the song of the soundtrack - Parandhu Sella Vaa. He sets the experience of intense physical intimacy to the ecstasy of a bird freed of a cage after years of imprisonment and its never ending flight after that higher and higher above the clouds. Bits and pieces of musical elements from all the other aforementioned songs are in here too — a softly thudding tribal rhythm, the musical moaning, mischievous mix of voices and sounds in the backing orchestration etc, But, they come together to paint a kaleidoscopic soundscape that entirely belongs to this song and this song alone.

Song has an interesting structure. It starts off with a gentle and cheerful foreplay section, a shaker, a peck-on-the-cheek sound loop, and a melody that keeps repeating, he does something and she does the same, no one knows where all of it is leading to, but soon a gentle rhythm kicks in and sets a groove to the action implying that they have taken a step further ahead. And she takes the lead and starts moaning melodically and it is so beautiful and classical that he might reach his peak without another touch. He moans along too but his is restrained and just enough to calm and bring her a new notches down from up above. Everything takes flight to a higher emotional plane sooner when he goes Nanaindhu kollavaa Mazhai Illamalae, and to an even higher and stronger emotional plane when a deep cello section joins as she goes Midhandhu pogavaa megha thundu pol. And that is where it stays afloat on Parandhu Sella vaa, Parandhu Sella Vaa. After a phase of passionate action, they jump to a frothy, playful phase for a short while when the song shifts to the most ecstatic musical moment of the whole soundtrack. Saasha’s scat singing backed by a cute and chirpy pizzicato strings in this section gives me an indescribable high every single time I listen to the song. With Kadandhu Pogavaa Boodham Aindhayum and a grand choir backing the lines, the song shifts to the emotional plane again, and then it doesn’t end, it just stays there. Nobody is in a rush to hit the climactic orgasm. They want to fly and fly and stay afloat savouring every micro second of the experience without having to reach any pointed destination. I just like that.

Rahman’s in OK Kanmani is light music. Lightness is the overarching mood and feel and this aura of light is sometimes easily mistaken as superficial. And the lightest of all that is light in the album is Aye Sinamika. With relentlessly strummed guitars and acoustic drums, a variety of e-nstruments and the cheerful chorus interludes, the song creates an infectious positive vibe and is a bundle of joy. That everything in the song keeps circling far too long around so small a musical pivot is my only gripe, could have had a little more meat. Kara Aatakkaara also has similar problem, meanders a bit and though has many interesting parts doesn’t come together well. I can’t deny feeling disappointed when the song quickly turned to Tamil rap, because I was so hooked to the Kaara Aatakkaara section when the first teaser of the movie broke out with it, and I have been eagerly waiting to hear what comes after that.

Rahman is always after a sense of musical and conceptual balance within a song, within songs in an album and within songs of similar genre in his overall repertoire. It is in Prabhu Deva’s movies you will hear the slowest of Rahman melodies. There would always be a Mellisayae to switch from Romeo Aattam, or a Naalai Ulagam Illaiyendral to go to after No Problem, or a Ennavalae after Errani Kurradhaani. There would mostly be a carnatic section laid on club beats in most of his jaunty dance music. Thirikita Dhaana motif in Pappu Can’t Dance was to balance the crass loudness expected in a party song. The classical sargams in Yaakai Thiri was to give a musical heft to the harmless fluff in a party song. And maybe the overt carnatic flavour in OK Kanmani music is for the same reason. And in OK Kanmani too, Rahman is after a musical balance within the songs and between the songs and he is able to achieve that without it being detrimental to the core mood and musical premise of the song. Maybe I am stretching the theory too far, maybe all of its comes from what the film needs but maybe not.

There Ulaa is an interesting exercise in Rahman’s penchant for balance. The song’s structure is dangerously fragile with scattered fragments of musical phrases and long stretches of pauses in between. A listener doesn’t get anything to hold on to easily, apart from the addictive techno beat that is deliberately played on a tempo higher than that of the melody. Each and every phrase should be able to stand on its own to make the song feel tighter. And also all of it should form a sweetly melodic and sensible musical structure when the listener is able to clearly map the whole journey of these fragments of musical phrases in their mind. Rahman pulls it off like he does every time. That female solo in the middle of the song is such a beautiful carnatic crux to build the song around.

Mental Menadhail is the only straight forward peppy techno track in the album that is not bothered about being all out fluff though Rahman tries to give a softer melodic bend to all the straight edges in the melody in its female version. First time I heard the female version, felt it sounded better, but have gone back to Rahman’s version now. Somehow the female version has subdued the fun and sound inhibited compared to the freak-out Rahman’s version.

I can’t pin point to a specific aspect but there is something totally magical about Naane Varugiraen besides the obviously sweet, strong, raaga-based melody and the exquisite classical inflections in the way the syllables of the sung words are split, swirled, stretched and squeezed inside Saasha Tripathi’s seductive vocal cord. Is it the element of electronica in the backing orchestration? But that is standard ornamentation considering Rahman’s standards. Or is it the constant chase and catch drama that plays out between the melody and the percussion? And while I question all these questions on the experience of the song, Rahman points me to its telugu version Yedho Adaganaa Yedhainaa Adaganaa, and listen to it yourself to know what inherent musicality of a language does to a melody. Sundara Telugu! And so is music of A.R.Ameen’s Arabic in the calming Maula Wa Salim. Can I get a karaoke version with just the chorus to use for my meditation?

But, the question that remains after listening to each new Rahman album - Where is the surprise? Where is that never-heard-before moment? Most unexpectedly I found the answer for these two questions in Malargal Kaettaen - a very deceptively simple and conventional sounding song in the album. Listen to the path Chitra takes when she sings Unaiyae Tharuvaai the first time, it is not the route a melody usually takes when it is presenting itself for the first time, it is an improvised version, a route it takes after having gone through a conventional path for many times, but that is what we get the first time and only in the second time Unaiyae tharuvaai takes its most obvious melodic route. And the never-heard-before moment arrives when Rahman joins Chitra, and again I can’t explain why, but Rahman’s voice and the way he sings does something that nothing else could have done to the song. And only when Rahman joined that I truly understood the beauty of the melody in its entirety.

Ilaiyaraaja Live in Concert - 10

Ilaiyaraaja Live in Concert - 09

Mysskin coined the term “Munnani Isai” (foreground music) for Ilaiyaraaja’s score for Onayum Aatukuttiyum. Mysskin claims that Ilaiyaraaja’s music by itself can narrate the story, and there is no need for the visuals. I am not sure if I agree with that assessment. Ilaiyaraaja did demand us to make our own movie in our mind with his experimental instrumental album The Music Messiah, where you don’t have any visuals to help you decipher the narrative arc. You paint your own image in your mind from the music, deriving from your past experience of watching movies and listening — consciously or unconsciously — to a film score. The Music Messiah is the score of a film that never got made. I know that themes from the Malayalam film Guru has been used, but I haven’t seen Guru. And I could hear cues from Pithamagan too. However, I don’t think Ilaiyaraaja wants us to relive those movies while listening to this album. You could say that listening to Onayum Aatukuttiyum score or any score before watching the movie is like listening to The Music Messiah album. 

I don’t think Ilaiyaraaja believes that his music is enough to experience a movie. If he does, why would he add all those sound effects — the first cry of a just-born baby, noise of people clamouring in a battle field, temple bells, birds’ tweet and chirp, etc., Ilaiyaraaja knows that the background score is applied music, it is applied on a narrative, on a set of images in motion, on the rhythm and emotions of the visuals. He knows that a stand-alone narrative music needs the sonic equivalent of a visual to help a listener understand the situation the music is set for, and only when all these elements come together in perfect synch and synergy the musical narration is complete.

If you listen to the Onayum Aatukuttiyum score without watching the film, I am not sure if you could experience that lump in your throat, when in the score, string section crawling on its knees to complete its thematic melody we have been familiarised throughout the film is chopped off abruptly as the character the theme represents falls to death in the climactic moment in the film. In this particular scene, the experience is complete only when you watch and hear everything that is happening in the moment. You have to be in the world the film maker has visually created for it to impact you in a way it intends to, and in this case when the music chokes to silence precisely when Mysskin drops himself on the floor breathing his last — you have to witness to appreciate the what is possible when there is a perfect marriage of the motion in the visual narration and the music.

Perhaps, Mysskin means to say that you have to watch the film with the music once and just once. The next time when you want to travel through the arc of emotions you went through on first viewing, it is enough if you listen to the cues from the score in the order in which it is played in the film, you can paint the visuals of the film in your mind. And that I agree with. I do that regularly with so many films scored by Ilaiyaraaja. The way the next piece was presented and performed in the concert vindicates my theory of the music with motion picture having a much greater impact than what the piece of music did on its own thus far.

Few months ago, when the concert was first announced, a short film contest was also announced, where budding filmmakers were asked to visualise a piece of music (Track 2 - Paradise) from Ilaiyaraaja’s instrumental album The Music Messiah. The best movie would be screened in the concert with the music performed live to the projection of the film. They chose a piece which is more abstract, which doesn’t have any sound effects to directly imply the mood or the situation the music is set for. I have never heard anything like this before. I have heard people editing scenes according to the music (John Williams’ Flying Theme in E.T), but making a whole movie for the music, and it is not a music video of a pop song, it is purely instrumental music.

A cute 2-D animation film on the world of ants was screened with the orchestra performing the piece live to the projection of the film. The movie is about how a group of ants carry a small piece of food, crosses various obstacles on its way and reaches home. There is dancing on the beat. There is comedy. There is lot of action with living and non-living things that stops the ants from reaching their destination and they are in sync with the percussions and brass parts of the piece. There is a lot of flying that goes with the whirring strings and flappy flute layers in the piece. There is a key layer in the piece that keeps a sense of motion intact throughout and that fits well with the walk of the ants that relentlessly walks on its path in sync with this layer to reach their destiny. The movie was colourful, entertaining and water-tight just like the music it was made for. The most musical of scores are now being written only for animation films. I am not surprised that they choose an animation movie, but surprised somebody thought of making an animation for the music instead of some abstract live action montage with footage of natural greeneries and I am sure there were many such submissions. Marriage of the visuals and score was perfect that it felt like Ilaiyaraaja wrote the piece Paradise for the movie that was screened in the concert.

To Be Continued...