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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Slumdog Millionaire

Thisis from the much talked about score of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ composed by A.R.Rahman. A.R.Rahman with his background score and that song in the end credits seems to hit bull’s eyes with Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire.



It is being discussed in some forums that the score is too loud for the visuals. But we can’t speak about the score’s appropriateness without watching the whole movie. We can understand the approach of the composer and a director towards a movie’s background score and their intention for choose loud music pieces only after watching the whole movie.

From what I read, Danny Boyle seems to have asked for not so subtle score, I guess he asked for a very Bollywoodish score in a way that Hollywood can understand and relate to. Rahman has clearly chosen a middle path and gone for Sitarock in this scene, which even otherwise sounds pretty apt for the scene. The mild understated strains of Guitar for Jamal and Lathika finding each other is just right for the emotions both the characters go through after they see each other, they haven’t yet bought the joy or surprise of seeing each other. So there is no loud string section instantly taking off as their eyes meet and if it was done in that way, then that is what one can call as a loud background score. Before they could experience the complete joy and the surprise of spotting each other, few strangers storm from somewhere to abduct Lathika which is conveyed quite well by playing Sitar and loud strings with rocky percussions.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Achamundu Achamundu

Karthik Raaja's Orchestration abilities are well known. He is one of the best background score composers we have. Here is a video showing him recording the background score for the movie ‘Achamundu Achamundu’ with a live orchestra. Sounds Interesting.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Background Score - 43

Guess the Movie (Not yet released).

Answer for Background Score - 42

This piece is from Paruthiveeran. Composer - Yuvan Shankar Raja. It is the main love theme. It is so refreshing to listen Duduk instead of high pitched flute being used in a movie set in interior village and surprisingly it didn't sound alien. But I guess the melody of the this piece is heavily inspired one and an extended version of one of Illayaraaja's comic themes written for a hilarious Baghyaraj movie. Any guesses?

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Answer for Background Score - 41

This piece is from Karuthamma. Composer – A.R.Rahman. Though the piano theme may sound odd with the village setup of the movie, it is used for a guy who comes to village from a city, so the sound is somewhat justified, but the beautiful flute piece, the main love theme of the movie though doesn’t sound rustic, is earthy enough.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Dhaam Dhoom Score

With “Dhaam Dhoom”, Harris Jeyaraj proves once again that when it comes to background score, he is the worst. It has the loudest possible score that any action movie can get. Listening to John Powell’s score for ‘Bourne Ultimatum’ might have taught few lessons to Harris on the basics of scoring tension building background music for chase and action sequences, without actually being loud.