Needle Drops

• The most eagerly awaited James Horner’s “Avatar” Score is releasing on December 15th. The offical soundtrack tracklisting is available in avatarscore.com
  
  
• Oh! That serene solo violin in ‘Paa’ trailer music is bliss. I expected some instrumental themes in ‘Paa’ Soundtrack. ‘Cheenikum’ had a Veg and a Non-Veg Melody but here we get just a Paa theme remix. Paa Theme remix is not done by Ilaiyaraaja, it is by Vickky Goswami. I am a bit hopeful because, of all things, director Balki chose to talk about Ilaiyaraaja’s background score in the press meet.
  
  
• I love Karthik Raaja’s score for ‘Anything for you’ trailer, with an innate Indian melody, soulful orchestration, it is vintage Karthik Raja. Why doesn’t this guy do some non-film instrumental works like his father?
  
  
• It is good to see budding composers talking about their background scores as much as their songs. James Vasanthan says he has enrolled himself in a course on ‘Film Score Orchestration’.
  
  
• Recently finished reading a book called “Behind the Curtain – Making Music in Mumbai’s Film Studios”; it had some extensive information about how background scores were recorded earlier in Hindi films. The book is a very emotional account of the life of musicians in film orchestras that existed earlier and their subsequent downfall. And not so surprisingly, the music assistants and arrangers themselves admit in their interviews that almost 90% of the composers in Hindi films didn’t care about background scores. The video snippets of the interviews of musicians are available here.
  
  
• I haven’t seen ‘Yuvraaj’ yet, but I listened to the beautiful background score of the film here. How many more such movies, Rahman is going to waste his music on?
  
  
• And yes, I stole the title for this post ‘Needle Drops’ from John O’brien’s comment on ‘Listening Couples Retreat’ post.
  

Blogiversary

‘Background Score’ blog turns 2 today.

It has been quite a journey and a great learning experience so far. Thank you.

On this happy occasion, here is a feast for film score fans.

Score Quest Fest Answers

Score Quest Fest

Track 9 is from Punnagai Mannan. Composer – Ilaiyaraaja. I like to call this piece the prelude to the popular love theme. It appears when Kamal is deeply disturbed by the hallucination of him dancing with Revathi and angrily hits the Piano. It is a short piece with a beautiful melody and counter melodies.

Track 10 is from Raam. Composer – Yuvan Shankar Raja. It is the title score of the movie in which the scene takes us through every little detail of the place of crime. Yuvan uses a background score cue from the 7G, Rainbow colony and shifts to a new theme as the visuals shifts to the crime scene. I don’t remember where else the theme is used in the film as I didn’t like the film.

Score Quest Fest Answers

Score Quest Fest

Track 7 is from Parthiban Kanavu. Composer – Vidhyasagar. This simple sweet melody is the main love theme of the movie. It appears first when Srikanth sees Sneha and falls in love with her instantly. It continues to play in all the scenes where Srikanth chases her to find her place and identity.

Track 8 is from Porkaalam. Composer – Deva. This haunting melody is Meena’s theme in the movie. Right from the beginning, ever silent Meena expresses her love for Murali through this melody. Once everything collapses and Murali decides to marry a disabled girl, the shattered world of Meena is heard through the orchestral version of the same theme in the climax. The impact of the orchestral version is higher as we audience don’t know what is going to happen and we get shocked to see Meena walking with the disabled girl, whom Murali is getting married to.