Highway - A.R.Rahman

As it happens with any A.R.Rahman song, when I first heard Pataakha Guddi (Female Version) I didn’t understand anything, though it doesn’t have as wilder a melodic pattern as in Phir Se Udd Chala from Rockstar - Imtiaz Ali, A.R.Rahman and Irshad Kamil’s last spectacular collaboration. Typical of most of Rahman’s songs these days, the flow of the folk melody doesn’t follow a predictable pattern, the song hits the lowest registers within first three lines and springs back to action quickly into the Maula tera section that ends hitting the core spiritual hook of the song - Ali Oh! Sometimes the verses are thrown by the vocals not so much like they are singing them with a melody but like poetic verses set to a rhythm. However, soon everything in the song always leads back to the most melodious, affecting and divine part of the song — the call to Ali. That which the Ali portions of the song invokes in me, only A.R.Rahman’s music can invoke that. The overall template of the song is rather conventional and complete with two short and sweet rustic flute interludes. Can it get any more rustically folkish than that Chaddiyaan Doriyaan phrase accompanied aptly by flute? But, Rahman being Rahman, adds a funky western twist to the folk with that “Ooh o ooh o” riff. The riff gets it addictive quality not just by the musical notes, but by the sound of the voice that sings the notes.

There are many examples - Anuradha Sriram’s voice in the interlude of Desh ki mitti, Febi in Oh Maria, Swarnalatha in Andha Arabic Kadaloram, Malgudi Subha in Thanga Thaamarai Magalae, Anupama in Dil se re and many more. These are parts where Rahman treats a voice like an instrument, where besides the music of the melody, the sound of the music too is the inseparable part of the music. In other words, if you quiz me to guess the song with a piano version of these parts, I would never be able to.

The other version of Pataakha Guddi in the voice of Rahman himself is sheer magic. It can’t get any wilder. Explosive is the first word that came to my mind when I first heard a very low quality version of two-minute audio clip of the song that someone recorded when they played the song in a press meet last week. I was stunned by the song like I was when I first heard Gurus of Peace which is a rework of Rahman’s Poraalae Ponnuthaayi. I learnt from Rahman’s interview that his version of Pataakha Guddi was the original version and the female version happened after he saw the film and wanted the song to be in female voice for the film. I guess this is the first time in the history of film music, where a re-arranged version ends up having a more stream lined conventional film song structure than the original which is all scrambled and goes all freaky all over. The attitude in Rahman’s singing, the ever-changing rhythm pattern with one pattern followed by a catchier pattern, the stunning hard rock interlude that has space for dholaks and harmoniums too — song is a blast all the way. Rahman’s attitude and style of staccato singing makes the even portions that I felt like a plain recital in the female version sound more musical. Even the Ali parts feels much more heartfelt when Rahman sings it. And he sings his other song Maahi Ve with an equally affecting romantic fervour.

The melody of Maahi Ve is an exercise in extempore, I mean how could one deliberately think a melody with those unsettling pauses between the phrases that carries the song to its sweetest spot — tu saath hai, and not to forget the way Rahman goes on to melodically stretch the Ve of Maahi ve. And the following strings section takes it further from there to insanely unpredictable directions. What is also startling is the main clap rhythm pattern of the song is same as that of Pataakha Guddi (also Tu Mun Shudhi), proves that Rahman realised that he doesn’t need to create a whole new soundscape every time to Rahmanize a song, which he can do when he is half asleep. As I always say, Rahman’s sound these days is in the melody, which is evident from the breath of fresh air that hits you when the song takes a turn with Yeh Jeena bhi. And the unexpected end, Rahman doesn’t even bother to repeat the main stanza again.

Wanna mash up is the odd man out in the soundtrack. The main hook is very groovy and addictive and each repetition is catchier than the one before with thumper layers of synth beats, but it meanders a lot in the middle. I understand you want every soundtrack of yours to be eclectic, but AR, I don’t want you to mash up every soundtrack of yours with one such rap/hip-hop song. I must also admit that I was disappointed with Magudi from Kadal when I first heard it on CD, but when the song played in the opening credits in the movie, it felt so right there. You never know. Implosive Silence is a sonic experiment like Acid Darbari. Sounds like a cue from A.R.Rahman’s score for Gravity, that is if he were the composer for Gravity. Melody is trapped and drowned in a sound machine. The soundscape is spatial, melody is a mystery, and the mood is contemplative or rather meditative. It certainly triggers some inexplicable moods points as we travel with the song. Someone’s in the movie is seriously suffocating with intense emotions suppressed hard and tight in their Silence.

Sooha Saha is everything a lullaby should be — melodic, melancholic, quiet and calming. Soothingly rendered by Zeb and Alia Bhatt, the song has that gentle swing in its rhythm and melody, typical of any lullaby. Don’t remember a song in recent past which had such long unpunctuated phrases in the melody without ever slipping its emotional core on its way. It is leisurely paced, but yet feels so tight because of the melodic grip. Rahman repeats the non-intrusive orchestral style of many of his other lullabies. The brief and almost no instrumental interludes shows that Rahman isn’t interested or doesn’t have time or patience for elaborate instrumental interludes anymore. But, how can something that is not in the song could be a problem in the song, so, no complaints.

Wall to wall synth and a classical melody is a perfect recipe for Vintage Rahman. Whenever I listen to Tu Mun Shudi, I think that Rahman should make one soundtrack full of songs orchestrated with loops and Synth and no real instruments. Well, at least I get one for now in Tu Kuja Mann Kuja. Finally Sunidhi Chauhan gets a worthy song from Rahman, and she nails it perfectly. So, does Shwetha Pandit in Heera, finally she gets a song of her own to sing in Rahman concerts. Just when you think Rahman is at his best with Synth, he slaps a Heera in your face, where he goes all acoustics in its orchestration — those breezy strings, the english woodwind, the solo violin, santoor, shakers and what not! The honey dripping in the melody through and through transports you to an all-green fantasy high land where you will sense all things pure, serene and divine.

I am shocked that there is a song like Kahaan Hoon Main in Highway, which sounds like a song Rahman made for me, for where I am in my life now. Is it only me? Two months back I wanted something else, I had made some drastic decisions, but finally landed somewhere I never wanted then or I expected to be, now that I am here it feels like it couldn’t have been any better, but still there is fear that anything may go wrong anytime. Oh my god! I just can’t believe this. I realize how intensely and intricately personal a relationship one can have with a song and that no one but you can understand what a particular piece of music does or means to you. The melancholy in the melody is just killing me. What happens between a listener and a piece of music he is listening to in that dark mysterious space enclosed by the walls of the person’s mind, body and soul is what happens to him and him only, and no one can know it better than that person. Next time when someone tells me, Lattoo Latto from Ghajini is their all time favourite A.R.Rahman song, I will not argue, if I do, I am a “ARRivu Ketta Mundam”.

Film Score Live to Projection

When I was just beginning to discover Hollywood Film Scores and composers, I would go by bus, all the way from Thiruvanmiyur to Spencer Plaza Music World and Land Mark just to hang around the “Soundtrack” shelf that had hundreds of Hollywood Film score CDs. I would read reviews of the film scores online and then would go there to check if it was available in the store. For almost an year, I was just looking. After a lot of research online, I decided to buy one compilation CD pack. John Williams’s Greatest Hits 1969 - 1999 is the first Hollywood Score CD I bought. I had’t seen any of the films, the score of which I was listening to, but every single piece of music in that CD gave me an experience I never had before. I was awestruck by the sheer power and sound of the symphony orchestra, and of course John Williams’ robust orchestration and instantly catchy and hummable motifs.

In one of those visits, I stumbled upon 20th Anniversary edition of John Williams’ E.T Film score on CD, and when I read about it online I learnt that the score in 20th Anniversary edition is the one recorded live when it was performed and conducted by John Williams, to the movie that was simultaneously being projected on a big screen. I didn’t know that it was possible. That was my introduction to the concept of performing the film score live to the projection of the film in a front of an audience.



Much later, I got to know from Satyajit Ray’s article on Background scores that even in the silent era, musicians were hired locally to perform music to the projection of the film. Concept of background score was in, even before Sound came to be in films.

Then came Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Howard Shore’s score for the trilogy. I was closely following anything and everything related to Lord of the Rings, and again heard that they have started performing the LOTR score live to Projection all over the world. I have seen hundreds of user videos on YouTube of these live performances and ever since it has been my dream to watch a film with its score performed live.



My dream is about to come true on 31st December 2013, and what makes it even more special is that, the film I am going to watch with the live film score is a silent film. The Artist (Score Composed by Ludovic Bource), which recently won Best Picture and Best Film Score Oscars, is the film I will be watching with the live score. I am going to experience a movie exactly the way people experienced movies almost a century ago. Excited beyond words!

However, I really can’t predict what the experience is going to be like. How can I concentrate simultaneously on the visuals and the performance of the orchestra? Or should I just not watch the orchestra’s performance? But, I am a fanatic of watching an orchestra, with violinists in the different layers of string section moving their bows in all different directions and yet collectively the music sounding perfectly in harmony. Maybe, I should just watch the film, and just experience the live sound of the music. At least if it is a film with dialogues and sound that can roughly guide me through the narrative, I can watch more of the live performance of the music and less of the visuals of the film. But, it is a Silent film.

I have heard Artist score before. It is a classic Hollywood film orchestral score operatic with lush strings, Xylophones, blended with smooth velvety Jazz strains. I don’t remember the score much though. Should I listen to the score at least once before going to the concert hall? Or is it best if I don’t, and give myself the gift of surprise? Or maybe I should watch the movie once? No, don’t. Maybe, the music will come rushing back to my memory once I begin to watch the film. With a film like LOTR, I know exactly what cue plays where, and I guess that is a totally different experience, which, watching Artist with live score is not going to be, but this could be an equally rewarding experience in a different way. And I am curious to see how the conductor knows when to start a cue when the movie is playing.

I always wondered how they would balanced different layers of sounds (the ambient sound, dialogues and orchestral score) in a movie live in such concerts - I cannot know in this concert. For that I have to wait till May, when Michael Giacchino’s score for new Star Trek is performed live to Projection again at Royal Albert Hall. Anyways, I am all set to watch my experience my first film score live to projection.

Now, which Indian film you would want to watch like this, with the score performed live to projection? Is that even possible? You need a Symphony orchestra, a rock band, a Jazz band, a folk ensemble and a wholesome ensemble of Indian instrumentalists all in one stage. Isn’t it?

Happy New Year!

And yeah, backgroundscore.com just crossed a Million Views. Yay!

Finally, my wish came true. Watched a movie with the live performance of the background score. London Symphony Orchestra and the sound design was so perfect that few minutes into the film, I forgot that the score was being performed live. Also, with only the sheet music stand lights kept ON, the orchestra was also relatively invisible on stage. After the end of the end credits of the movie, Orchestra played the brassy rock and roll end credits music again, and the effect of brass section in the orchestra live has to be heard to be believed. Incredible experience!

There is Pixar in Concert next month where they perform musical cues from all Pixar movies, I couldn't book the tickets online, looks like they are sold out already. I have to check with box-office again. How an earth can I miss Pixar concert! Scores of animation films are most musical of all movie scores now.

Background Score in a Song

A film director gives a composer all the information that he could about the situation in the film where he needs a song to convey or heighten the emotion and help the narrative. But, before making the film, or shooting the song, he could only have a vague idea of how exactly he is planning to shoot the song. He wouldn’t have finalised what exactly is going to be in the song - the scenarios, the location, the shots, the costume, visual style etc., you only have an emotion, or an action that has to happen in the song that takes the film’s narrative forward. A composer has to compose a melody that evokes the needed emotion, but in an Indian film song, there are these abstract instrumental sections called interludes that connects different stanzas. Now, how and why the interludes came to be in an Indian film song’s structure is a totally another topic worthy of elaborate discussion. Now how does a composer decide what should happen musically in these interludes? In Indian films most film directors have little to no idea of what to do with the interludes and what to ask for. It is there because it has to be there.

Maniratnam tells Ilaiyaraaja that he wants a song (Sundari Kannal Oru Sedhi from Thalapathi) on Love and War, about a king who goes to War and his wife longing for the King’s homecoming. While the stanzas take care of love and longing part of the premise, Ilaiyaraaja wrote intricately layered symphonic piece for Choir and Orchestra that has precision of that of a background score of a grand Hollywood battle scene. It is as if Ilaiyaraaja had a visual in front of him to write the score. Looking at battle sequence that plays over the interludes of the song, it is evident that Ilaiyaraaja had nothing in front of him. Staging and producing a battle sequence that matches the power and chaotic clarity of Ilaiyaraaja’s orchestral work in this song is impossible even today with the monies that is flowing in Indian film industry.



From various musicians’ interviews I have heard how the song was recorded in Bombay, and it was clearly much before the movie was shot.

Now, again, with A.R.Rahman coming into the scene, music world turned flat. I am sure, if Thomas L.Friedman had known about Tamil film music, he would have included a chapter about A.R.Rahman in his book “The World is Flat”. There was nothing rigid, nothing concrete. So, for the song Uyire in Bombay, A.R.Rahman gave the song without any interludes, it just had a bar count to help Maniratnam plan his shots.

Maniratnam in Baradwaj Rangan’s “Conversation with Maniratnam” says,

“Infact, when we shot the song, we didn’t even have the interludes. We just had a bar count. We had to tell our story within that and get it to flow, and Rahman scored the interludes based on this flow”

Now that is really interesting. This after-approach makes a composer’s job easier, he knows exactly what is required now, and this being a song, composer can take the emotion to any heights with his music. It is not like the background score of a scene, where you are not allowed to go beyond a threshold of emotional decibels, where it easily gets excessively manipulative. If Maniratnam hadn’t revealed it, I am not sure if any of us would have wondered about such a possibility. With the song in entirety being so wholesome and perfect, you never really sit and think about individual parts and about what came first.



The ache in the Saarangi, the longing in the cooing flute, the Tabla rhythm that underlines the turbulence in the wind chasing the lady and acceleration in the rhythm to underline the anxiety, the alaap of the voices adding further to the oozing emotion - the instrumental interludes of Uyire song are perfect scored to the Picture. Maybe, A.R.Rahman would still have done something interesting if he had been asked to deliver the complete song with interludes before the shoot, but why bother if you can be more precise and get something as magical.

I always felt a connection between the interludes of Uyire song from Bombay and that of Kappaleri Poyachu from Indian. Similar instrumentation, the precision of the sync between the music and the visuals is equally astonishing in Kappaleri Poyachu. Ah! Rahman’s “la la la la laa lala la” when Kamal and Suganya find each other - unbelievable! I think Rahman composed this interlude also after the song was shot. What say?

Six Years!!!!!!

Ah! It has been Six Years since it began. I have hardly ever spoken to anyone in person a word about background score. It happened here, only here. It started like a fun quizzing exercise with me posting background score clips and the visitors of the blog guessing the name of the film from the background score clip. I had so much time back then that I worked six months collecting background score clips of Indian films from all over internet to start this blog. I wanted to have the content for at least first three months ready, before I published the blog to public.

Very soon, I got bored of the quiz. I started writing elaborate rambling pieces on background score. That wasn't an entirely original idea. It was at that time I discovered Lord of the Rings, the movie and the score. I became a huge fan of Lord of the Rings Trilogy Score and started searching and reading everything that is there on internet about Howard Shore's score. There were a lot of articles extensively dissecting and analyzing each and every layer in all the cues in the LOTR Soundtrack. I wondered why we don’t have such pieces written on Tamil film scores. I wanted to read such articles on Tamil film scores, and since no one was writing about it, I decided to write what I wanted to read.

I wish I had that natural flair for writing. It takes a lot of time for me to process a thought, achieve clarity and then condensing that clear thought into a piece takes even more time and finally when I post it, I would have already worked on it for a week or a month or sometime even a year.

I don’t think about who would read when typing long indulgent posts on background score. I realized that such write-ups eventually find its readers. I get emails and comments on Posts, years after I wrote them.

Recently I stumbled upon a blog who follows my writings and mention my name in one of his posts,

“Critiquing cinema is a noble profession, an art at that; read Roger Ebert or Raja Sen or Baradwaj Rangan or PS Suresh Kumar. And like those folks helped me see films from a totally different angle, I write for that one kid out there who's head is buzzing with questions on the nature of art, conformity with the masses, tools for objectivity and the auteur's intention behind the making of every shot. True, watching cinema is a solitary experience but discussing it can be an enriching one.”

No. I am certainly not delusional to believe that I am one on par with others in that group of Celebrity Cinema Critics, but I agree with what he said about the purpose of writing on an art.

Thanks to the regular readers and followers of this blog, and all the forums and social networking sites, where a link to a post in this blog triggered some conversation, that taught me a lot about music, background score, and music appreciation.

This space has given me and taught me so much, and the amount of learning and its subsequent effect on the things I do in everyday life are so intertwined that I can’t even begin to explain. If there was no backgroundscore.com, I wonder how I would have spent all those hundreds of hours of my life that I was lost in watching movies, ripping and editing background score clips and writing about them for 442 blog posts and many unpublished drafts.

There is so much more that I want to learn and write about, there are so many scribbled ideas to give a final shape to. There are hundreds of Ilaiyaraaja’s film scores, I want to listen to and explore various musical ideas Ilaiyaraaja executed in them. The site badly needs a more professional look and design. There are lots of audio links in many blog posts that don't work. I hope to fix them up soon.

Thanks everyone for being a part of www.backgroundscore.com

Happy Diwali!

Favourite post in backgroundscore.com – Do you have one or maybe more? Let me know.