Raja songs that're MSV'ish (or KVM'ish)

[app_engine]

A Raja song - that is a song from his prime period and not current - can easily be identified simply by the way it `sounds'...Small time orchestras used to struggle to mimick and even some ambitious MD's who wanted to sound the same way couldn't master it so easily until they could get sufficient tools / machinery / technicians later on (e.g. Deva's Kizhakku karai).

This was mainly due to his exclusive orchestration / arrangement techniques and probably not sound engg. as he had to use the same facilities that every one had in Chennai, except in rare cases like Priya, Anandhakkummi, Dhalapathi where other facilities were supposedly used.

Now the purpose of this thread is to locate and analyze those songs which didn't sound the typical Raja style but more like that of his predecessors. Especially focussing on what elements made them sound like a MSV or KVM song...

I want to nominate the VJ song `en kalyANa vaibhOgham unnOdu thAn' from azhagE unnai ArAdhikkiREn, which to me sounds like a typical MSV song. ..is it because it's VJ? Or because of the main melody? Or the traditional style usage of veeNai and percussion? In any case, I don't find much of a typical Raja touch (though this is a lovely song)...

[S.Balaji]

App ...

Sound start ! :D

Before En kalayana vaibogam, I too have the feeling of MSV melody in CHELLA PILLAI SARAVANAN - Penn jenmam - KJY & PS !

and also kurinijimalaril vazindha rasathai - AUA ( forget the preludes & interludes - just the tune )

& Megame thoodhaagavaa !

Finally - Ore naal unai naan nilavil

Again, removing the interludes & preludes, I always get a feeling like listening to a MSV composition !

Now, on En kalyana vaibogam - may be due to the carnatic base , I think its Madhyamavathi ....not sure but which is being used regularly in many songs & this could be one reason

Will catch up with you tomorrow :D

[Sanjeevi]

I want to nominate the VJ song `en kalyANa vaibhOgham unnOdu thAn' from iLamai oonjalAdukiRadhu, which to me sounds like a typical MSV song. ..is it because it's VJ? Or because of the main melody? Or the traditional style usage of veeNai and percussion? In any case, I don't find much of a typical Raja touch (though this is a lovely song)...

app_engine, the song was in film "Azhake unnai arathikkiren" not Ilamai oonjaladukirathu.

[app_engine]

You're right Sanjeevi, I corrected it.

Thanks

[app_engine]

Balaji aka viv_richards:-) (chummA pugundhu `dhool ' paNNareenga)...

Nice thoughts there...

However, I believe the initial push from Raja was to sound entirely different...which can easily be heard in the way annakkiLi / badhrakALi / uRavAdum nenjam etc. sounded. Even when he composed songs on specific rAghams or semi classicals, he used to resort to unique style of instrumental parts...to me chinnakkaNNan azhaikkiRAn or mayilE mayilE do not sound like of any of his predecessors...

OTOH, en kalyANa vaibhOgam sounds like an unadulterated prior era song - probably a deliberate attempt to prove that I can do such songs as well? Or did Sridhar insist that it sounded that way ? (Much like the `nAn siriththAl deepAvaLi' & `nee oru kAdhal sangeedham' in nAyakan which were composed to reflect the time periods and so sound like IR's predecessors...)

It would be interesting to know...

[app_engine]

And IMHO it's impossible to strip the preludes / interludes etc. from a Raja song to compare to others, as many a time that's where we find the uniqueness.

But kalyANa vaibhOgham can't boast much in those aspects as well...

[RR]

I used to find 'kannan oru kaikuzhanthai' (badhrakali) very MSV-ish. At least the melody part.

Are we counting Annakkili? :smile2:

[Sanjeevi]

definitely IR has inspired by MSV at his earlier days. But right from Annakkili he has own style ofcourse with MSV inspiration. Then he inspired by Western classicals of Mozarts, etc.

[rajdes]

1. Thirutheril varum silaiyo - Naan Vaazha Vaippaen. But even here, while the prelude doesnt give IR away, the interludes do. The tune alone reminds a lot of MSV, though. However, watching this song is at your own risk - KRV is more 'silai varum ther' than 'theril varum silai'.
2. Vasantha Kaala Kolangal - Thiagam - minimal orchestration so MSV feel is quite high due to the tune
Thats what I could think of.

[umaramesh]

Nee kettal naan matten endra solven kanna(again vani)
Enn ullil engo engum keetham(tune part only).
Nenjil ulla kayam ondru
Vazkeya veezam

I am not going into technical aspects, I am saying this by just listening and you will not tell these songs are composed IR.

ramesh

[rajasaranam]

Songs from Aval Appadithaan like Paneer Pushpangale and Uravugal Thodarkathai do Remind me of MSV style composition. Especially the tunes are so MSV'ish that for long I had thought them to be MSV's songs.
Same happened with Annai Oar Aalayam Wherein Nanthavanathil vantha kuyilae, Amma nee sumantha pillai and Appanae Appanae Pillaiyaar Appanae were thought by me to be MSV songs until I came to know nathiyoram was also from the same film and had my doubts that it should be Raja. When Checked upon I was really astonished to know the film was composed by IR.
In the early years atleast till the 80's IR had a great influence of MSV in many songs... [apart from the folk songs and Western style orchestrated songs]... only after that he found his own style and moved on IMO.

[umaramesh]

To continue with Rajasaranam posting I would like to tell one example. just compare sridhar movie songs like Illami unjal&Azhgae unnai, you can visualise MSV style in these movies.
In later stage just hear THENDRALAYEE ENNAI THODU. drastic change in style.

regards
ramesh

[S.Balaji]

Songs from Aval Appadithaan like Paneer Pushpangale and Uravugal Thodarkathai do Remind me of MSV style composition. Especially the tunes are so MSV'ish that for long I had thought them to be MSV's songs.
Same happened with Annai Oar Aalayam Wherein Nanthavanathil vantha kuyilae, Amma nee sumantha pillai and Appanae Appanae Pillaiyaar Appanae were thought by me to be MSV songs until I came to know nathiyoram was also from the same film and had my doubts that it should be Raja. When Checked upon I was really astonished to know the film was composed by IR.
In the early years atleast till the 80's IR had a great influence of MSV in many songs... [apart from the folk songs and Western style orchestrated songs]... only after that he found his own style and moved on IMO.

Rajasaranam

Believe me . When I heard ORAY NAAL UNAI NAAN for the first time , I mean when I was doing my schooling , I immediately concluded that it was a MSV song ! only to be told by my friends that its Raja's ! :D

Probably as Ramesh points out, Sridhar must have expected that old MSV melody from Raja which inturn he richly gave in Ilamai oonjalaadugiradhu

but you can see the sea difference in Ninaivellam Nitya & later Thendrale ennai thodu . It was all vintage IR !

This Kurinji malaril vazindha rasathai - AUA gives me nostalgic memories of my school days :D

Another song THENDRAL NEE THINGAL NEE , Thandhuviten ennai ( Vikram's ) , the tunes resembled MSV but the preludes & interludes were all typical IR ! :D

[S.Balaji]

However, I believe the initial push from Raja was to sound entirely different...which can easily be heard in the way annakkiLi / badhrakALi / uRavAdum nenjam etc. sounded. Even when he composed songs on specific rAghams or semi classicals, he used to resort to unique style of instrumental parts...to me chinnakkaNNan azhaikkiRAn or mayilE mayilE do not sound like of any of his predecessors...

OTOH, en kalyANa vaibhOgam sounds like an unadulterated prior era song - probably a deliberate attempt to prove that I can do such songs as well? Or did Sridhar insisted that it sounded that way ? (Much like the `nAn siriththAl deepAvaLi' & `nee oru kAdhal sangeedham' in nAyakan which were composed to reflect the time periods and so sound like IR's predecessors...)

It would be interesting to know...

App....

Yeah. One reason could be the VJ factor .

Have you forgotten SOLAI KUYILE KALAI KADHIRE - Ponnu oorukku pudhusu :D

& ADIPENNE PONUNJAL AADUM ILAMAI

I believe IR wanted to be different straight from Annakili . As the movie warranted folk , the songs were composed as such
but NAAN PESA VANDHEN SOLLATHAAN - Raja was on his own !

He gave a stunning DEVAN THIRUCHABAI MALARGALE

Mind you , all these were his initial years

ORU NAAL UNNODU ORU NAAL - He clearly moved ahead of times through scintillating violin / flute interludes !

after this, its was IR all the way no ? :D

[thumburu]

rajdes, even I wanted to mention the same song "vasantha kaala kolangaL" . From thyagam, "Nallvarkellam " tune is so MSVish that I almost thought it was by him.
The reason for "en kalyana vaibogham" is the Madhyamavathi scale that was used too often by MSV with VJ combination in many songs like "keLviyin nayagane" , "sugamaana raagangaLe" , "thirumaale seeraadum manivanna" , "charam charamaa shenbagapoo" and many more songs. Few early days IR songs had stronger melody base like "kannan oru kai kuzhandhai", "thaalaattu pLLai undu thaalaattu" which sound MSVish. But there were also songs like "kola kolaiya mandhirikka" from PVK which seems to be straight from GKV school[ reminds me of GKV's "raaja paarunga" ] , Salil's school "chittira chevvaanam sirikka kanden" [KVG] .
Why? even "ellorum paattu paadungaL" from Udhayageetham, a much later day film , seems to sound like MSV composition. I even doubt if MSV only tuned it. It is very non IR like, when compared to the other songs of the same film.

[rajasaranam]

Rajasaranam

Believe me . When I heard ORAY NAAL UNAI NAAN for the first time , I mean when I was doing my schooling , I immediately concluded that it was a MSV song ! only to be told by my friends that its Raja's ! :D

Probably as Ramesh points out, Sridhar must have expected that old MSV melody from Raja which inturn he richly gave in Ilamai oonjalaadugiradhu

but you can see the sea difference in Ninaivellam Nitya & later Thendrale ennai thodu . It was all vintage IR !

This Kurinji malaril vazindha rasathai - AUA gives me nostalgic memories of my school days :D

Another song THENDRAL NEE THINGAL NEE , Thandhuviten ennai ( Vikram's ) , the tunes resembled MSV but the preludes & interludes were all typical IR ! :D

Balaji,
Another Observation I have is for the period 1976 to 1980 I used to get confused as to who composed which song. They both were competing at great level to give quality songs and sometimes I had confused on the reverse too >>> songs like Vidiya Vidiya Solli Tharuven and Raagangal pathinaaru were thought by me to be IR's until I gained some expertise in finding out some uniqueness/nuances in their compositions and finalize on who was the composer :)

[rajasaranam]

Add 'Look Love me Dear' from simla special to this reverse confusion :)
I think they both were exchanging Ideas and compositional styles during this period until IR moved on finding his own path.

[rajasaranam]

Look Love me dear is a very interesting song where in I find shades of IR in the prelude and Pallavi and goes on to become a branded MSV song later somewhere before the first interlude with a very good orchestration and that typical Tabla beats adding beauty to a very melodious Charanam.

[Nakeeran]

Thoduvadhenna thendralo malargalo - GKV composition often make me think about IR :D

Did IR experiment with this style of composition ?

The way the rhythm guitar chords & the manner flute was applied & also the bass guitar during this song .

Any idea pls ? :D

[umaramesh]

To my view THODUVATHENNA continued as NAAN PESA VANTHEN in terms of orchestra style/manner of flute etc. Did IR worked with GKV in that movie? if yes I think IR would have played major part.

As discussed lot of times THEN SINTHU THEY VANAM. absolutely IR style.

ramesh

[balaji]

MSV-ish one more song - SPB's 'Pongi varum Gangai Nadhi' from Mudhal Vasantham. The song and the orchestration resemble MSV's songs

Bala

[vasanth2006]

As Rajasaranam told earlier,

raja has heavy MSV shades during 1976-1980. but not completely. He has his vintage style during that period also.
great examples are 1) senthoora poove from "16 vayathinile" 2) ayiram malargale "niram maratha pookkal"3) etho ninaivugal from "agal vilakku".

from 1980 onwards, the pure raja style elevated. in that period, there is no MSV shades. but starting of 80's has very very very minimal shades.

80's is the golden period of raja.

[app_engine]

Wow, a lot of responses:-)

Looks like most of the Raja songs that resembled the previous saga were in his early films...and most of them were for either formidable directors / production houses still holding ground or specifically for Shivaji films...It's quite possible that Raja was still trying to establish -despite the few grand hits starting with annakkiLi- and hence accommodated the requirements of the veterans, which often resulted in the songs sounding like that of MSV/KVM...

Another song, that I can think of is the `sindhu nadhikkarai Oram' from nalladhoru kudumbam...a TMS/PS song (possibly to match Shivaji's voice) itself can sound like that of a prior era. In addition, there are minimal prelude / interludes (ofcourse the opening sound is kind of unique / novel which showed the spirit of Raja)...and the melody is close to being semi-classical... Especially if one listens to the saraNam alone, it'll be easily concluded that the song is by KVM:-) (`theLLu thamizh silambukaLai, aLLi avaL aNindhu koNdAL' onwards)

And I must say, the melody is beautiful in this song too...

[vijayr]

There were quite a few that were MSVish or shall we say old HFMish :-) We have discussed this before. Here areva few I remember

1. Naan pesa vandhen - palooti valartha kiLi - great song, minimal interludes/orchestration, whole song is only about 3:30 with emphasis on melody

2. Another one is "kaadhal oviyam kanden" from Kavikuyil. No prelude, the song starts of with just a humming and strong emphasis on melody. Maybe the best song sung by Sujatha ever for IR, although it happened to be her first. She sang this recently in an interview that I saw somewhere.

3. Maalai ILamanadhir thondri - avaL oru pachchaikizhandhai-was listening to this just yesterday. The tune is 60ish while the prelude has shades of early 70sRDB. Listen to it here
http://www.dhool.com/sotd2/448.html

I could easily imagine PBS and PS singing this song for MSV

Other songs that come to mind, where the interludes could have had an IR touch I dont remember:

chella piLLai saravanan from Penn jenmam

sugamo aayiram from thuNaiyiruppaaL meenakshi - great song

enna solli naan ezhudha - Rani theni - PS -the interludes gives IR away to a certain extent, but everything else points to an older style

moha sangeetham by PS from KaNNan oru kaikizhandhai - no prelude, the song starts off immediately but the guitar/violin bits in the interlude could give IR away. Tune is MSVish.

There should be few more from obscure films in the late 70s where IR had a minimal style and very short preludes/interludes and emphasized more on melody.



"MSV-ish one more song - SPB's 'Pongi varum Gangai Nadhi' from Mudhal Vasantham. The song and the orchestration resemble MSV's songs "

Balaji, it is "Ponni nadhi veLLam vandhu". Yeah I too get the feeling that the song has a throwback style. It sounds so out of place in that album, that I wonder if it wasnt composed earlier for some other film by IR but used for this album.


"paarijaadha poovu" from later year IRs can be considered, along the lines of "naan sirithaal depaavali", although I believe the latter was intentionally made to look like an old song.

Sometimes the feel of listening to an old song can be intentionally brought out by usage of certain instruments/olden day singers like Jikki or by singers imitating past singers (like MV doing a CS Jayaram or Mano imitating TMS in Iruvar) I guess we shouldnt be considering those kind of songs too much

[app_engine]

Yes, you're right vijayr...we shouldn't be considering deliberate mimicks of prior era...like 'nAn siriththAl deepAvaLi'.

However, the question is, is `en kalyANa vaibhOgham' a similar deliberate attempt to mimick MSV or a natural IR output of the time period or the influence of the director (which we've seen often with IR, who gives different types of music for different team mates)?

OTOH, is it that the songs that sound 100% IR are deliberate attempts to break from the prior influence, and thus set a new trend? (somewhat like the probable efforts of ARR NOT to sound like IR...and thus set a new trend)

[vijayr]

azhage unnai aaradhikkiren also had naane naana,abhishega nerathhthil etc. so I am not sure if Sridhar had influenced IR for just one song. IR-Sridhar films saw IR experimenting more and resembling his predecessors less. Regarding "en kalyaana vaibhogam" I feel it is semi-MSVish, not to the extent of some of the other songs I have mentioned in the list above. Maybe the VJ factor more than the composition itself reminds of MSV songs. IR did a better job of masking his influences later in his career. Pudhu maapiLLaikku from naan paarthadhile or maalayil yaaro(from SDB's Khilte hain gul yaahan)cannot be guessed at all.

[baroque]

VijayR, Your observation on 'Naan pesa vandhen.....' is 100% true! This song is very much HFMish melody! Everytime I listen to Amar prem 'kuch to ....' I always have the urge to listen to Naan pesa vandhen.... The sustained melody in both the songs explicitly possess the calming Raga bhaavam - Khamaj. Pure Classic!

[S.Balaji]

Naan oru pon oviyam kanden idhiley - Kannil theriyum kadhaigal

I get a feeling like KVM's style . Again the tunes part only & not the ludes ! :D

[swathy]

Then sindhudhe vaanam

Ore naal unnai naan

kannan oru kai kuzhandhai

[Nakeeran]

Then sindhudhe vaanam

:idea: :?:


Is it not by GKV ?

[rajdes]

Today, I read a post by Saravanan in VJ thread which attributed to IR a song that I have been associating with Vijayabhaskar - mEgame thoodaga Vaa from kannan oru kai kozhandai. Of all IR songs, this is the most un-IR-like song I have ever heard.

[kiru]

Very good topic, to me 'kannan oru kai kuzhandai' is the one that immediately comes to my mind (mentioned already here).