Malayalam Film Music

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thanks RR,
i was in doubt.
back later

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let's talk mal music, and not just the semi-classical variety.
unlike in tamil cinema, discussing mal albums is difficult, simply because it's not often that u find a (post-80s) film with more than 3 songs, and some of the best songs i have heard are in films that have just 2-3 numbers, or even less.
i would like to take up the album, "NakhakshathangaL", meaning fingernail-prints, for discussion.
starring vineeth, monisha (i think both debuted in this one), thilakan and jayachandran (the singer) in a delicious cameo, the film is directed by hariharan, one of the finest talents we have seen. the script is by MT (Vasudevan Nair), music by Ravi (Bombay) and lyrics by ONV Kurup. The filom won the best actress award for monisha, who is sadly not amidst us.

the songs are:

manjaL prasaadhavum - chitra
neeraaduvaan - yesudas
aareyum - "
kEvalam - jayachandran
vreeLa - " (a poem recital)

the film is a beautiful love story, told in the simplest manner possible and peopled by some unforgettable characters. the picturisation is par excellence, as is every other aspect of the film.
grab the album (its usually available in combination with panchagni and kaathOdu kaathOram, which we can discuss later), and if u can, grab a video as well. you will fall in love with it straightaway and be hooked for life.

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cram:

Chitra won her second national award for "Manjal prasaadhavum.....", which is a simple, but pleasant song.

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Wow! I never knew so many people participating in this forum knew malayalam. Makes me wonder if there are many Malayalees in Toronto. Unfortunately I don't know Malayalam and can't contribute much to this thread. But I have been a daily silent spectator. There was this joke about me actually trying to learn Malayalam about when I was fourteen. But I couldn't because it had to be all self taught. I still remember how to write some of the alphabets though. The biggest problem I had was that I didn't know if I should pronounce words as said in tamil or some other way. Because when you hear people talk in Malayalam in movies, they sound different, although in english, it looks very similar to tamil.

GV
you say 'manjal prasadvam' is a simple pleasant song that she won a national award for. I have always thought that to win a national award, the song had to have some kind of strong carnatic or hindustani base. Is this song as such?

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aruvi:

The difficulty for Malayalees in pronouncing Tamil words, and for Tamils to pronounce Malayalam words "properly" is because of the fact that there is a large number of common words written the same way, but pronounced differently in each language. In Malayalam, almost every sound has a specific letter for it. For example, the Tamil letter "ka" has 4 variations in Malayalam, ka, kha, ga, gha. This continues for "tha", "pa", "cha", and on and on and on. More than half of all words in a typical TFM song could mean the same thing in Malayalam, but are pronounced differently. This is one reason why KJY and other singers from Kerala may have an occasional "difficulty" with some Tamil words.

Talking about national awards, it is true that a lot of national awards were given to music and songs based of classical music. But this is not always true. Of the 7 national awards that KJY has won, I don't think there were more than 2 that were really classical based. Malayalam Film Music, unlike the Tamil field, is still very much melody based. This, of course, means that karnatic music is still a major influence. However, I think it is the melody that is the deciding factor.

Another big difference between TFM and MFM is the depth of the relatively small MFM field. There are 10 or more very talented MDs at any given time in MFM. Many of them are national award winners and are well known for their skills. This is true with actors, directors and singers too. Because of this, a discussion like who is better, (for example, MSV, IR or ARR?), will never be possible in MFM.

I hope that I have answered your questions without boring you too much with my long posting!

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RR:

At this time, I can't remember the song "Kanagaangi...". I have a basement full of audio and video cassettes, but my MFM collection is not much organized (yet). If I am successful in locating the song, I will let you know.

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GV,
thanks in advance.

Re your comment MFM is still melody-based, I heard Vidyasagar has become a great attraction in MFM lately with many rhythm-based numbers. I'm not sure about this. Any idea?

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Aruvi & GV, on my first day in kerala as a backpacker I walked into a music shop & asked for any 5 cass of the owners choice bc I didn't know any and that song 'Manjal prasadavum'wason it.The other songs in that film r also classics & the film I believe won awards galore. ^ years later I now read & write Malayalam as well as tamil(I learnt from watching movies). If u know tamil Mal is not as hard as it might sound. I can easily pronounce those sounds u never knew existed in your mouth. Onnu sramitchu nokku. Malayala bhasha padikkyan atthram kashtam onnum alla.

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Well done, raju. It may not be that hard , if one tries hard enough. The difficulty is mostly with the finer points of the sound. For example, the sound (letter) "di" in the word padikkyan (in your posting) is very hard to write in most other languages. It is not di, ddi, dhi, dti, ti, tdi, tti, or thi. BTW, all these sounds have letters in Malayalam. Similarly, "..kkaam" may come closer than "kkyam".

I was just trying to elaborate on the difficulties. Your effort and achievement in mastering the language are admirable.

RR, and others: Sorry for the digression.

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GV
Thanks for the info. I wasn't bored at all. No need to think like that. Raju, congrats on your achievement. Basically, my problem was that I was using an english-malayalam learn in 30 days book. And honestly, when you look at the words in english, it relates too much to tamil.

Well, to everyone else, sorry for digressing from the topic of this thread.