Dear Udanx I like IR infact love IR...Malathi or someone said about SPB qouting Gangai amaran wasnt given due credit the same SPB...every other minute goes on about ennoda raja ...in ennodu paatu padungal... I like ARR some of them are gems or were gems when was the last time ARR had you mesmerised like Roja or Bombay....? and rehashing the same ones in english and hindi????
Theres one thing we have to give ARR credit he created the culture of needing lyric books to understnad what the songs really say...and ofcourse the Unit Narayan entry....
1.Gangai Amaran badly wanted a hit and so for 'Karagatakkaran', he requested IR to help him. Also requested him to sing the title song. rest is history.
2. There is a belief in kollywood that if IR sings the title song, the film is a silver jubilee. And the belief has been true almost 100%. And the title song of Karagatakkaran has lyrics similar to this belife.
3. Barathiraja, Balachander - doyens of kollywood - could not give a hit as they gave in combination with IR, till date. All there movies after parting with IR are either flop or didnt do well in the box office.
Dear Dr Sri, SPB did not say anything derogatory on IR - Gangai Amaran was present in the program and he said that GA's talent was unique it its own way and largely overshadowed by his bigger celebrity brother.
I like any song as long as it is nice to listen to,regardless of who the composer really was. For whatever reason IR's times and music have created this kind of fanaticism that others include ARR are somehow inferior just because they are not as creative as he is (which is again a very relative statement) or not classically knowledgable or whatever. The only thing I have not yet seen happen is a campaign to include IR among Sangeetha Mumoorthis of Tyagaraja, Dikshitar and Syama Sastri yet. Now once that is done we can do away with any and all debates and include him also in our pooja halls/rooms before anyone needs to sing.
Dear Satish, yes definitea..we can copy our own stuff..aana copy pannittu we cannot score on numbers. So 12 songs in Sindhu Bhairavi versus MSV did 3 songs only endraal enna artham? Appuram creativity is a core value endru solli vittu 10 songs ore madhiri senja edho idikkalai? Funny thing really is that IR himself made no claims like this, that he was superior by numbers or that he did everything for creativity. In fact he admitted that he was doing too much and even that coming to films had killed his creativity. It the crazy fan crowd that makes all these claims and puts down other music directors.
Ok raja raja dhaan, ARR ARR dhaan, paavam avangalukku munaadi poi ethanoyo melodies kuduthavanga ellam enna aanaga? Even our generation has forgotten, why blame our kids illaya?
I thought I will be silent but you people provoke me to write. Creativity - Let me clarify on this first. ================================= Malathi you dont know cricket. But you know the geography of Madras (Adayar / Indra Nagar / Besant Nagar / Tiruvanmiyur) The normal bus route for Tiruvamniyur from Adayar is to drive straight upto Adayar Signal (Old ANZ Bank) take a right, travel the whole of LB road and take the last left and reach Thiruvanmiyur.
The Normal Bus route is the grammer defined by the Trio of Carnatic Music. People like Gantasala / KVM / MSV are motor cyclist had always taken the route defined above. But IR is also a motor cyclist who takes a different route.
He takes a right near Ambika Appalam Depot travels through Indra Nagar Comes out at Adayar Depot then travels straight into Kasturiba Nagar takes a right at TM Maistry street travels straight and reaches Tiruvanmiyur. Similarly I can give you so many routes to Tiruvanmiyur from Adayar. IR does that because he knows the inside out of all these areas.
If you don't know these areas and venture into such a route you will be lost and you will never reach Tiruvanmiyur. Now tell me who knows the places very well!
Again composing a song only on three notes - He made it possible. He has come up with the Raga called Panchamukhi. Probably you may not know. Composing a song on only AROHANAM is again creativity
Copy -- I will clarify this as well ==========================
Submitting the same Ph.D thesis in various universities and getting Doctoral degree at all the places is copying. Reusing the same TUNE (Mind the word) again and again in different songs is nothing more or nothing less than what is stated above. But Re-Using the Raga is entirely different.
For example Nano Technology is a field. Its application in physics (Quantum well / Electron Dot) is different from its application in Medicine (Drug Design). They both fall under the same category Nano Technology. Can you say that they are copy stuff? They are entirely two different things and both are valid for a Ph.D degree. If people cant appreciate the difference between Tune and Raga - I pity them.
Udanx, ok, let us get one point clear. IR himself has admitted to be overcommitted and therefore being less creative. It is not something anyone who dislikes him has made up. He went as far to say he wished he never came to movies, a remark that irked several people since his success and popularity are due to movies.
I get what you are saying and I have acknowledged that from the beginning. Creativity is his forte. But creativity is not the only thing that makes a music director great, it is one of the things but not the only thing. When I was young and learning music I wanted to learn as many ragas as possible. My music teacher used to say if you can sing one raga and sing it well you are good singer. If you can sing two ragas really well you are a great singer. If you want to sing all ragas you are less interested in depth and more in telling the world that you know all of them. It is like that. There is nothing in musical world that says you have to know X number of ragas, invent Y ragas and that is what makes you a great musician. It is not. What makes a great musician is how you use whatever you know and how much people remember your music.
The raga Shankarabharanam has almost become synonymous with movie and music. Even if KVM had made just that one movie he would have enjoyed great fame since it was one movie done perfectly. If I want to identify any raga say Kurinji I only have to think of TMS humming Sundari Soundari Nirandariye...I know any other song is Kurinji. That is all good music is about.
You can give IR credit for the vastness of his creativity and usage of various ragas, I don't deny that and have said so repeatedly. But dont' say that makes him superior or better than others in some way. It does not and it is a total misconception that knowing more makes one a better musician.
Udanx, let me answer shortly today, am in a hurry to work my apologies. First of all I'd like to read technical points in your friend's site (and there are several other sites too devoted more to music) - I took on the project of compiling songs/ragas and still working on it, it is huge and lack of time is an issue. So I will do what I can.
I am not comparing myself to IR - although must confess I am really irritated again by your inference that the rest of the world are somehow cheap lesser mortals. I gave you my teacher's quote which is a very valuable reference with regards to how much is there to learn in the oceanic field of classical music. In olden days singers used to have ragas affixed to their name like Kalyani this bagavathar, Kambodhi that bagavathar and so on - simply because it takes so much of practice and expertise to learn one raga with depth.
Nobody is against creativity and fyi there has been lots of creativity by older people too, just they did n't have fan clubs of people analyzing what they did. Using Mukari in a romantic duet was unheard of and GR did that with great elan in Ambikapathi. Ghantasala and KVM gave us whole movies with background music telling the story even to someone who has not seen it. It is not necessary to be innovative the IR way that is the point. It might be pertinent for you to think that after so many generations of classical music singers why so few ragas were invented? Because most of them thought it was unnecessary to invent anything even learning and using what we already have takes more than a few lifetimes. It is the same logic somewhat that goes with building new temples when we have 33000+ old temples languishing for lack of funds.
Anyway am stopping here now. I will try to find time to get into technicalites later depending on time, I wish I did. The debate would be over in no time if we agree that everyone was creative in their own way and many times depth in one area is preferred over width in several.
Satish; Your whole comparision is wrong. Are you going to do 1000s of Phds in your lifetime? Are you going to do 100s of Phds in one year? ARR and IR have reused tunes as thats the sheer volume of work they have. They will use the best tunes for the best directors(ManiRatnam, Bharathiraja, etc and use slightly modded tunes for the lesser ones).
REgarding doing a Phd (im going to start one real soon), its like peeing in the ocean(i apologize for the manguage). 95% of the Phds have absolutely no effect other than giving the concerened person a Doctorate.
You are going to do one or max 2, if u are over talented, PhD. If you are going to copy that then it shows the worthlessness of the candidate. ARR or IR, if they had only one film to do in thier whole lifetime, they would have given some truly remarkable magic. Iruvar, Nizhalgal are examples.
Just dont give a comparision for the sake of it. Udanx's comparision of cooking and music is more closer as they both involve constant use and constant innovation.
I didn't get Satish's response for some reason. Yes I think the same way as Rahul thinks on Ph Ds with due respect to the people who work for them, majority just get it like anyone gets any other degree.
I see more with innovation/reusability with cooking analogy. As far as reusability goes, in this particular concept the debate is invalid because the concerned person himself admitted to it. (IR). After all the human mind no matter how creative is limited by time and effort one can do in that time. And as it is with hero worship always 'fans' seem to think more of the person that he does of himself.
Satish, i have already said that i have concluded, due to lack of time.
I am not insulting anyone, and refuse to take your feedback in that regard. Hero worship is not paal abhisegam etc...in simple terms it is adulation of the person over the art. A music lover looks at it in terms of music, not in terms of the person who did the music and repeated elevation of that person. I have no problems saying that to anyone who does hero worship, not just IR fans. It is a cultural disease in our country and afflicts all of us at one point or the other.
Thanks, Sathish. At last, someone pointed out the uselessness of such arguments.
I am a die-hard IR fan (my friends call me an IR-Windmill) and I have my own views on other music composers (naturally), but I believe this argument has gone way off target.
Sampath, first of all that was a general statement and not against any individual, my apologies if I hurt anyone. The fact that hero worship is a cultural disease in India particularly (to a lesser extent in other countries/world) has been pointed out often by several sociologists/historians. I do not remember where I got the quote from and wil try to connect origins if possible.
Hero Worship is not setting oneself on fire or doing milk abhishegam those are extreme forms. I can explain with an example, I was a die hard Kamal fan myself, not early youth, in twenties and even early thirties. By that I mean, I would watch every single Kamal movie. I would look at acting and compare every actor that ever existed on the planet to Kamal. I would not hesitate to jump into debate with anyone who thought differently than me and like IR fans here I would have all Kamal's achievements lined up to defend and defeat what they say. In the event that someone thought otherwise I would be emotionally upset at that person, of course for courtesy sake I would say I respect differening opinions but it would be near impossible for me to be honest emotionally simply because he/she was different than me. In more deeper psychological terms this type of fan adoration is called 'projection'. In other words taken on another human being's achievements too personally and beginning to like that person as opposed to what he did.
I am a fan of IR's music and I am a fan of IR are not the same thing. It is very ok to be a fan of someone's work or art, not of the individual. By becoming a fan of the person one learns to get defensive around other people's taste, and loses the ability to learn more on the art from other perspectives. As grown up mature humans we say 'we are a fan of so and so's music', or 'we are a fan of music', period, not the individual.
If you look at this debate from the beginning - I have always been talking to Udanx on civil terms only. I lead debating forums at work and other social organisations and use strong language I do not deny that but it is rarely insulting or putting down someone. We came to a point when I took his input (which was again purely only IR;s songs) and compiled a spreadsheet of ragas versus music directors. Lots of people appreciated it and I even got some emails with their suggestions. Then again someone brought up ARR and how he does not get enough credit. So it made a deviation from music to persons and got here. As usual friends gang together to save other friends and blame the other person (of course if the other person is a woman, so much easier to give feedback..and if you are another 'die hard IR fan..of course, quite natural :)))
Anyway no ill feelings against anyone from my side. Enough for a while.