Mudhra had organised a three-day national conference in Chennai, that included a wide category of events. The second day of ‘Appreciating Indian Music' had an engaging and absorbing panel discussion, the subject being ‘Film Music - Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow.'
The panellists were Vani Jairam, conference chairperson, with her evergreen voice, ‘Issai Mazhalai' Ramji Kalyan, violinist who has worked with almost all music directors, and Ramesh Vinayakam, who has given a new dimension to cinema music per se.
Vani Jairam likened a piece of music to the parts of the human body, thereby indicating that a composition has to adhere to a sense of proportion. “The greatest melodies are the simplest” she said and proved her point drawing many examples from her favourite tunes. She underlined how “pregnant pauses” enhanced the quality music.
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Ramji mentioned how M.S. Viswanathan's entry in 1951 signalled a significant break from the past methods of “making music.” MSV is a genius in his own right. The concept of BGM or orchestration was not favoured by music directors of the bygone era.
Percussion notes
What was characteristic was the concept of the single mike and the limited accompaniments in use viz. the flute, the clarionet, the veena, the harmonium, with of course the tabla and the mridangam on the percussion side. Long rehearsals were held for not less than 15 days and the major role was assigned to melody. He remembered G. Ramanathan who was a great experimenter and one who could handle with panache all genres of music that existed during his time.
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No less than 16 takes
For Kalyan no “arrangement” seemed necessary for the music of the past but music directors knew for sure the capacity of each instrument and the potential of each player. There used to be no less that 16 takes before the fully formed final version came up.
Kalyan also talked of the song-violin link and explained through anecdotes how Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle and MSV made that the uncompromising and prime necessity at their recordings. It was a kind of ‘sruti' akin to the ‘othu' of the nagaswaram. Do singers and instrumentalists have that kind of involvement these days, he wondered. He repeatedly cited all the songs from the film ‘Karnan' and wanted present day musicians to hold that as the benchmark for melody.
Ramesh Vinayakam saw cinema as an extension of drama that carried all its qualities - “And that included music too.” Classical music could therefore have a bigger and broader platform to be heard through the medium of cinema. Later there was a transition, that had to deal with social issues, people getting more temporal in terms of their attitude and that determined the kind(s) of music that was in vogue. BGM was used as a filler, as a kind of diversion and never was functional. He mentioned two songs ‘Katru Veliyidai Kannama' (‘Kappalottiya Tamizhan') and ‘Enge Nimmathi' (‘Puthiya Paravai') as examples of the unconscious yet natural and healthy fusion that was happening to cinema music at the hands of music directors. Nowadays sound clarity is achieved at the cost of melody. The warmth of the music, and the wholesomeness contained in “those primitive songs” are altogether missing.
Digitisation also tends to eliminate certain frequencies.
“Music is a reflection of the times and the moral values that prevail. And these days it has assumed a collage like nature. The future points more towards this trend though predicting what turns music would take is an extremely hazardous exercise,” Vinayakam observed.
At the end, Ramji wanted four questions to be answered: What do present day lyrics convey, why use objectionable words in songs, why is it difficult to identify the singer by his voice and finally, do composers want to excel .
And the answers cited the dominance of the producer-director combine which ill-determines music production. There is the tendency to use-and-throw voices at will, while no formal (or informal) discussions are held about the musical content of films. And so, what does the future hold?
(sivakumar2004 @gmail.com)