_0sagi

sagi · @_0sagi

5th Jun 2014 from TwitLonger

So Raaja has said no director has every come to 'my' level to extract music from me. And I seriously don't understand why does anybody, Raaja fans particularly have problems with this.

First of all, I feel that people, again Raaja fans particularly should clearly understand the two facets of his compositions. The tune and the orchestration. And in my not very honest opinion, Raaja is THE Raaja not because of his tunes but because of his orchestration. Any Tom, Dick or Harry or MSV/ARR/SAR can come up with a beautiful tune because all you need is limited creativity and you already have patterns. To quote the man himself பாடல்கல் ஒரு கோடி / ராகங்கள் கோடி கோடி. So you would often find Rahman's tunes better than a given Raaja album's tunes. But still, looking at their entire oevre, the amount of work Raaja has done in just plain 'tunes' is OnlyRaajaFOssible level.

Now the orchestration part. The ludes themselves or the backing he provides to pallavi/charanams. This is where Raaja whips everybodys ass. There is no comparison. And this is exactly where Raaja has an open field. Some random but hopefully related points.

1. Director's often have a say in the tune (saar plis to increase the tempo) but Raaja gets a free hand while orchestrating it. Zero or close to zero (If Kamal Haasan understands WCM Concepts) inputs from the director.

2. Example of Raaja freaking out - Many evidences. Recent one being Gautham Menon saying he had to reshoot the satru munbu after hearing the final version of the song. Of course. And what did KBR tell Raaja in order for him to come up with such violent brass sections in ada machamulla? Or that world famous bassline in ponvaanam panneer. Do we even know who the director was? Except the basic tune he does not get any kind of inspiration from anybody.

3. Tune itself has very little weight to me in terms of song appreciation. As Plum mentioned correctly KAlaivaaniye is just a gimmick that too in the tune. Pray tell me what or who inspired him to come up with study of violin or the orchestration/harmony parts in TiS. Now that is THE Raaja.

4. And its not that people, the musically ignorant completely ignore this aspect of this composing. They do acknowledge but at a sub-conscious level. For example if poththi vechcha malligai mottu did not have the elements of Folk/WCM combined to such superb effect it would not be as popular. And more often than not you will see people singing poonkatru puthithaanathu with the bass filler. And honestly the ilaya nila pallavi is very simplistic but it has the acoustic guitar to take it to a completely different plane. Power of Raaja orchestration

5. To reiterate Raja = Orchestra brilliance. And that is exactly why I don't think much of Raaja fans who love him only for the 'melodies' and who don't like NEPV. And Raaja loves what he is doing only because he gets to compose ludes.

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