MSV

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A rambling note more or less...

"போனால் போகட்டும் போடா, இந்த பூமியில் நிலையாய் வாழ்ந்தவர் யாரடா" as a thought is pithy in the truth it conveys. However, when the person passing away is someone who's influenced collective pop consciousness over half a century like an MSV, it does create a collective vacuum. Guitar Prasanna in his FB post mentions MSV as a pioneer of Indian fusion music (check Rock n Roll, a Tamil fusion song feat. elements of rock and roll and Carnatic music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56vqU9lnxF8 as early as 1958). He is precisely important to film music, a mass medium with popular appeal, because he unchained it from its classical moorings. It is not as though his predecessors like G Ramanathan, Subbiah Naidu, CR Subburaman, etc. were not popular. And it is not as though MSV entirely went away from the classical roots. They made music largely loyal to the classical traditions of Indian music. MSV was arguably the first Tamil composer to compose light music (மெல்லிசை) which was consistently accessible to the common man. Bridging classical music, several centuries old and a colossus in its own right, and a modern medium like cinema through popular songs in the Tamil nation owes quite a lot to MSV. And what a tunesmith he was!

Jeyamohan says writing is a nuanced art. However, ஓவியம் (painting) is more nuanced than writing. Still more nuanced is music. To make music and regale a listener is hence quite a feat. Not everyone can boast to compose music, still further, compose and make it accessible to wide sections of the masses. MSV is noteworthy here as a pioneer wrt Tamil music.

Now what I write might be seen as a digression. Apologies if it is so but I promise it is not. Ilaiyaraaja, a Giant of a composer in his own right, is notable in this context for his reverence and the inspiration he says he owes to MSV. Raaja, in Chennai in the late 60s and learning music from Dhanraj Master (an expert in Western Classical Music), recounts in his autobiography Paal Nila Paadhai about MSV's influence on him in those days. Dhanraj Master (DM) asks him to play music on the piano. Raaja plays Enna Enna Vaarthaigalo, that corker of a melody from Vennira Aadai. DM is ecstatic on listening and exclaims to the other students on how the composition signifies an example of conversation and response. Take the song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwTYspQ6FjY). Enna Enna Vaarthaigalo is a form of question (quite literally even in the lyrics). Chinna Vizhi Paarvaiyile is a form of answer (though lyrically the question is completed there). Solli solli mudithuvitten is the following musical question which gets resolved via sonna kadhai puriyavillai! Now, conversation and response is a very Indian spice to add (recall Avarthanam and thani Avarthanam in classical music forms) and Raaja's music in the 80s is filled with a lot of C&R in his orchestration. His music is deeply influenced in its structuring by the Hindi masters, Salil Chowdhury and MSV. However, DM had a certain disdain and smugness, due to his expertise in western classical music, toward Indian composers. Raaja mentions that he imbibed the smugness from DM at one point.

That however would change one day when he was asked to play a song for MSV (Raaja was a regular and an asst. in GK Venkatesh's troupe). Raaja played the bongo drums for this song. MSV arrives to the studio at 9 AM and in 45 breathless minutes, dictates the music parts he has arranged for *each musician* to play; singing, clapping and tapping individually to each one of them. Needless to say, Raaja's regard for MSV, already a deep fandom from childhood, shoots higher and he berates himself for his smugness. The song is Malar Edhu En Kangal from the film Avalukkendru Oru Manam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r_C8nuj1dw

My overall point here is, when a creator of an art as nuanced as music can process his art day in and day out to be able to dictate his creations orally in 45 minutes for a song, he reveals himself to be of the highest professional order. And when his music is very accessible and he has dominated public consciousness for decades, you call him a legend. And when the accessible songs show a clever bridge between the tradition and the modern and he is among the earliest to adapt to his region, he is a pioneer. பெரிய தல. That all the following composers, from important ones like Raaja and Rahman, to everyone else, owe him a lot goes without saying.

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