This is the second in the series of articles celebrating
the music of Maestro Ilayaraja, from a technical standpoint. The
article treats the Maestro's music as a textbook on music
composition and presents certain technical and non-technical nuances
in his music that may be of interest to students of music
composition and orchestration as well as to listeners with a
technical background in carnatic and western classical
music.
The content presented in this article is just an
observation made by the author. Please feel free to indicate any
analytical errors that you may find.
This song has been composed for a joyful situation, wherein
the character in the film describes the natural geographic beauty
around him. The character expresses his feelings (of surprise and
happiness) while sailing in the fast moving river water. Notice that
the flow of tunes in this song is "musically" very close to the flow
of the river water.
Based on a symmetric pentatonic scale called Mohanam (SRGPD -
CDEGA), this song is a perfect example that describes how controlled
deviations from a selected scale should be handled, to create
variety in film music. This scale originally (according to carnatic
music theory) contains A natural (chathusruthi dha). But the
composer has made careful usage of A flat (shudha dha) at several
places in the song. The pallavi of the song begins with wonderful
slides woven with the notes surrounding the higher C. The second
tune (Alalu silalu...) is unique in that it sounds both A and
A flat, in a sequence.
The charanam maintains the high spirits of the character by
beginning in the higher octave. The composers' creative mind can be
seen at the end of this tune, which flows down to A flat and finally
touches A (natural) before a tentative halt, after which the next
tune continues to the middle C.
The amazing note combinations that constantly keep shifting
between the two kinds of A, are beyond the scope of any kind of
description. These shifts in particular, express the feeling of
surprise (as implied by the wonderful lyrics) and happiness in the
mind of the character in the film. The charanam ending on the higher
E is the most unexpected musical surprise in this song. The lyircs
for this last tune in the charanam, being a question (yaedha kae
kanuluntae….?), demonstrates the composer's ability to
grammatically blend a tune with the meaning of its lyrics.
(Note: I'm note aware if the song was tuned to the lyrics or
the lyrics were written to the tune).
The use of vocals in the prelude and interlude, the chosen
pitch and tempo for this situation, are noteworthy. In this song,
the composer shows the importance of a prelude. Note that he brings
the listeners to the mood of the song as the song opens up with a
wonderful vocal hum and a bass back up. The colorful orchestration
of the prelude (vocals, keyboard, flute and tabla) sets the theme
for the rest of the song.
The composer fuses the music to the situation in the film
with a folk tune in the interlude. The female chorus backed up by a
folk percussion, followed by the flute, gives a true "classical
telugu folk" color to the song.
Thanks to Maestro Ilayaraja for giving us yet another song to
celebrate.
