Song:
Om Namaha (Telugu) Film:
Geethanjali Scale : Hamsanadham
Friday, February 12, 2003
This is the fifth 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 is a wonderful semi-classical melody for a romantic song
situation. This song plays the role of explaining the fact that real
love is a feeling that blossoms from the bottom of one's heart and
that it cannot be expressed in words. The composer has brought out
this fact through this song and has showed how music could be used
to evoke the feelings of love, romance and emotion.
Hamsanadham is a pentatonic and symmetrical scale ( s r2 m2 p
ni3/ C D F# G B). The composer has used a range between the lower pa
and the higher ri (approx. alto and soprano), in composing this song
(the pallavi and charanam).
The song takes off at the middle sa and presents soul
stirring phrases in Hamsanadham. The most touching phrases in the
song are the slide from ni to pa (that sounds like sa ni sa ni pa)
and the slide from ma to ri (that sounds like pa ma pa ma ri).These
slides occur at several places in the song (the pallavi begins with
this slide) and is typically found in classical compositions in
Hamsanadham..
Note how a single melody has been turned into a whole pallavi
in this song. A melody is sung with middle sa as tonic and then
repeated twice with pa as tonic (a perfect 5th above) and then
repeated once again with middle sa as tonic. A beautiful slide from
ni to pa. (ni ni ri ni ni pa) clubs these melody lines.
The usage of unstable landing notes (D) and unexpected
accidental (G flat) mark the image of the composer.
In
this song, the last note of the charanam and the first note of the
pallavi are the same (middle sa). This causes an overlap of two
notes (essentially same note). This is clearly noticed at the end of
the second charanam. A related feature is that the pallavi of the
song stops with the first note (sa..lyricised as Om), immediately
after the first charanam and the second interlude takes off. In
brief the composer demonstrates how creative features should be
added to a song to make it sound distinct from others and to hold
the attention of the listeners.
The song has a constant rhythm pattern on the percussions
symbolizing the human heart beat, in its backdrop. This must have
been obvious to the composer in order to match the song situation.
The first interlude starts with a beautiful tremolo on a
santoor like instrument, which is further used to harmonize the
strings. Ilayaraja's command (and trademark!) in writing bass lines
is obvious in this song. The interludes have simple melodies on
strings and flute, excellently harmonized with bass lines and chord
progressions.
Thanks to Maestro Ilayaraja for giving us yet another song to
celebrate.
