Thursday, February 15, 2007

Am I going to stop?

I have this rather great(let not others answer this question) habit of humming tunes while listening to songs. It is no doubt a wonderful thing to be in a state of artful thinking. Being passionate about music doesn't mean you get the basic elements right to reproduce the same. But, there should be some coherence to the originality that would make others to listen to the so called hum. What happens if the standard deviation takes you to terrible limits?

Last night, I was listening to some of my all time favourite songs of AR Rahman. Obviously, the music takes you to unimaginable heights that you are left wondering how in the world did he come up with those out of the world compositions. The mesmerizing thought just adds fuel to the fire, and almost sub-consciously, you begin to follow the lyrics without paying any heed to others around you. Venkatesh, a step away from my seating position, asked me to calm down and came up with a suggestion. Why don't you put on the headphones, listen to the song, sing simultaneously with it and record it using Windows Sound Recorder? Once you do that, I bet you will never hum any tune in your life! This actually sounded like a good idea, not because I wanted to base my humming from the results of a sound recorder, but just that I wanted to listen to my voice and see how close it comes to the perfectionist. As I sang away to glory, I was not able to concentrate on the song knowing fully well that Venkatesh was hidden under the blanket keeping his emotions in check. The emotions comprised of everything - frustration, irritation, pent up anger and a bout of sarcasm that can drive any budding singer to abysmal depths. Inspite of the numerous facades of emotion expressed by him, I continued with my song and finished up with one stanza of Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera from Swades. He then told me in a serious voice, After listening to this, if you don't give up singing, I will kill you! I saved the sound recording carefully, and played it from Windows Media player expecting it to start off in a hearable fashion though not in a spectacular way. I listened to the song and then came up with the statement Yeah, I couldn't sing this line properly since even great singers can't reproduce that properly. He immediately retorted, "Do you think all the other lines are sensational? How can you find fault with a single line when everything is butchered?" This actually sounds good in Tamil "Aamanda, Baaki yella linum romba nanna vandhurku paaru". I kept quiet like a silent assassin and then consoled myself with the fact that people are jealous of my abilities. But then, I will not mention anything about the outcome of the sound recorder. It can get too embarrassing!!!!

7 comments:

  1. Oh mi god, I LOVE AR Rahman! And you know what's funny? I only very recently (after listening to the GURU soundtrack) started to appreciate his music. You must tell me your all time favorite AR Rahman tunes. I don't mind if they're in Tamil, I love his tunes for the melody and for the arrangements.

    And don't worry about humming the tune of whatever song you happen to be listening, too. I do it all the time, infact, I go one step further and fudge the lyrics and my daughters get so mad at me!

    LOL, I love that you taped yourself singing away to the song - I won't ask you what you thought of the recording! ;)

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  2. ok...ok...
    I am expecting a blog on your Gnanodaya...

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  3. LR: I hold ARR in very high esteem simply because his music can transform your life for those few minutes. Some of his numbers are amazingly magical, and it is easy for us to get into a musical trance. Making his debut in Roja, he literally took the tinsel world by storm. If you ask me to name his favourites, you might as well go to IMDB and get all his collection!! Though some of the musicals that you simply can't miss

    1. Roja
    2. Thiruda Thiruda (Chor Chor)
    3. Iruvar
    4. Indian (Hindustani)
    5. Kannathil Muthamittal (There is a song called Vellai Pookal which is truly amazing)
    6. Alai Payuthey (Sathiya)
    7. Ayudha Ezhuthu (Yuva)
    8. Bombay (Theme music is superb)
    9. Kangalal Kaidhu Sei
    10. Sillunu Oru Kadhal
    11. Boys
    12. Kadalan (Am sure you would have listened to this)
    13. Mudhalvan...
    14. Kandukonden Kandukonden
    15. Rhythm

    and actually a lot more. It would be an insult if I just name only a handful :-) So, better listen to the other ones too!!!

    Anonymous maga: I better not share the gyan on my blog. I will definitely get unpopular then :-)

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  4. Hey thanks, Praveen! I'm hoping Raaga.com has all these tunes. Good thing it's the weekend, I'll be able to listen to all of these numbers. Looking forward to some good music!

    Again, thanks so much!

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  5. Rehman is my second best music director(first being ilayaraja) . I like two of his songs a lot.First one is "oruvan oruvan" from padayappa and second one being the title song of narasimha. I like these songs a lot.

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  6. Bhadra: Ilayaraja is one of the best,no doubt about that. He is on my favourites list too. These two are the best music directors of the modern era. BTW, Oruvan Oruvan is from Muthu not from Padayappa :-)

    Yep, and both of them are nice songs!!!!

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  7. oops....... Mistake acknowledged. :)

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