"MSV CLUB" - The Discussion Forum of MSVTimes.com

[N Y MURALI]

Dear All,
This is a special posting and hence the special song. This is the best evergreen, unmatchable, immortal, unbelievable melody. The inspiration for the song has come from heaven. There is not even an iota of doubt about this.

The best chords based melody amongst all created by MSV in this style. Nearly after forty plus years when we hear this song million times still it has the ability to look fresh as ever.

How this melody did come through? We shall analyze. Now when I say chords based melody there are different styles adopted by MSV within this style. One of the styles is taking 2 scales or 2 ragas as the basis and uses the chords notation with these two scales and produces a melody.

In this song he has used the following 2 scales are ragas.

RAGA SANKARABARANAM
The aarohanam is
Sa, ri2, ga2, ma1, pa, da2, ni2, sa

The avarohanam is
Sa, ni2, da2, pa, ma1, ga2, ri2, sa

RAGA HARIKAMBODHI
The aarohanam is
Sa, ri2, ga2, ma1, pa, da2, ni1, sa

The avarohanam is
Sa, ni1, da2, pa, ma1, ga2, ri2, sa

So we can identify that the swaram ‘ni’ is the one which is the variation between these 2 ragas.

Now if you combine these 2 ragas in to new scale we can conclude as
The aarohanam is
Sa, ri2, ga2, ma1, pa, da2, ni1, ni2,sa

The avarohanam is
Sa, ni2, ni1, da2, pa, ma1, ga2, ri2, sa

Now there are MDs who have composed songs in this scale. But they have all used this as 2 ragas and have either used raga ‘sankarabaranam’ as a main melody and used ‘ni1’ which is the foreign swaram to that raga as a variation for producing mellisai. Or they would alternatively use the raga ‘harikambhodi’ as a main melody and used ‘ni2’ which is foreign swaram to that raga as a variation.

But the specialty of MSV is that he never bothers about the ragas in the scale when he sets his tune for the mellisai. He instead looks for the variation of tones with in these two ragas which are available as chords.

Now if we look for the available chords within these 2 ragas we get the following.

Assuming that the song is in ‘c’ scale or ‘shruthi 1’ we can identify the following primary chords in this scale for the raga sankarabaranam. (Actually this song is in ‘e’ scale or ‘shruthi 3’ if I am correct)
‘c’ major – sa-ga2-pa
‘g’ major – ri2-pa-ni2
‘f’ major – ma1-da2-sa
(There are other 4 chords that can be identified in this scale or raga which is not required for this subject)

Now if we consider the raga harikambhodi we can identify the following primary chords

‘c’ major – sa-ga2-pa
‘b’ flat – ri2-ma1-ni1
‘f’ major – ma1-da2-sa
(There are again 4 chords that can be identified in this scale or raga which is not required for this subject)

So the variation in is the chord ‘g’ major and ‘b’ flat. He has kept these 4 chords tone as the pillar for the construction of the melody and used the notation of these chords so beautifully that this immortal melody was created. We have to remember that if you break the notations of all the 4 chords we would get the scale as I mentioned before which
The aarohanam is
Sa, ri2, ga2, ma1, pa, da2, ni1, ni2,sa

The avarohanam is
Sa, ni2, ni1, da2, pa, ma1, ga2, ri2, sa

The important information I want to emphasize here is that though in the scale ‘ni1’ and ‘ni2’ comes one after the other, but in the construction of the song they would never appear together When ever the ‘ni1’ comes it comes with ‘pa’ ‘ri2’ combination to have the effect of ‘g’ major and whenever the ‘ni1’ comes it comes with the ‘ma1’ and ‘ri2’ combination to have the effect of ‘b flat’ and we can identify that swaram ‘ri2’ is common to these 2 chords which is used as the junction to take the turn of the tune. We can sense this change when the song lines ‘unmai solla vendum’ (g major) and ‘ennai paada sonnal’ (b flat).

In the same way to take the turn of the tune from ‘g’ major (ri2-pa-ni2) to ‘c’ major (sa-ga2-pa) he could use the swaram ‘sa’ as the junction. Same way he could also use the swaram ‘sa’ as the junction for changing the tune to ‘f’ major (ma1-da2-sa). So we can understand that this is how he uses the junction swarams as the pivotal point of taking the turn of the melody. Probably I can write hundreds of thesis about his various styles of composing but if you ask me to produce one I will fail.

Hundreds of books are written about the method of cooking variety of dishes but how about the author themselves cook that dish. This can be achieved only by blessed people.

How about the orchestration of this song? Absolutely brilliant. I a have already mentioned in a posting in the section ‘PRELUDES INTERLUDES’ section about the prelude of this song.

How about the orchestration that comes before the charanam one with the trumpet and the next time the same melody with the saxophone? How about the flute combination that follows the trumpet or sax in the interlude? How about the violin strings link melody bit to connect it to the charanam? The violin strings gives the richness to the song. We can feel that when PS sings the line ‘unnai onru ketpen’ which is followed by the violin strings. How about the rhythm? Every time when PS finishes the line ‘enna paada thondrum’ there will be a roll of the drums.

Coming to the lyrics KD is worth more than he would have been paid for that song. Normally MSV/KD combinations have the ability to tell the theme of the story in the song itself. There is no need to see the movie. But here KD is not telling the theme of the movie. Because the theme of the movie itself is suspense. So KD also produces only the suspense with the first 2 lines of pallavi by asking ‘unnai ondru ketpen? Unmai solla vendum’. We would feel these are just normal lines in the beginning of the movie. Only when we finished seeing the movie, we would understand the power of these 2 lines. So KD adopted ‘suspense’ as the theme of the theme.

To conclude there are quite a number of songs which are composed in this scale
The aarohanam is
Sa, ri2, ga2, ma1, pa, da2, ni1, ni2,sa

The avarohanam is
Sa, ni2, ni1, da2, pa, ma1, ga2, ri2, sa

We cannot identify any similiarity of the various songs composed in this scale. That is because of his ability to use the notation of the chords with in this scale and not approaching as a raga.

I shall write about various songs one by one. We all would be amazed to see the genius in MSV.

And I shall also keep giving serial numbers for this type of posting. We shall see how many songs come out in this scale.

Regards,

N Y MURALI

[parthavi]

Dear Mr.Murali,

Though I do not understand the significance of chords, I can see that yours is a brilliant analysis. I think what you are doing is a kind of unique research, which no one else might have attempted earlier.

Your mention of the subtle meaning of 'unnai ondru ketpen, unmai solla vendum' came as a revelation to me, since I have never thought of this meaning so far. So, the police officer from Singapore, Saroja Devi is asking the murder subject Sivaji to come clean with the truth! Brilliant.

About the raagaa, I undrstand that Sankarabharanam is a raagaa of proclamation (That's why, perhaps, KVM composed 'Pattum Naane' in Sankarabharanam!) So,i t is appropriate here because the heroine talks about herself in this song.

MSV himself, in Endrum MSV, revealed Kavignar's subtle meanings in two other songs. 'Aval Enakkaa magal aannal? ' in the song 'paar magalepaar' implies 'she is not my daughter.' MSV said whenever he heard these lines, he would be in tears!

In 'Ilakkanam marudho,' though the main theme is about Sumitra's change of attitude towards Kamal, 'ilakkanam maarudho' also refers to Hanumanthu's marrying Shobha (to save her honor) who is carrying Sarath Babu's child. This interpretation by MSV was revealing to me.

Incidentally, my favorite song from 'Puthiya paravai' is 'Sittukkuruvi muththam koduththu.' It is a soul-lifting song. No song has emotionally touched me as much as this.There is an air of mysticism about this song. I have written in another post that even in my younger days, I had a desire that I should die hearing this song.I don't know why such a thought occurred to me. Well, it is a subjective feeling and others may not feel the same way. My request to you is to analyze this song.Though I will not understand the technicalities about the arrangement of chords, I will enjoy your analysis.

Great effort! Congratulations and keep it up!
_________________
P Rengaswami (9381409380)
MSV, Un isai kettaal puvi asainthaadum, idhu iraivan arul aagum.
http://msv-music.blogspot.in/

[VaidyMSV & Sriram Lax]

dear Murali

yr efforts to uplift our knowledge is laudable .

you are a Phd material on MM 's melody - you can register with any university -if i can suggest

excellant
_________________
vijayakrishnan

[N Y MURALI]

Dear Mr. PARTHAVI & Mr. VIJAYKRISHNAN,

Thanks for your feedback. I selected this song only to highlight MSV's ability to compose variety of songs in a single scale. So it just happened because of that reason. The posting about the other songs would come one by one. In fact while I was writing the posting yesterday I had a confusion whether I should start with 'unnai ondru ketpet' or 'naalaam naalam thirunaalaam' which is also in the same scale. (I am posting about the song today). The reason i picked 'unnai ondru' was this song has created so much impact that there was a movie called "once more' was created and the MD of the movie 'Ilayaraja' was having no other option except to include this song without changing the tune. We all know what happened to the song 'Thottal poo malarum" which was retuned by AR and what is the longitivety for that revised tune compared to the original one. But personally to me "naalaam naalaam' was the best ever melody produced by him.

Coming to the song "sittukuruvi' I have a very special information for you. I shall mentian a special posting shortly.


And MR. Vijaykrishna,
The reason I am sharing with my feeling about his composition is that His power of composition should be known to the world. I am just doing a small job like what a small squirrel did during construction of the bridge for Rama's cause.


Regards,

N Y MURALI

[msvramki]

அன்பான முரளி,

அருமையான டெக்னிகலான அலசல் ! தொடரடும் உம் உயர்ந்தபணி.
இன்றைய தலைமுறையை எப்படியாவது இந்த எழுத்துக்களைப் படிக்கவைக்க வேண்டும். எப்படி ?

"உன்னை ஒன்று கேட்பேன்" - இரண்டாவது பதிப்பு - அதாவது,
Version 2, கேட்கக்கேட்க வேறு ஓர் உலகத்துக்கு அழைத்துச்செல்லும் !

ராம்கி.
_________________
isaiyin innoru peyar thaan emmessvee.

[Sai Saravanan]

A clear analysis indeed by Mr.Murali. Sensational song!
There are many more nicer aspects in this song-such a wonderful mixture in all. The mood of Sivaji, style of his playing the instruments, his dressing sense, 'milder' makeup of the heroine, dance on the floor, lyrics, brilliant interludes, the romance and suspense,...I still feel this is a duet between PS and MSV!
Sai Saravanan