Awaaz Dey KahaaN Hay

Banjaara,

We`re all connosieurs of music .. particularly it appears swarrier ... echoboom ... DM, mannyD and Jang, plus everyone else. Pity echoboom couldn`t succeed with a mouth organ. Well, I did slightly better and got to being somewhat of an accomplished guitar musician. Best compliment I received was when someone said in a bar in the NY village where I was playing that I could make the guitar `speak` :)

Keep writing on the subject and `mehfil taza rehi gii` ...

Swarrier, Jang, Dost Mittar aur Echoboom sahibaan.

Yahan to mehfil urooj per hai. Subhan Allah;)

I hope mannyd has got his answer from Jang and Swarrier. I wish Harimau could offer his comments, his knowledge about Hidustani and Karnatic Music is extremely good. I am just a layman who enjoys the ebb and flow of the golden vioices, be it dadra or thumri, khayal or dhrupad, and move on if the piece does not pull at my heart strings.

Mannyd #100
If you are keen to know the grammer and other technicalities of Hindustani raga, check out Rajan Parrikar, a noted expert on Hindustani Classical Music. His website is: http://www.parrikar.org/.

The silver Jubilee was 25 weeks, Golden Jubilee 50 weeks and Diamond Jubilee was 75 weeks of continuous running of a film in one cinema hall.

Ras # 89

I did my schooling and graduation in Chittagong, followed by post graduation from Dacca University. How about you? Were you in Chittagong or Dacca.

swarrier#109:

I simply love Marathi Abhangs but can`t find them anywhere on CDs (I generally hear them when some Marathi singers come here). I am going to India soon. Can you tell me of a place in Delhi where I can find some good Abhangs?

My all time favourite bhajan is Sudhir Phadake`s Jyoti Kalash Chhalake.

[The discussion has veered from Naushad; I think we need another thread to talk about Indian music in general]

Re: # 108
Echoboom
Sir, you have impeccable taste. This is a very famous song in Marathi. I remember hearing this song played in the neighbouring house, every morning , while getting ready to go to school .
It is meant to wake up Shridhara (Lord Krishna) early in the morning. Vasant Desai`s music I think.

#100 by mannyd

Yaar I am a complete klutz when it comes to music. I cannot play any instrument except a tape/cd player...not even a mouth-organ. Not that I`ve not tried desperately. I cannot also ``understand`` music either & am completely at a loss with this raag-raagni or flat-major stuff. I can only ``feel`` music. Consider me like a water-diviner as compared to an educated geologist.

I do, though understand somewhat , good poetry & can appreciate when it gets composed by one who also understands poetry. A singer is simply a voice-box and there are not too many good singers who know poetry and/or music. Even the top ones. The raag/raagni practice is simply the tuning of their voice boxes a sort of ``yoga`` or `body-building` for the throat. One should not get too enamoured or distracted by them unless one wants to pursue that as a sole vocation.

This Bhajan from amarbhopali made a nest in my mind & would play on `loop` all the time. I had heard just a portion of it as a `fade` background in another movie. I jsut could`nt find it , not having a clue about it. Eventually I ``discovered`` it.

I felt real good then to know that this was the only Indian movie which has ever won a best-music award (1954) at Cannes film festival. I felt that as if I passed a test witout appearing in any exam. I felt like a somebody.

amarbhopali: Ghanashayam sundara

The ``vibrations`` or larzish of voice ( common hindi/urdu word eludes me) in this beseechment to the god is superb. Despite old recordings , it comes through.

The instrument sounds should never ever smother the voice-box. They must recede in the background when words are spoken. Would you not lower all sound to listen to the enes whose words you value?

Re: # 105
Mannyd
The Chinese considered the pentatonic scale as a royal scale. Which is why so many Chinese and by influence I would presume the Japanese compositions are pentatonic (five notes)? They also like the ``shudh notes``. The music must not be sad, flattening the notes would give that timbre. Perhaps that is why Bhoop sounds oriental?
And the flattened notes make a pentatonic raaga like Malkauns sound completely different. Anyway that`s completely off topic.
A Naushad composition in raag Bilaval `` O meri ladli ....`` from Andaz should put this note back on topic.

Re: # 104
DM
SD and RD were both great. I think ``Naache man mora`` is Bhairavi, one of the few fast paced Bhairavi`s you can hear. You are speaking about the song from Meri Surat Teri Ankhen , right.? Lovely tabla in that.

Do you remember the song from Tere Ghar ke samne, `` Yeh tanhayee hai re hai ... thamlo bahein?`` Lilting stuff that. What about ``Piya tose naina lage re..`` from Guide?

For some reason this brought to my mind another song by another pair of music directors `` Yeh dil tum bin , kahin lagtaa nahin hum kya karen...``. This is one of Laxmikant Pyarelal`s best, I think.

manny, warrier et al
i am not trained in classical music either, except as a sometimes listenter. IMO many-many indian music songs are based on ``classical`` music, its just not necessarily that obvious. e.g. there is a song called ``sionara sionara`` is bhoop rag...i have heard a traditional sikh bhajan which must have ``inspired`` the song. since bhoop is 5 note, it sounds ``oriental``. its just that most hindi songs are mishra (mixed) rags..they absolutely use hindustani claissical prograssions.

also this recognising rag thing is fun, but not that important. just listen to khayals etc for fun. from what little i know, the following are easier to identify due to well-defined note scales (IMO)

yaman, bhoop, des, bhairav, bhairavi, malkauns

malhar and its variants due to structure

pilu i think uses a lot of notes..so actually not easy to figure using notes..its more about way its sung. a lot of thumri type light stuff is in piu, kafi, khamaj, bhairavi etc (sweet sounding rags).

i use a harmonium and guitar to play and (loudly) belt out the notes etc for fun (listeners hate it) ..but listening is the main joy. also if you have time, can join the local music school, they keep having concerts. fir carnatic stuff, your local temple is prolly a good bet.

mannyd:

I am heartbroken that none of you included my favourite, S.D.Burman, among your favourites. Incidentally, I think that his ``naache man mera magan dhig dhiga dheegi dheeggi`` is based on raag Pilu. But I am very poor at recognizing raagas, despite listening to and enjoying classical music and going to classical concers for forty years.

Re: # 100
Mannyd
I have no classical or any musical training. Just learnt to plonk the guitar on my own and listened to Sangeet Sarita. I used Mel Bay`s guitar primer to learn with an old guitar I had borrowed. Anybody can appreciate good music. But you have to listen not just hear.

You asked about the song Chandan ka palna previously. That is in Pilu. So is ``Dheere se aaja re ankiyan me , nindiya ..`` from Albela. There is a lot more. Now how to go about recognising it is difficult. I used to try to pick the notes on the guitar. Good musicians can make it out at once. I`m just a hack.

I have that recording of Madan Mohan singing. It`s there in one of the compilations of MM that I have. The reason why I like MM, Salil-da and Sajjad is because most of their songs were never predictable. There was that degree of complexity that left you stunned, made you think. You could never say, `` yeah that is the next note.`` I mean look at songs like `` Aap ki nazaron ne samjha``, `` O sajna barkha bahaar``, `` Dil me samaa gaye sajan``. Great stuff.

I like Roshan a lot. One of my favourite qawwalis ``Nigahen milaane ko ji chahata hain``, Rafi`s ``Man re to kahe na ..`` in Chitralekha.

Kaurasach #99: LOL.. Who is your favorite composer in Punjabi? I rememebr Sardool singh Kawatra, who lived in the Bay area for a while. I do not know if he is still alive. I think he composed music for lot of Punjabi hit movies and the tune for Lata`s duet with shaminder Singh (?); `Charkhe diyan Ghooka ne`.

Swarrier: My three choices are Roshan, Naushad and Shankar jaiKishan. I like Madan Mohan too. have you heard him sing `Naina barse rim jhim, rim jhim`? Apparently Lata was too sick that day and Sadhna lip synched to MM`s singing, later to be replaced by Lata`s song.

Banjaara: I hope you can explain the terms in different jubilies,as asked by HP earlier. I think it was determined by the number of weeks, a movie ran in a particular theatre.
DM: Your memory is still in a lot better shape than mine. Thanks for sharing it.

Swarrier, DM, Echo or Banjaara: What is the difference between a Rag and Raagini? In the following list, song number 2 is my all time favorite. Do you have to have classical music training for years at the feet of a Guru to come up with such a list? What would be another example of PIlu by Nuahsad or anyone else in movie music and how would I go about identifying it?

1. Jo maiN jaanti bisrat hai saiyyaN in Maand (Shabab.)
2. More sayyaNji utreNge paar ho in Pilu (Uran Khatola.)
3. Jaane waale se mulaaqaat na hone paayi in Yaman (Amar.)
4. Tere pyaar meiN dildaar in Bihaag (Mere Mahboob.)
5. Suhaani raat dhal chuki in PahaRi (Dulari.)
6. Meri kahani bhoolne walay tera jahaN aabad rahe in Tilang (Deedaar.)
7. O duniya ke Rakhwalay, sun dard bhare mere naalay in Darbari (Baiju Bawra.)

Thanks in advance.

Listen to PUNJABI songs and folk lyrics/music......I never understand this paan laden fluffy farts of Urdu shaiyari..........

Echoboom
Bit of trivia. A R Rahman`s father K. Shekhar was a music director in Malayalam films too. He was an assistant to Salil Chowdhury and Devarajan.

Bongdongs #96,
Thank you for sharing this interesting article. This banding together of people by linguistic groups came into fashion during the 1920s and 1930s when the Nazis were beating the drums of Aryan supremacy. The Turks started preaching Pan-Turanism and even tried to brew some rebellions in Central Asia against the Russians. All I know is that quite a few turks are named Atilla, Cengiz, Timur - to show their association with Hungarians (Magryars), Mongols, and Tatars. I have noticed that there is a city named Turku in Finland. I wonder....