Tag Archives: Karuppu Panam

Filmy Ripples – Exotic Instruments in Film music – Part 4

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By P.V. Gopalakrishnan

In this concluding part on the above caption, we would strive to feature & discuss about some more of the exotic musical instruments used in our film music.

Trumpet is another popular wind instrument to form a part of the Brass Section of an orchestra, which has been in use in Indian films for a long time.

MSV-TKR has used Trumpet bits in many of his compositions, notables of which include ‘Thulluvatho ilamai’, ‘Adho andha paravai pola’ & ‘Unnai onru ketpen’.

Kishore Sodha has been a reputed trumpet player in Bollywood since 1978 and had worked for composers such as R.D Burman, Kalyanji-Anandji, Bappi Lahiri, Anu Malik, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Anand-Milind, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and more.  His first song on trumpet accompaniment was ‘Rote Hue Aate Hain Sab’ (Muqaddar Ka Sikandar).

The Trumpet is also used placing a ‘mute’ in its ‘bell’ portion so that the sound emanates from there in a muted form. If you hear ‘Maan kanda sorgangal’ from ‘47 Naatkal’, composed by MSV, there are notes from a muted trumpet throughout. The following video explains about a muted trumpet.

Saxophone is an amazing wind instrument, grouped again under Brass Section in Western Orchestra. It was invented in 1840 by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax, after whom it is named.

Sax, as it is called in short form, it has been used in many compositions such as ‘Unnai onru ketpen’ (Puthiya Paravai) composed by MSV-TKR, ‘Ammamma keladi thozhi’ (Karuppu panam) by MSV-TKR & ‘Vannam konda vennilave’ (Sigaram) composed & sung by SPB.

Puthiya Paravai

Song book of Puthiya Paravai with the page containing the song UNNAI ONRU KETPEN  PC: From the archives of TCRC

When we talk of Sax in film music, we cannot but mention the late Manohari Singh, a Sax wizard of Nepali  origin, who had played for leading Hindi composers in immortal songs such as ‘Gatha Rahe mera dil’ (Guide) by Sachin Dev Burman & Yeh Duniya usiki (Kashmir ki kali) by O.P.Nayyar.

Another beautiful composition of S.D.Burman featuring Sax was ‘Oh mere jeevan sathi’ from the movie ‘Guide’.

In the film ‘Duet’, A.R.Rahman had the classical sax player, Mr. Kadri Gopalnath, to play through the film. This film, in fact, popularized this instrument.

Trombone is a Brass wind Instrument, the sound of which is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column vibrate inside the instrument, having a telescoping slide mechanism that varies the length of the instrument to change the pitch.

While Trombone is usually played in Brass bands – accompanying the main theme by giving punching phrases, the potential of this instrument to perform as solo cannot be undermined.

Here is a piece on Trombone playing Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’.

In Indian films’ BGM scores, Trombone is usually played together with other brass instruments. They have had limited scope as a solo in the interludes of movie songs.

In songs such as ‘Ulagathil siranthathu edhu’ (Pattanathil Bhootham), ‘Atho antha paravai pola’ (Ayirathil oruvan) & ‘Kalyana naal parkka’ (Parakkum Pavai) you could hear Trombone bits. Here is the latter song in the composition of MSV-TKR.

Pattanathil Bootham

Song book of Pattanathil Bhootham with the page containing the song ULAGATHIL SIRANTHATHU ETHU PC: From the archives of TCRC

Ilaya Raja’s ‘Ennamma Kannu’ too had Trombone predominantly.

Oud is a short-necked, pear-shaped multi-stringed musical instrument belonging to Lute family, used in Middle Eastern & North African music.

You can rarely hear Oud in Tamil film music.  Ilayaraja’s ‘Matha un kovilil’ from ‘Achani’ (1978) had distinct Oud usage along with Bells in its BGM. Another good usage could be spotted in the A.R.Rahman composed song from ‘Ravanan’

Achani

Song book of Achani with the page containing the song MATHA UN KOVILIL PC: From the archives of TCRC

Maraca is a rhythm instrument of Mexican origin used in Latin American & Rumba music. It is a humble instrument originally made out of gourd shell.

We can spot the rhythmic sounds of Maraca in many film songs if we very carefully listen, but often it gets submerged in the BGM in most of the songs. Here we have selected a Hindi song, ‘Mujhe duniya wale’ by Mohd. Rafi from the film ‘Leader’ (1964) in the music composition of Naushad Ali, where one can make out the ‘chik-chik’ notes raised by Maraca in rhythmic pattern.

Mexican Scratcher is another humble but exotic rhythmic instrument used in Latin American music & Salsa.

R.D.Burman was the pioneering Music Composer to use it in Indian film music when he used it in the poular song ‘Samne wali kidki pe’ from ‘Padosan’. It features very prominently in the song when Keshto Mukherji enacts with a broom, in the early part of the song.

Another exotic but humble instrument called ‘Elathalam’ is a Clash Cymbal used in Temple Music in Kerala. It is a pair of heavy brass cymbals played with one held firmly & the other clashed with it rhythmically.

A.R.Rahman has creatively used it in the song, “Narumugaiye” in the movie ‘Iruvar’. You can hear this bit in the said song when the visual of the hero & heroine appear in the waterfalls sequence.

In our 5th & concluding part of ‘Exotic Instruments in Film music’ next week, we would look at few more of the instruments used in film music.

Filmy Ripples- Exotic Instruments in Film music – Part 1

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By P.V. Gopalakrishnan

If you have found yourself listening to old Tamil film music and felt like you attain absolute ecstasy from the mosaic of sounds that the blend of various musical instruments produced, pleasing your eardrums, we know exactly how you felt!

From traditional Indian instruments to the exotic instruments from various parts of the globe, the music composers of Tamil screen composed their lilting music. In fact, by virtue of music composers like A. R. Rahman having become a global player, such globalization in music has brought some very exotic musical instruments such as Balalaika, Cajon, Harpejji etc to our door step.

The track record of Tamil film music goes much beyond the music directors & playback artistes who literally lived them. The immaculate talents of extremely talented musicians, who never were known to the listeners at large, deserved the credit of the lively compositions we cherish even to-date. The fruits of their creativity is an ever lasting a gift to the current & future generations of music-lovers.

In order that we appreciate those highly talented music makers of the Tamil screen, we must know about the various musical instruments they used in their breezy compositions, under the direction of music directors.

Here in this Article, we will have a ringside view of the various musical cine-orchestral music instruments along with links to videos and songs wherein these were used, particularly in Tamil films till the early seventies. However, we will eschew Accordion since we have already devoted a special Article on that.

Univox organ:

In old Tamil films the organs used to produce musical notes similar to the mighty church organs. Since then the organs have gone through a long history of evolving & development resulting in today’s one-man orchestra provided by the modern electronic keyboards.

Listen to ‘Ennai alum Mary matha’ by P.Leela from Missiyamma (1955), in the composition of veteran S. Rajeswara Rao, where the beginning music is of the organ.

 Bagpipes:

These are wind instruments using enclosed reeds, fed from a ‘bag’, which acts as the reservoir of air. The player keeps pumping air orally into the ‘bag’ as he plays. So, the difference between any wind instrument & bagpipe is that unlike the other wind instruments which are blown into with air directly from the player’s lungs, bagpipes receive air first into its bag from where it goes to the pipes. Though Bagpipe is predominantly seen as a Scottish instrument, bagpipes have been played for over a millennium throughout other large parts of the West.

I have not come across a bagpipe being used in any Tamil film songs. Though someone said, it has been used by K.V.Mahadevan in the song ‘Thottu vida thottuvida thodarum’, on a careful listening, I find, the bits resembling Bagpipes are in fact produced by the Organ of those times known as Univox.

As far as my information goes, Bagpipes were used only in the Raj Kapoor film Sangam (Music by Shankar Jaikishen) in the song ‘Bol Radha Bol Sangam’.

Banjo:

A plucked stringed instrument, which originated in Africa & got adopted in the country music of USA.  Banjo had not been very widely used in Tamil film music but there are specific songs where this has been used. For instance, MSV-TKR had used Banjo in few of their compositions & the one we have here for citing is ‘Ennathan nadakkum nadakkattume’, from ‘Pana Thottam’ (1963), where the string instrument you hear is a Banjo.

Ennathan nadakkum(Panathottam)

Song book of Pana Thottam with the page containing the song ENNATHAN NADAKKUM NADAKATTUME    PC: From the archives of TCRC

Bongos:

These are Afro-Cuban percussion instruments consisting of a pair of small, open bottomed drums of different sizes & played by fingers & palm.

Indian films till the sixties used this percussion instrument very frequently in the compositions. In fact instruments such as Accordion, Bongos & Mandolin ruled the roost In Tamil film compositions prior to seventies but became slowly extinct as there was a paradigm shift to the music genre & compositions. MSV-TKR had used Bongos in very many memorable songs. Ganesh (of Shankar-Ganesh Duo) who was a formidable member of MSV’s orchestra played Bongos.

Some of the songs using Bongos for percussion that deeply rooted in my mind include ‘Ullam enbathu aamai’, ‘Pesuvathu kiliya’, ‘Poga poga theriyum’ & ‘Silai eduthan oru sinna ponnukku’.

Here is ‘Pesuvathu kiliya’ from Deiva Thai, composed by MSV-TKR with the Bongo beats.

In ‘Silai eduthan oru china pennukku’ (Server Sundaram) too you get to hear percussion beats of Bongos.

Silai eduthan(Server Sundaram)

Song book of Server Sundaram with the page containing the song SILAI EDUTHAN ORU CHINNA PENNUKKU     PC: From the archives of TCRC

 Castanets:

 These are rhythmic percussion instrument comprising of a pair of concave shells joined on one edge by a string, originating from Turkey. O.P.Nayyar had used it often in his compositions. It is a hand held instrument used to produce clicks for rhythmic accents or a ripping or rattling sound consisting of a rapid series of clicks.

Here is a Tamil composition by MSV-TKR in the song ‘Pillaikku thanthai oruvan’ from ‘ Parthal Pasi Theerum’ (1962)., where you can hear the rhythmic wooden clap sounds produced by Castanets.

You can spot castanets in few other Tamil songs too such as ‘Kelvi piranthathu anru’ (Pachai Vilakku), the music director being MSV-TKR.

Kelvi Piranthathu(Pachai Vilakku)

Song book of Pachai vilakku with the page containing the song KELVI PIRANTHATHU ANDRU     PC: From the archives of TCRC

 Cello:

It is a four stringed bass instrument originated from Italy in 17th century, looking like a giant violin (held while playing against the seated cellist and traditionally played with a horsehair bow), has been used routinely in many Tamil Film Songs. However, due to its ‘Bass’ tone structure it has a low tonal registry & may not be heard separately unless played singly in the songs.

In ‘Silar sirippar silar azhuvar’ song from ‘Pava Mannippu’ (1960), composed ny MSV-TKR you can hear Cello.

In ‘Enge nimmadhi’ song  (‘Puthiya Paravai’ – 1963) too, one can distinctly hear Cello in the opening music just prior to the vocal of TMS.

Guitar:

A typically six stringed instrument with European roots with a multitude of incarnations from acoustic to electric, has featured commonly in many film songs.

Tamil Cinema has had amazing Guitarists such as Dhanraj Master, Philip, Ilayaraja, Chandrasekhar, Gangai Amaran & R.Visweswaran.  Of these, the last named late Visweswaran (husband of danseuse Chithra Visweswaran) was a close friend & college-mate of this writer. Visweswaran himself was an expert Guitarist who could play Flamenco genre music & had played for R.D.Burman.

Veteran Guitarist Philip debuted in the M.K.Radha starred Gemini produced film “Apoorva Sahodarargal’ (1949), introduced by the legendary Music Director S. Rajeswara Rao. Since that Philip had played for K.V. Mahadevan, Viswanathan – Ramamurthy, Sathyam and V. Kumar. Hindi music directors from Bombay such as Hemant Kumar, Madan Mohan, Chitragupta and Ravi wanted Philips to migrate to Mumbai. Philip, an autodidact, now in his eighties, was considered a genius. His guitar pieces were predominant in many Tamil film hits including  ‘Aha mella nada mella nada (Pudiya paravai), ‘Vannakili sonna mozhi’ (Deiva Thai), ‘Malar enra mugam onru’ (Kathalikka neramillai),  “Aval paranthu ponale’ (Paar magale paar), ‘Avalukkenna Azhagiya mugam’ (Server Sundaram), ‘Anubhavam pudumai’ (Kathalikka neramillai), ‘Aada varalaam’’ (Karuppu Panam).

In an Article by V. Balasubramanian titled “Harmony with strings” in The Hindu dated 27.4.2014, the author wrote “MSV during his heydays was a hard taskmaster who would leave no stone unturned till he gets what he wanted. During a particular recording, that started at 7 a.m, the work went on till next day morning. Philips pleaded with MSV to let him go but in vain. Finally, when it was pack up, Philips had to rush directly from the recording studio to the church where his wedding was to take place.“ This writer has had the opportunity of meeting this genius along with R.Visweswaran in early sixties.

“Ilaiya nila pozhigirathu” (Payanangal Mudivathillai) composed by Ilayaraja & rendered by SPB has ample guitar bits, played by Guitarist Chandrasekhar. As per an Interview by SPB, Ilayaraja had well over twenty retakes to get the Guitarist play those difficult Flamenco Notes to his full satisfaction. The results were obvious in the song!

We will continue discussing more of the exotic musical instruments used in our films in our next posting.

Filmy Ripples – Rise & fall of vamps (Part 2)

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By P.V. Gopalakrishnan

Then the villis transformed into what were known as ‘vamps’. The dictionary definition of a vamp is “a woman who is conscious of and makes use of being attractive to men in order to get what she wants”, akin to a honey trap. In films, vamps somewhat resembled this description.

The vicious vamps curated by Hindi cinema were all repulsively seductive, and in short vamps were vain, symbolizing everything an ideal Indian woman was not. Instead, they profiled what dangerous women were like, in a country where women of virtue were revered equated to Almighty.

In Hindi we had vamps played by Bindu, Helen, Vaishali, Padma Khanna, Jaishree.T, Aruna Irani & Kalpana Iyer, wearing coloured wigs, contact lenses & skimpy dresses.

Talking of Helen who was a pioneer in this tribe, she was born in Burma to an Anglo Indian father & a Burmese mother, but migrated to India 1n 1942 on the invasion of Japanese army of Burma. She became a hit in Hindi screen with her item number “mera naam chin chin choo’ in ‘Howrah Bridge’ (1958). Immediately, the same year, the Tamil movie ‘Uthama Puthiran’ imported her into Kodambakkam, as she danced in the famed hit number ‘Yaradi nee mohini’, along with Sivaji Ganesan. She has since appeared in nearly seven hundred films with her item numbers in vamp roles. Her song & dance sequence in ‘Piya thu ab tho aaja’ song in Caravan (1971) is evergreen.

Here is a ‘club dance’ number from “Deiva Piravi” (1960).

The film ‘Karuppu Panam’ (1964) produced by Kannadasan had an ‘club dance’ sequence in the song ‘Aada varalaam’ filmed on Sheela, in tight (and perhaps even ill fitting) western outfits, though she already was a busy main heroine then in Malayalam. This song, set in western genre became an immortal hit.

Here is another instance of ‘club dance’ in the song ‘Uravinil fifty fifty’ where Rajeswari lays a honey trap for AVM Rajan in the film ‘Galatta Kalyanam’ (1968).

In our own Tamil screen we had an array of vamps, to name the prominent ones Jothilakshmy, Vijayalalitha, Jayamalini, Anuradha, CID Sakunthala, Disco Santhi, Silk Smitha.

Pattanathu Rajakkal

A still from the Film Pattanathu Rajakkal of SILK SMITH with Vijayakanth.
PC: From the Archives of TCRC

The vamps started donning wigs & minis as they danced, seducing the Hero in our films too, a departure from the run-of-the-mill villis with their rolling eyes & a vicious tongues, as seen in this video from the film “Sorgam” (1970) with Vijayalalitha & Sivaji Ganesan.

These vamps were either ‘one dance’ item number girls or some parallel running characters in the storyline.

Then Silk Smitha, introduced to Tamil screen by Vinu Chakravarthi, became the perennial item number girl and never came out of her image as femme fatale. Disco Shanti, Smitha’s contemporary also settled for the “item girl” tag. Here is a visual of the song ‘Nethu rathiri yamma’ song featuring the most popular vamp character playing Silk Smitha with Kamal Hassan in ‘Sakalakala Vallavan’ (1982).

But in due course, these specialist dancers meant for such vamp roles were slowly losing their relevance, partly owing to the subjects as well as the way films were made, as even new generation of actors took the center stage.

And a stage came when the heroines themselves started doing such dance numbers, sending home the breed of club dancing actors homeward, in retirement.

There was this slow acceptance that lewd lyrics & suggestive movements were no more in the exclusive realm of those who were once labeled as vamps and that the respected heroine could do it all.

This mindset of cine goers perhaps stemmed from the overall changes the current generation has witnessed & accepted arising out of education, liberated mindset, globalization etc.

As such the vamp has died a natural death in our cinemas, as the perception of them as a hugely negative clan and holding them in a water tight genre has changed along with the emergence of realizing a ‘vamp’ character is generally engrained in every ordinary living individual. That is why we see, in the soap operas on TV, normal woman characters being over dramatized as mega ‘villi’s with their ever scheming negative plans. This has becoming the major sell out of today’s TV serials!