NOV 11 – This link-heavy edition of Bitty Ruminations should, in all fairness, be titled Borrowed Reflections, or something along those lines, but then we cannot go about staking out every single phrase that acronyms to BR, can we? First, a plug for Yogasatsangha, the site created by my rock-star yoga instructor, DV Sridhar. Words cannot express how his calm ministrations sustain the body and soul.
PS: From one of the most admirably single-minded of bloggers — Suresh Kumar, who, in his indefatigability, is to background scores what Milliblog is to new albums — an interview with “composer, orchestrator and Conductor Matt Dunkle” that’s well worth your time.
PPS: Finally, from the creators of movie magic, pictures that annihilate the magic, in the manner of a conjurer revealing to his jaw-dropped audience how punily earthbound his effects really are. I have never been able to reconcile my desire for behind-the-scenes knowledge with the accompanying deflation of wow!
Baradwaj Rangan 
sureshkumar
November 11, 2010
BR – T.H.A.N.K Y.O.U.
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MumbaiRamki
November 11, 2010
What suresh has done is really commendable , when there is still a notion that BGM is a filler than an instrument to tell a story !!
PS : when did u become active to twitter , facebook ? ( Drohi Drohi anna …, as its said in chennai -28 , with an anna added for respect ) ..im waging a lone battle against these now :)))
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bran1gan
November 12, 2010
MumbaiRamki: If it helps, I just use these to promote my writing. After I signed up, I was “active” on Twitter for all of four hours, I think. Just couldn’t handle it. Now I just make weekly announcements about the latest posts 🙂
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Rangeesh
November 12, 2010
Brangan,
Which song from Endhiran or for that matter the recent Tamil films impressed you the most as far as the picturization was concerned ? I know, for a fact, that you are not a fan of songs that consist of the leads dancing in foreign locations for the sake of it. So, that leaves Kadhal Anukkal and maybe even Kilimanjaro out.
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vijay
November 13, 2010
Thanks for that interview link. I have always thought discerning music fans do a better job at interviews than most TV compere-types.
BR, you had written about lack of accessibility or something like that w.r.t to the likes of IR, Kamal and so on. But have you thought about doing an interview with MSV? Fading memory(and health) on his part might be the only stumbling block. Otherwise I’ve heard that he is the most accessible composer. You managed one with KB who is even older, so MSV is’nt all that far-fetched.
In case you are interested here is a wonderful chat transcript, which an oldies fan and a net acquaintance of mine, Sriram had written sometime back. He is obviously an ardent MSV fan.He doesn’t write regularly enough, otherwise we’ll have more such pieces to read:
http://www.dhool.com/msv/
The choice of songs that he touches upon here reflects his taste as much as MSV’s composing prowess. For instance, a not-so-wellknown Jazz-ish classic like Varavendum oru Pozhodhu whose arrangements were well ahead of their time, to open the convo with.
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vijay
November 13, 2010
BR, from that interview with Dunkley
“I think, like all great movie composers, AR shares that unique ability of both serving the needs of the movie and writing fabulous music. It sounds such an easy thing to do, but so often one hears effective movie music in the theatre that doesn’t work as stand alone music when the picture is taken away. That’s fine, as the music’s primary function is to serve the picture, but AR and only a handful of other Composers seem to be able to write scores that work in both ways.”
along the lines of what all of us were discussing about sometime back w.r.t IR’s BGM scores after your column on his national award. It is interesting to note that he does give credit to the stand-alone ability of BGM scores
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bran1gan
November 13, 2010
Rangeesh: I wasn’t wow-ed by any song in Endhiran. I enjoyed Kalvare from Raavanan. It had a nice, dreamily erotic quality about it. Mannippaaya, too — the way the song opens, amidst those fairy lights in lagoon land, was lovely. I wish the leads hadn’t been asked to lip-sync the song though. Can’t think of anything else off-hand.
vijay: Yeah, MSV shouldn’t be too tough to get a hold of. About giving “credit to the stand-alone ability of BGM scores,” that’s not surprising in the West, is it? They have a long tradition of releasing soundtrack music as stand-alone CDs.
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