Naadam

Pulari Thoomanju thulliyil

2008-11-08T03:51:00.000-08:00

കത്തി തീര്‍ന്ന പകലിന്‍റെ പൊട്ടും പൊടിയും ചാര്‍ത്തീ ...
ദുഖ സ്മൃതികളില്‍ നിന്നല്ലോ പുലരി പിറക്കുന്നൂ

Utsava Pittenu is famous for Bharat Gopi's directorial venture. If some one ask me to inllustrate Rag Charukeshi, 'Pulari Thoomanju thulliyil' comes first (I have several favourites in this Raaga; Chumbana poo kondu moodi, Krishna Kripa Sagaram, Akale akale Neelakasham etc, however this is short and sweat). Kavalam wrote a wonderful poem for Devarajan Master.

Song: Pularithoomanju
Music: G. Devarajan
Lyricist: Kavalam Narayana Panicker

pulari thoo manju thulliyil | Upload Music

Humein Tumse Pyar .......

2008-11-01T05:24:00.000-07:00

When it comes to the matter of singing, Kishoreda comes first; then GOD.

Kishore Kumar was the multifaceted genius and the singing legend of Hindi film music who has sung innumerable classics. He has sung all his songs with great depth, zest and emotions and even till toady his golden voice has remained unparallelled. For a singer, more than skills and techniques, I guess the vital part is the quality of their voice. The parameters determining the quality of voice is different for different styles of Music. Rafi, Mukesh, SPB, Yesudas …., all these legends have the advantage of this dominating factor which makes them outstanding from a crowd of very good singers. It is not just their hard work or classical music training……that's why people say singers like Kishoreda are born, not made. Kishoreda's voice was unique and there will be no voice ever again like him.

Excuse me for the poor diction

This wonderful song is from the movie KUDRAT and the Music is by RD Burman.

Humein Tumse Pyar Kitana | Upload Music

Raree Rareeram raro

2008-10-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

All of us in our family are looking forward to welcome my brother's Vaava and this song is very special.

Raree Rareram Raro | Music Upload

ഉണരുമീ ഗാനം

2008-10-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

These days I try to avoid watching Monnampakkam and Oru Minnaminunghinte Nurunghuvettam; my heart bleeds whenever I watch it. I must have seen those movies more than 10 times, still it hurts. If you missed your grandparents, it hurts you more. I think the only unconditional and selfless relationship we can have in our life is with our grandparents & vice versa. They never remind you about your home works, studies, never scold you if you are late to reach home…they make your childhood cosy and fruitful. They never expect anything back from you except some small favours like scratching their back etc. I am indebted to my Ammamma and it is difficult for me to pen down that kind of a special bonding.

So this time I go for the haunting melody ' Unarumee Gaanam' from the Padmarajan classic Moonnampakkam. G. Venugopal won the best Play Back Singer in 1988 for this Ilayaraja song. He is blessed with a sweet and romantic voice. I believe this song (as well as 'thamarakkili padunnu') acts as the theme for the entire movie and the lyrics by Sreekumaran Thampi is superb.

"kilungunnitharakal thorum kili konjalinte manikal
marannillayanganam nin malar paadham peydha pulakam
ennile enneee kaanmu njan ninnil
vidarnu marubhoovin eriveylilum pookkal"

I don't have to say Thilakan is a genius, though the bureaucrats didn't give him a much deserving national award!!!

Unarumee Ganam | Record Online

ഒറ്റക്കമ്പി നാദം മാത്രം മൂളും വീണാ ഗാനം ഞാന്‍

2008-10-03T13:59:00.000-07:00

This time, I go for one of my all-time favourites - Ottakkambi naadam from Thenum vayambum. If you have to pick best 10 Malayalam songs, the only question is how many out of them will be by Raveendran master. No one else explored the depth of KJY's voice like him and this song is a perfect example. Raveendran-Yesudas combination produced gems and probably I will post few of them in the coming weeks.

Ottakkambi Nadam | Upload Music

കണ്ണേ കലൈമാനേ ....

2008-09-28T11:40:00.000-07:00

Its a Master Piece from the Music Maestro Ilaiyaraja and sung by KJY. I haven't had much time to concentrate on the recording and I finished the whole song in a single take. When I gave some delay effect, unfortunately the vocals lagg and I didn't have a back up of the originals. I particularly picked this song because, its one of the all time favourite of my wife :) and I had no way to skip this time. And what a meaningful lyrics......thanks to Divya for translating me the whole song and correcting the diction though I couldn't make it perfect.

Kanne Kalaimane | Upload Music

താരക രൂപിണി

2008-09-26T13:41:00.000-07:00

Its been four weeks, since I started my audio blog. Recording has been an enjoyable and thrilling experience for me and as I do more recordings, I am getting more attracted by the art of audio engineering. You need to learn a lot of things. Nowadays you have innumerable choices for sound editing software. Sound in a crude sense, can be considered as an array of mechanical vibrations and we are limited to hear the frequencies in a range of 20 Hz to20,000 Hz. When you organize sound waves with respect to time, and give it some rhythm, pitch, mood, emotions and dynamics, you will end up in generating some sort of musical form. It’s a difficult choice, how do you want to express your musical thoughts. A karaoke singer don’t have to worry much, since a basic sound editing interface like Audacity is more than enough; but if you want to create your own music, you should have a reasonable flexibility in the audio simulator to express your thoughts. I am still using Audacity and it has a lot of useful inbuilt effects to improve your audio. But we are limited to use the predefined profiles and I guess many of the inbuilt profiles which Audacity has, doesn’t support the Indian music style. Yesterday I got Adobe Audition from one of my friend and I find it is far better than what I am using right now. I will be recording using Audition from next week onwards. Previously a conventional weekend means going out for a movie, try some restaurants, watch a Padmarajan movie with some methyl alcohol derivative etc etc. Things have changed now. I spend at least 2 hours to learn and record a song. As you know it is quite hard to create a noise free atmosphere at home. I have to say that the pleasure of recording and editing our own sound is amazing. I couldn’t make much significant improvement in technology wise since I started the blog, but at least a few hours of exercise for my vocal chords keeps it alive. I had given almost 5 years of rest to my throat and it may take few more months of regular efforts to retrieve the fitness. Being a Glaswegian, I have a very limited opportunity to sing and I feel an audio blog is the ideal medium for me to express myself. I came across this concept following a random Google search and thankful to Jo for maintaining an inspirational model blog.

This time, I attempt one of Brahmanandan's ever time hit from the movie Shasthram jayichu Manushyan thottu. Lyrics by Sreekumaran Thambi and music by Dakshinamoorthy. As I do something related to Astrophysics for living, I couldn’t fully comprehend the word “Tharaka roopini”. In many aspects, Brahmanadan resembles Venugopal. He hasn't sung many songs, or Malayalam music industry hasn’t had a genuine necessity to add an additional singer like Brahmanadan since they already have the blessed KJY & Jayachandran during those days. However all his songs were super hits.

Tharaka roopini | Music Upload

മലയാള ഭാഷ തന് മാദക ഭംഗി !!!!

2008-09-19T14:26:00.000-07:00

We had a fantastic Onam last weekend. Even Achan was complaining me that, it was hard to find organic Plantain back in Kerala. This is my third attempt to record a song. Due to some unavoidable time constraints, at the moment I am only able to record a song per week. I want to push it a bit; at least 2 per week. I haven't sung for quite a long time and the result is a rusty throat. You can notice cracks in voice while it touches the high notes. I was comfortable with d/c# scale at a time and disappointingly struggle with c now. I am sure I will be able to move freely atlaest in c scale. I tried to sing with a karaoke track, still need to improve a lot. This time, a classic by Jayachandran.

Malayalabhashathan | Upload Music

കല്‍പ്പാന്ത കാലത്തോളം കാതരേ നീയെന്‍ മുന്നില്‍ .....

2008-09-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

One more Onam as an economic asylum seeker. I had posted a song last week, in which the recording quality was reasonably bad. Today I post one of my favourite song by Vidyadharan master. I tried to improve a little bit, in terms of the recording quality. As Jo had suggested me last week, the only way to learn the recording techniques is by recording more songs:). DIY

kalpanthakalattolam kathare neeyen munnil cover | Upload Music

May Maasame - A classic by SreeevalsanJ Menon (Cover)

2008-09-05T04:33:00.000-07:00

I am inspired by the audio blogs of Jo , Pradeep and Murali. It is interesting to see how professionally they maintain their blogs. This is my first attempt to record my voice. At the moment, I have a very limited resource and this trial is done with a normal mike which came as an attachment to my head phones, a normal Toshiba lap top with Intel core 2 duo processor, 4GB of RAM and controlled by Fedora and I use an elementary recording software called Audacity. I am grateful to Murali and Jo, for their tutorials on creating an Audio blog. I have a plan to get one dynamic mike and an external USB sound card with a MIDI interface so that I can plug in my keyboards as well.

Sreevalasan J menon is one among the most impressive new face in the Malayalam film music industry, we have seen in the last couple of years. He is a trained and well established carnatic vocalist. I had an opportunity to listen to one of his concert with Nayyattinkara Vasudevan, when I was a kid. All songs in ‘My mother’s laptop’ are excellent and the quality of orchestration is amazing especially as it is done by a classical musician like Sreevalsan. I attempt the song May maasame. You can feel the soothing fragrance of Abhogi through out (in the original version :)). There are some classics in Abhogi from raveendran master like ‘Maamankam pala kuri kondadi’ and ‘Aaalila manchalil neeyadumpol’ etc, but this song is exceptionally marvellous because it doesn’t remind you or restrict you to any common characteristics of the Raaga. Rafeeq Ahmed’s lyrics adds the rest of it.

May maasame at Muziboo.com