Hi all rahman fans..
God celebrates his birthday today..and let me be the fortunate one to wish him
many happy returns of this day.. with each day of gr8er heights reached in his
musical journey..
I remeber once while discussin greatness of Rahman.. Gulzarji had observed
something which was heitherto unnoticed..he said..that greatnes of rahman lies
in the fact that he completely changed the grammar of Hindi film music..B4
rahman, it was more or less mukhada..antara.antara..mukhada.. He literally
turned it upside down..
Only a genius can fully recognise another genius this well.. whenever i listen
to boss's songs..i feel that though he gets those crazy ideas which seem to be
so natural..maybe there is a method in the madness..As one goes and sees the
patterns appearing in his music, one feels that rahman has a definite thought
process behind that spontaneous overflow of creativity that impresses us all..
In many songs of his, on sees how rahman has delibrately changed the way the
song was traditionally starting or ending in film music..many a times, his
songs start with a music piece which could may well have been utilised as an
interlude by any other composer.. he dares to start his song by that
interlude.. for e.g. Tu hi re form Dil se or Tu muskura from Yuvraaj..or Kaise
mujhe form Gajjini..or the world famous masakalli..from Delhi 6.. all of them
start with pieces or humming which suddenly start the song with a bang..and
toward the end of the song they reappear out of nowhere..and complete the song
in ways it could never have completed by some1 else..This cycle of sounds which
in away represents the flow of music (unlike the mukhda..antara system of
earlier era)..the eternal flow..and in a way comments about rahman's connection
with the divine thread of everlasting, never ending soul of universe.
One of the lesser credited fact about rahman is the way he has used chorus in
his songs..this is another contribution o f his..which has transformed film
music in particular..Many of his catchy starts are completely sung by
chorus..givin it a heady start..may it be kehna hi kya from bombay or jiya jale
from dilse..chinamma from minaxi or recent aaj dil gustakh from blue..he has
given meatier pieces to chrous..and used them in all styles and pitches..There
are very few examples in hindi film music where the lead singer is more or less
absent from the starting mukhada..but one listens to "dil ye bechain we..raste
pe nain we..aaja sawariya..aa.." and one cant help but sing praises for rahman
for using only chorus for that part( mind u.. u have alka completing the antara
and rest of the mukhada..and u r taking a huge risk by not introducing her
rigth at the start.but obviously for boss..risk is his middle name.) Even using
complete gibberish to musical
effect to start a song..like in badan dhuan dhuan(meenaxi) or making a complete
chorus song.. like dhakka laga buga..he has tried everything..His starting of
songs like "ghanan ghanan" and" Genda phool" have been particularly special for
it usage of chorus at the start and end..
Some his typical starts where he just wants to grab u from the first beat.. he
uses a grabbing instrumental piece..like 'Kabhi kabhi aditi" "jashne.bahara"
"Mitwa" " Radha kasie na jale" "tanha tanha" or "yeh tara woh tara" "Kariye
naa"..and sometimes when he has to convey that divne feeling..he simply drops
all ornamentation which grabs u.. a simple harmonium starts "kwaja mere
khwaja"..cause the emotions overrule the rest there..
well..i can go on and on..but then..the more i think about it.. the more i feel
like speaking..wish u our sincerest appreciation rahman.. u r the reason why in
this world of corruption , nepotism, cruel rapes and red tape.. we still
believe in existence of god..Thank u for Being U.. Enjoy the day..
Amol Kadu
