Baby loony tunes

First listen to Raaja explaning about the melody of 'Paruvame'.



He is brutally honest about the fact that, if you just hum the tune of the pallavi, it is very uninteresting. Its hallow, short and doesn't leave any emotional impact on the listener whatsoever.

It is the colors that he adds on top of this tune by way of Chords, Arpeggios, bass track, guitar strums and fillers with instruments like Flute that makes the Raaja song a Raaja song. Composers before and after him are solely focused on the tune. While Raaja's melody based songs are perhaps more challenging to sing in their own right, its songs with such simple tunes that stands tall and apart with his own inimitable orchestration

For everyone else, the song's tune, especially the opening tune is everything. It needs to be catchy, should give a feel of the situation, should be unique, should be challenging etc., For someone like Raaja who see the matrix falling behind a tune in his mind, the tune is nothing more than a vehicle to carry all is other ideas. He can convey the situation with a bell here, with a flute there.

This song which I played today falls in the same category. The main melody is of atomic syllables made of short words with break in between such as "oh" followed by "butterfly" etc. If you just sing them alone, you are guaranteed of a weird look from the passerby. But when you play this melody with all its accompaniments, the color behind it is so rich that goosebumps are unavoidable.



On a light hearted note, I would like to call these tunes as "Baby Loony Tunes" for their unassuming, short and cute demeanor. But don't underestimate them for the final product is always a giant. That is Maestro for you..

With Love
Vicky

posted by Vicky @ Friday, January 24, 2014 Comments: 3