Indiavision television channel in Malayalam has a different kind of reality music show. They conduct a musical reality show called “Street Light” for street singers/musicians. And the final price is to get them a house. Quite interesting. The show is telecasted in Indiavision on every Saturday and Sunday at 8:25 PM.
Here is a song after a short break. This song is one of my top favorites by the A R Rahman-Hariharan team. I also loved Harini’s version of the song. The sweetness in Harini’s voice and Hariharan’s versatility in doing manodharam make both their versions stand on its own.
This song was requested by Maneesha CM and her friend (from Ernakulam) after they heard one of my songs through Muziboo. They called me up and asked me to sing a couple of songs and this was one of them. I totally forgot about it and remembered it when I saw a YouTube link showing Hariharan singing this song.
So here is my try as an unplugged version.
Song: Nilaa Kaaigiradhu
Movie: Indira
Music: A R Rahman
Sung by: Hariharan/Harini
Download the mp3 of Nilaa Kaaigiradhu (cover)
192 kbps player:
128 kbps player:
I am not an expert in music and I don’t have even the basic ideas of the raaga/classical system. However, I love to compose songs occasionally. The first time I composed a song was many years back. It was a devotional song. It happened this way – our Church choir had an A grade in those days at All India Radio, Thrissur station. We were occasionally invited to the AIR studio to record songs for Easter or Christmas days. The songs had to be original works.
Once we had an invitation to record for the Easter week. Our main composer, George chettan, was kind of busy with working for albums and he could not do all the songs. There were about 5 to 6 songs scheduled for the recording session. So he asked if anybody had any songs composed and ready to orchestrate. My friend Lindsie knew that I had composed two devotional songs and she mentioned that to him [I owe you for that, Linu! :-)]. I presented the songs before him, both which I wrote and composed. He liked the songs and agreed to orchestrate it.
The recording on that day at All India Radio, Thrissur is an unforgettable moment of my life. It was my first studio experience ever. The AIR studio used (I don’t know if they still use it) old recording techniques, so there was no studio softwares or punch-in options. If you misspell even just one word or go out of tune in one place, you would have to sing the entire song from the beginning to end. I was totally nervous (as I always am when I sing) but somehow managed to sing the songs.
I was so happy that day that I could sing my own song at AIR. I was even more happy when I listened to the song at my neighbor’s house through their radio (we did not have a radio in our house then). My heart nearly burst out when I heard the announcer saying my name and the song’s name before the song was played. I wanted to scream to the world that this is my song that you are hearing through All India Radio. The song I wrote, composed and sang [ Listen to the song here – not the original version, re-recorded many years later]. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get hold of a recorded version of the original. After many years, when I went to learn Karnatik music, I made my teacher listen to the song and he said that the song was based on Hamsadhwani. I had no idea of what raaga it was.
Now that’s a long introduction. Coming to the topic, I composed a song recently for a short film being directed by a friend’s friend. Here is the situation of the song as I learned from my friend:
The girl hasn’t met the boy yet. She has only heard so much about him. He is a revolutionary kinda person and she develops a heroic crush towards him. He is in jail. Even though they haven’t met each other yet, she begins to love him after she learns a about him from his family etc, and waits for him to return from jail. So this is not a sad song. This song is about waiting, but involves the pain of love. So I kept all of these in mind when I composed.
The song is written by Retheesh from Malappuram. I met him first at my house when he came in with the lyrics and explained the song situation. His beautiful lines inspired me to come up with the tune in a short span of time. He made several changes to the lyrics on my request. Orchestration was done by Rajith, a keyboard player who also owns a small studio in Thrissur. He has done an awesome job and made this song to what I had imagined it to be. When I requested Divya S Menon (who needs no introduction to the music blogging world) to sing the song, she happily agreed and did a wonderful job on the vocals. My thanks to all of them.
I sent this song to two of my close friends in the field of music and both of them gave me positive reviews. One said that the song fits the description very well and the other said that I should quit my job and become a full time music director. My thanks to you guys for your kind feedback. 🙂
Now, I leave the song to you guys to listen. Let me know how you like it. When the music video gets ready, I will post it here.
Song: Iniyethra Naal (Malayalam)
Lyrics: Ratheesh
Composed by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)
Orchestrated by: Rajith
Singer: Divya S Menon
My friend Arun has done an awesome job again on Guitars and this time it is the cover of popular song Kangal Irandaal from Subramanyapuram. Arun has a special way of playing Guitar and I wish he spends more time on this. 🙂
I have been using iPod to listen to music and it has been a great experience so far. The one I had was an iPod Nano 4GB which was gifted by a friend. But as the music kept stacking up and 4GB was not being enough, I was planning to upgrade to a newer version of iPod. Then I researched a bit and talked to friends and Sijo, who uses a Zune suggested to use Zune instead of iPod. A couple of others who have used both was of the opinion that Zune gives a better audio experience. So when Sijo went to US related to work, he bought this piece of beauty for me. This is my new Zune 120GB. I am yet to begin experiencing it (MS asking for Windows updates now when I tried to install the software!) and am looking forward to it.
Eenam, the Malayalam online album, has released an Onam special version. It has a very nice collection of original Malayalam songs and my most favorite song of the album is “aarO kaathil paaTi“, sung by Pradeep (male version) and Divya (female). Pradeep has done an excellent job on the vocals and Bahuvreehi’s composition is nothing short of professional work. Checkout their songs and let them know what you think.
What a great way to pay tribute to the King of Pop!
From the You Tube page:
These are two performances made at Segels Torg and the Central Station (a third installment is planned to happen at Stureplan at 23.00 tonight).
The dance collective Bounce came up with the idea and invited the public to a short choreographed session before hitting the streets.
(Thanks to Arun M for the link)
Padmaraj Payyur was a colleague of mine when I worked in Aluva. He is a web designer and even though I knew that he played Violin, I never had a chance to hear him play. Today, he gave me a link to his first musical post and am just blown away by his music! This song is in repeat mode in my machine now and it is so soothing and relaxing.
Perhaps after Kangal Irandaal, this is one song that keeps me hooked to my iPod and I never get tired of listening to it. Such a beautiful, melodious song from Deepak Dev and it seems to be the come-back of Deepak after a short interval. This song is already a huge hit across Kerala. One thing I like about the orchestration of this song is that the vocals do not get miffed in the background music. It has very minimal use of background music so that the vocals is clear when you hear it. And this one is sung by the versatile Shankar Mahadevan and the Shankar – Deepak has made this song forever hit. Here is my humble attempt in singing “Picha Vacha Naal Muthal” from Puthiya Mukham.
Sally is a long time friend of mine and also the elder sister of Jessica, whose song I published in my old blog. Sally thought this song would suit me and requested to sing it. Here is the song for you, Sal. 🙂
And many thanks to Rosh for the karaoke track. She knew I love this song and sent me the karaoke. Thanks!
Song: Picha Vacha Naal Muthal
Movie: Puthiya Mukham
Music: Deepak Dev
Original singer: Shankar Mahadevan
Sung by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)
Karaoke provided by: Roshni
Download MP3 of “Picha Vacha Naal Muthal” (cover) – 6.19 MB
192 kbps streaming:
128 kbps streaming:
