Musical Ramblings - Chinna Thayaval(Thalapathy)

I was listening to thoppul kodi from vel just a few days back and i was wondering about the state of orchestration in pathos songs nowadays. Although yuvan shankar raja is a composer with a touch of his father he seems to waver mindlessly when it comes to producing intricate orchestration for pathos songs. And in fact besides ARR there seems to be not much of a innovation in pathos songs nowadays...a loud violin score will start off with some predictable tunes and just adding in some solo accompaniments with the flute in the middle seems to be the stock of the time.

That is when i remembered a song which really put me to tears like that of chinna thayaval. A listener would ask what is the speciality about this song since it has the same loud violin and a similar sad-sounding voice. Its the innovation and the way the whole orchestration goes about that really gives the impact. In fact adding on abit this song is a great listen as a standalone song for its orchestration as well as covering the screenplay as a situational song.

Listen to the starting rail sound and remember it in your mind. The way raaja uses the sound is double meaning. First it acts as a soulful prelude to the song and at the same time the reminder of the start of a unwanted journey of the child. And raaja does not just stop there, he in fact continues the journey by capturing it with the violin score which starts off the only interlude.Listen to that piece closely and you can see that the tone of the score is repetitive like going on a journey albeit a goalless journey.The theme carried by the piece is at the same time so endearing to the listener that it really makes you feel if you lost something. Again double meaning. But if you thought that was a masterpiece then the continuing orchestration is totally out of the box. A solo carnatic violin suddenly ends the journey and plays amongst a contradicting harp piece and a sad-sounding group of violins. Again double meaning. The solo carnatic violin represents the emotional loss of the mother while the harp piece represents hope and consolation while the group of violins give support to the solo violin by asking if the mother will ever find the child. Three different scores representing a story in one interlude. Brilliant. And i have not added the way illayaraaja uses S.Janaki's voice as a add-on to the questions marks asked by the orchestration of the song. There's no overpowering here, they are all in sync with each other that they just leave you astounded at the end.

Lets hope that today's composers can improve their score for pathos songs and take a good in depth review of illayaraja's pathos songs to aid them. Giving a situational pathos song is one thing, but telling a story with it and making it sound excellent also as a standalone song is another rare ability.