Jul 02, 2009 03:10 PM
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Hume tumse pyar kitna
Yeh hum nehi jante
Magar jee nehi sakte
Tumhare bina.
Soul stirring music etched in time. The very mention of the song fills the heart with a dense romantic feeling which lingers long after the song has ended. What more rewarding for a composer than his timeless music resonating in the hearts of million long after he is gone?
The great RD Burman, popularly known as Pancham and affectionately called as Boss was the person with whom Indian film music stepped into a brand new era which saw it breaking away from the shackles of highly classical based songs. The age of experimentation with different genres of music, had begun with Pancham.
*Setting the mood.
*Every composition of RD is vibrant and zestful. Panchamda had an ear for music and would never compromise till he had reached perfection in his compositions. He would fine tune his compositions till the last moment if he was not satisfied. No matter what kind of film he was composing for, he had always given his heart and soul to it. For example the beautiful rendition “roz roz ankhon tale” belonged to a film Jeeva which people might have never heard of.
*RD’s Uniqueness
*Today we have electronic voice correction mechanisms which can make any music sound melodious. But back in those days the only thing that made a composer great was a sound knowledge of the Indian ragas which formed the base of every song. He belief was that every composer should expose himself to all kinds of music before he can claim to become a composer himself. RD himself never claimed that he was a great composer, unlike many modern composers but made his work speak for him. Panchamda's knowledge in the ragas was reflected in all his songs. If we notice a bit carefully we can see the undercurrent of some of the basic ragas in each of his songs. He would always love to play around with the ragas, mixing and matching them to create some new effect all the time. From the snazzy American jazz to subtle African local tunes, from the rhythms of the green mountains to the folk based music of rural Bengal his interests were vivid. His quest for making good music never ended. And the best part of his music was that he was one person who could actually bring out the feelings hidden in the lyrics in the form of his soul stirring music.
His music gelled well with singers like Kishor Kumar and Amit Kumar. They could actually do justice to the soulful compositions with their deep voice. The bass in their voice added to the mystic charm of every song. RD himself was blessed with a good voice and he would seldom lend his voice along with the lead male singers. IN the song'Bade acche lagte hain'(Balika Badhu) Amit Kumar's voice blends so beautifully with panchamda's that listeners can barely identify when the master himself slips stealthily into the album with the boatman's clarion call of'o majhi re'.
He had incorporated electronic music and western rock together with the Indian rhythm based melodies to create a scintillating fusion which was no doubt much ahead of his time. The audience who were till then toned to the stereotype music, welcomed the innovative approach of RD with much fanfare.
RD's special improvisations in his own compositions not only made the playback singers famous but also the actors who sang them on the screen. When ever we hear'Aaaja aaja main hu pyar tera' we remember Shammi Kapoor's face, and this deadly duo gave Bollywood one of the first finest seduction songs ever. Or'aane wala pal jaane wala hain' will always make us remember Amol Palekar in Golmal. We must not also forget to mention over here that though the legendary cabaret number'Piya tu ab to aaja'(Caravan)is credited mainly to Asha Bhosle's intoxicating voice, but who can deny the fact that RD's banshee cries of'Monica o my darling' went a long way in rooting the number in the public's mind.
*Being natural
*RD never stopped experimenting with different genres of music and along with it he also tried out different kinds of musical instruments from around the world.
He used Madal which is basically a Pahadi instrument used with folk tunes of Nepal. For'Hare ram hare krishna' RD wanted to create the sound of hills and whole of background score of HRHK was thus based on Madal. In Sholay’s title music the feel of village has been created with madal and a rich tone of Madal with Tabla and Duggi has enhanced the whole song “Tere bina jiya jaye na” from Ghar. Reso an instrument of African origin, was used by Panchamda to give extra sharpness or add treble to the music at foot tapping speed. Earlier all side rhythms like Reso, Khanjiri, Kabbaz, Sticks etc. used to played together sitting behind the main rhythm artists. From Teesari Mazil, the music lovers experienced different sound patterns. Reso became most popular with song “Mere samne wali khidki mein”(Padosan). The song starts with Kishor’s alap and after sometime, the sound of Reso takes over the entire rhythm of the song.
RD was, as Gulzar says, "as good a craftsman as he was a musician. He picked the sounds for his songs from very indigenous sources". The'Chura liya'song became famous with the sound of a spoon hitting a glass adding an exotic touch to the subtle romance. For'Master jee kee aa gayee chitthee'(Kitab) he brought some desks from a classroom in the studio while recording and used them as percussion. In Abdullah he used the sound of a bamboo whistle with a balloon tied to it for a song. Once to get the sound of raindrops, he spent a whole rainy night in his house's balcony recording the sound he wanted. In the song'O Manjhi Re' from the movie'Khushboo', R.D. Burman used bottles with water filled at different levels and created a hollow sound by blowing into them and this sound effect was used with the orchestra. During the recording of'Hum donon do preme'(Ajnabee) the musicians were on strike. So he improvised the song with emptied-out musical interludes. The mouth organ played in the song'Hai Apna Dil To Awara' sung by Hemant Kumar in the film'Solva Saal' is played by R.D. Burman himself. "Pyaar karta jaa" picturised on Mehmood, sung by Manna De in'Bhoot bangla'? This song was recorded in 1965 and Pancham made use of almost five singers placing them at distant locations from each other to get the exact echo effect produced in valleys. RD's penchant for aesthetic sounds made his compositions evergreen.
RD's songs were not only instrumental classics but he also tried out the differnt forms of Onomatopoeia such as "ta ra ra ra pa ra ra ra", "aha", "ah ah ah", "zub zub" and other sounds. As an example "Dum maro dum"(Hare Rama Hare Krishna), “Aao jhoome gaaye"(Paraya dhan), "Duniya mein logon ko"(Apna desh), "Reshmi zulfen nashili aankhen"(Indrajeet) or the famous "Yeh jawaani hai deewani"(Jawaaani deewani) can be mentioned.
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