Lessons from Maestro Ilayaraja

Date: September 02, 2001

Lesson 2

Creating Melody with Hamsanadham

                  Song:

Om Namaha.....(Tamil version)

Om Namaha ….(Telugu version)

                 Film:

Idhayathai Thirudathey (Tamil)

Geetanjali (Telugu)

Based on Raga :

Hamsanadham

The Mood of the Song

This is a wonderful semi-classical melody that touches the hearts of its listeners. According to the situation in the film, this song plays the role of explaining the fact that real love is a feeling that blossoms from the bottom of one's heart and that it cannot be expressed in words. The composer has brought out this fact through this beautiful song and has showed how music could be used to evoke the feelings of love, romance and emotion.

The Raga

The song has got certain features that speak of the composer's creativity in presenting a raga like Hamsanadham. Hamsanadham is a penta-tonic and symmetrical raga ( s r2 m2 p ni3). The composer has used a scale between the lower panchamam and the higher rishabham, in composing this song (the pallavi and charanam).

The song takes off at the base shadjyamam and presents soul stirring phrases in Hamsanadham. The most touching phrases in the song are the slide from ni to pa (that sounds like sa ni sa ni pa) and the slide from ma to ri (that sounds like pa ma pa ma ri). The composer has brought the true image of the raga by using these phrases. These slides occur at several places in the song (the pallavi begins with this slide).

The composer has given a lot of technical content in the pallavi of this song. He has shown how a single tune can be turned into a whole pallavi of a song. The pallavi of this song is essentially just one tune. The tune is first sung at the base shadjyamam and then repeated twice with panchamam as the base (a higher scale) and then repeated once again at the base shadjyamam. The slide from ni to pa turns out to be ma to ri at the higher scale. The composer reaches the peak of creativity in clubbing the higher scale tune with the lower. He does this with yet another beautiful slide from ni to pa. (ni ni ri ni ni pa).

The usage of ri as a landing note in several places in this song, proves the distinctiveness of the composer.

In a tune during the second half of the charanam, the composer uses shuddha dhaivatham and causes a tremendous impact on the listeners' mind. This note (dha) is not part of the raga. The composer's mastermind has used this note to bring out the emotion in the song.

Another feature of this song is that, the last note of the charanam and the first note of the pallavi are the same (base sa). This causes an overlap of two notes (essentially same note). This is clearly noticed at the end of the second charanam. (According to renowned play back singer S.P.Balasubramanium,this feature has been found only in the compositions of great people in the history of music).

A related feature is that the pallavi of the song stops with the first note (sa..lyricised as Om), immediately after the first charanam and the second interlude takes off.

In brief the composer demonstrates how creative features should be added to a song to make it sound distinct from others, and how a raga should be used to support these features.

The Orchestration

This song has a constant rhythm that symbolizes the human heart beat, in its backdrop. This must have been obvious to the composer in order to match the song situation.

This is another song from the Maestro, that has interludes with the domination of violins and the flute. The interludes in this song are short (for reasons best known to the composer). The composer maintains the mood of the song and the beauty of the raga in the interludes by making them sound simple and melodious.

Thanks to Maestro Ilayaraja for teaching us the usage of a raga like Hamsanadham.

Author: R.S.Balaji

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