Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Music versus noise...

This song is an out-of-the seuqence number, just to beat the monotony of the elegant and evergreen category of the 1970's songs that have been posted so far. To set the stage for this, imagine that a wedding baaraat is passing through a crowded market in a townplace and the dulhaa hopelessly trying to maintain his balance on a horse (a ghodi to be more precise), his slippery kolhapuri chappals make the stunt even more challenging. As they proceed towards the shaadi-ka-mantap, there is a wagon behind them, with the members of the brass orchestra tightly packed into it and some of them pouring outside too, the orchestra comprising a bulbul-tarang, a brass trumpet, a dhol, huge cymbals, and the like. The ambience is such that no one in the audience really bothers to appreciate the music, rather everyone is enthusiastic about the event to follow and is busy dancing to the tune or clearing up the road ahead so that they reach the venue in time. Hence, there is no provision for sophisticated music and subtle effects, even the sound system does not have speakers but only cone-shaped megaphones. With all that in place, each musician dutifully ensures that his instrument is heard with the loudest volume in the whole orchestra.


Trying to play this kind of noisy music in a noise-filled environment is quite a challenge. To play this on the Yamaha E-403 is even tougher, because by nature the keyboard has very sweet and soothing musical tones. Searching for a sharp and noisy tone was a task by itself, then the touch-response was completely disabled, a noisy and cluttered rhythm (called Goa Pop) selected and the notes played by leaving aside the gaayaki style of modulations. All this to create the feeling that the enthusiasm of the baaraatis on such occasions owerpowers their urge of lending a keen ear to listen to and appreciate the music played.


The idea of this post is to bring out a rustic, a raw musical style without any subtle effects, typical of a bulbul-tarang, and to take the reader (listener) right into a baaraat! Hope the reader has a good trip! This song is also an evergreen song, but more so, as a dance number - Kombdi Palaali! Enjoy...

3 comments:

Milind said...

ek number!
must have been tricky to play this..hats off to your skills..

Kapil said...

:-) ...SUperb....I wished I was back to those engicos night dancing on this song :)

Shreya Okhde said...

sahi ekdum!

hats off to you! kasa suchala yaar
I enjoyed :)