Maestro ilaiyaraaja news & titbits

[Sureshs65]

"For anyone who grew listening to Ilaiyaraaja's movies, scoring for specific moments is the most obvious way of scoring background music. I realized later from A.R.Rahman's and many Hollywood scores that it is okay to go with a generic mood to deliver a perfectly right score."

I think the whole philosophy of scoring for Hollywood films is very different from scoring for Indian films. That is not an apple to apple comparison at all. The way they tell the story, the way they edit the movie and the way the actors deliver is very different from our films. Additionally the emotional factor in their films is quite different and generally underplayed compared to our films. So we cannot do this comparison about 'generic mood' of the film etc.

Coming to Rahman's BGM in many of the movie I have seen, his BGM instead of being elevating becomes elevator music. Basically something going on in the background as in the elevator. Recently was watching 'Jodha Akbar' and in one scene which was emotional, the BGM conveyed nothing of the situation. It was generic Hindustani sitar playing an Hindustani ragam in the background. As I said perfect example of elevator music. Somehow in the Indian movies context I think the 'generic music' is more a cover up for lack of skill in this department than of any major philosophy.