a good one .... http://hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=8d69d4e1-f2a4- 4e7c-9eca-985cf4bb3306&&Headline=Rahman%3a+the+beat+is+on...
----------------------- Rahman: the beat is on... Khalid Mohamed Mumbai, June 21, 2007 First Published: 10:39 IST(21/6/2007) Last Updated: 15:50 IST(21/6/2007) I 've never heard the sparrows sing at 2 am. But those little fluttery things were cheep-cheep-chirruping away on a leafy bough at Chennai's Kodambakkam residence, studio and prayer alcove of A R R. Was the sparrow squad infected by the every day and night music around them? Or was I just hallucinating? No answer to that one I'm afraid. But after seeing the little big genius work, dream and talk at that address, I feel blessed. Unimagined sounds suddenly reverberate from his mega-synth console, from his sibilant hums as he goes uh..na..na even as his visage becomes more sombre than a magistrate's. Then the slow-mo coming-out of a near trance and an apologetic, "What do you think?" Before I can utter half a syllable, he's on, "Okay, we'll try something else.. na na na.. hum.. hum.. la la la.. oowaah wooh." Cross with himself for not hitting the right notes, he taps away at a laptop, either converses too much or not at all.. vanishes for his prayer and returns a new man. More attempts, more self-dissatisfaction, and all of a sudden at least five variations for a single song are ready, take your pick. His first version of the devotional song, Piya Haji Ali, was 14- minutes long, edited to a filmable five minute length. He promised to give me the original, hasn't.. yet. Some music, perhaps, he keeps to himself. Over 15 years, he has preserved his position of India's most creative and ground-breaking music composer. He's been knighted as the Mozart of Asia but.. such titles embarrass him. He looks away, a hint of self-deprecatory giggle followed by the sentence, "Please, I cannot be talked about in the same breath." And when you switch to the role of an interviewer, he answers off-the- cuff, to ask at the end of a gab session, "I feel strange talking about myself, did I do okay? He did. Excerpts: What kind of music plays on the iPod of his mind? Whatever I'm working on at a point of time.. or if I'm on a concert tour, it is snatches of different pieces of music.. which escape and come back as if they were being recalled from a distance. Piano themes from the film songs take long to finesse, at times of course a tune just hits me like it does with every composer, become either playful or stubborn.. and I've to take it from there. The piano theme for Rang de Basanti and then Guru kept eluding me, I kept working and working on them round the clock. No composer can be narcissistic though.. his ear and heart take in the music around him.For instance, the piano theme for Rang de Basanti and then Guru kept eluding me, I kept working and working on them round the clock. No composer can be narcissistic though.. his ear and heart take in the music around him, whether it's something playing on TV, a child laughing musically or a CD I've heard recently . The thing is to keep oneself open, if I'm told James Blunt's You're so beautiful had a certain lilt to it, I listen to it.. casually and .. then if I like it, again and again.. and again.. it makes me feel light, relieved. And if I ever feel a mental block, there's Vivaldi's Four Seasons. If you haven't heard it, you haven't lived. (Perceiving the blank look on my face) I won't give you my copy, but I'll get a CD burnt for you.. Vivaldi! Vivaldi! Let's hear it right now.. (we do).
