FM RAINBOW Interview on ARR
ARR conveys his warm wishes to all the listeners from his heart. The Singer is young Madhumitha who interviews him . Mridangam Maestro Mr. T.V. Gopalakrishnan on ARR " Salutations. Music Genius A.R.Rahman is a man who can not be competed by anyone in the world of Music today. He started playing Keyboard at the age of 7 or 8, with the influence of his father. As far as my knowledge goes, he was a talented kid right from that age. His father Shekhar was a good friend of me. He, Illayaraja, L.Vaidyanathan were all associated with me, and I used to address them as " Young Turks". They were all thinking in advance in film music, and that was a time, when he was working for G.K. Venkatesh. Rahman is an introvert, and his brain would always be working on something or the other. He would appear to be a soft person, and now too he appears the same. But he has a passion for doing things. He came to me at the age of 16 or 17 and wanted to learn music. At that time, there was a Carnatic Jazz band. He would never say to anyone to sing in one fashion or manner. He would take whatever he felt like and would give freedom to the singer. He would take time to do his work, but each and every song of his would become a major hit. Even though he had done a lot of Hindi Music, Theatrical Music ( Bombay Dreams ), still he doesn't have any sense of ego in him, and remains the same. He is a Complete person with Completeness all through. He talks less, but has very high and deep thinking. He behaves with me with love and respect as that of Guru still. He has to reach a lot more heights and places. He is still young. He used to tell me that Film Music would have a cluster of ragas, as it comes with the Visuals and has to be differentiated with pure Raga based music. I consider it a great blessing to have such a person as my disciple. My best wishes for him to achieve much much more in this world. *Mandolin Srinivas* " I have met you a lot many times. Everytime I meet you, I would like to ask you a lot many questions. Amongst the songs composed by you, I like " Enna Solla Pogirai " a lot. You are a Creative Musician, and there is nothing you don't know. I love all your Carnatic compositions, as it sounds very sweet. I am very proud to see your achievements. Not only for India, but for the whole world, you have brought fame and name. I pray God that your success continues for ever, and God bestows you with the best always. Q :- When you compose music, is it that the style of music of yours comes to you automatically, or do you force yourselves into such a style of music ? AR :- Any creative person will have his own likes and dislikes. There are some things which he may not like at all, and there are certain things which he may like most. This forms his character. This forms his character, artistic character. When I started composing music in the beginning, there were certain things which I didn't like at all. I thought that I should never do such things. So I was thinking to do something different, and achieved something, with the full assistance of Maniratnam. So, I have to thank him, and thank Balachander, and the whole team. After establishing it that way, I couldn't go back. Everyone will start making fun, so automatically, it started to flow in that fashion. It set a milestone for me to come up with something else. Actually, you gave a Concert with Chakravarthy Sir 's son called Rock. I was with Padma Seshadri at that time, in their troupe. I still remember where he played, after which our band played. I think it was 1983 or 84. So, you were of a great inspiration to me. Thank you. Audio Files of the Interview can be downloaded from here http://www.4shared.com/file/80905216/61327820/RainbowAR1.html -- regards, Vithur
