I was just thinking if I were to interview Rahman, what question I wud ask.
Here's a part of the questions I thought of.. they are not exhaustive... some
more are to come.. hope you to add some... pls excuse me if i thought of a
question which was already answered :o)
1. You and Mehboob made a great combination, proved with the success of Bombay
and Vandemataram, why is that we do not see you working together again ?
2. Music Directors often say that they have "n" number of tunes in their
repository (one Telugu MD I heard said that he had 10,000 song tunes with him).
Is this the same with you as well. Or do you think music and tunes come
spontaneously ?
3. Why is it that whenever we listen to your music in different systems (eg.
Headphones, 5.1, Stereo etc), we discover new sounds that we had not heard
before in that song. For example in the song "Ishq Bina Ishq Bina" from Taal
you had mixed the sound of a CPU speaker between 5:15 and 5:17. Do you mix them
in your songs as a "puzzle - to be solved by the listners" ?
4. What according to you is the best music set-up to listen, discover and
enjoy your songs completely, with all the special effects.
5. When I was a teenager back in the 90s I saw one of your interviews on TV. In
that interview you had said that a lot of Directors are not happy with your
music, but the music went on to become hits. Did those directors ever come back
to you again ?
6. You had expressed your wish to do music for a film like "Shankarabharanam".
Do you think that you will ever get to work on such a movie in today's trend of
commercial cinema?
7. We have seen many of your greatest tunes not getting the praise they deserve
because either they were part of a non-commercial movie of a one that flopped
(eg: Ada, Zubeida, Bose-TFH, Meenaxi, Tehzeeb, one 2 k 4, Gang Master, Palnati
Pourusham etc). But when you use any part of these overlooked songs in other
movies, critics slam you to be repetitive, how do you repond to it.
8. Do you think your style of music has indirectly put any pressure on other
music directors to keep-up with you and make music similar to yours ?
9. We all know that you are a very busy person, do you regularly listen to
music of other music directors by your instincts or when someone recommends it.
10. You had once said that you can make enough songs for 5 movies with the
Background music created in one movie. We see that some of the current music
directors are copying from your back-ground music (Eg: vishal shekar from
Swades to salaam nameste- my dil goes mmm.. caught by an active fan in the
yahoo group). How do you feel when other music directors copy your songs.
(We don't know how many of your background scores have inspired other MDs yet
:o)
11. Shivamani once said that you were the first music director in India who
insisted on printing the names of artists on the cassette and cd credits (eg"
keyboard player, sound engineer, flute etc). That was a great gesture, but how
open was the music industry to this concept ?
12. How successful have you been in convincing the industry about the music
royalities issue ?
13. When the music of Lagaan, Jodha Akbar, Rang de Basanti, Zubeida, Thakshak,
The legend of bhagat singh etc... was released, early critics wrote them off
with comments such as "Not expected from Rahman". But a few years after their
release, these albums are suddenly considered master pieces in Indian music
history. Do you think that this is the mind setup of the critics or if
something is wrong somewhere ?
14. It happpens only with your music that the more you listen to it the more
you like it, why?
15.
a) A lot of today's top music artists swear by the statement that "it is ONLY
because of you that they are what today".
b)Until Roja, the producers never dared to experiment to with new music
directors
c) Until you, the artists never got any credit on the music cassette/CD inlays
d) You are one who has taken the initiative in demanding the royalities to the
music director from music companies
e) You took Indian music to the global arena
f) Your name itself sells music either with the music lovers or the music
companies
Of all the above examples you are a trendsetter. How does it feel, do you feel
more burdened with expectations ?
Vinod
