Needle Drops

• Ilaiyaraaja brings Budapest Symphony Orchestra again for the background score of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’. The trailer of the film with grand orchestral background score is available here.
  
  
• Recently bought an mp3 of A.R.Rahman’s collections with Mudhalvan, Kadhalar Dhinam and Enakku 20 Unakku 18 and complete background score of ‘Aa Aah’ (Anbe Aaruyirae) in high quality. Did Five Star Audio legally acquire rights to release the background score of ‘Aa Aah’?
  
  
• 30 seconds clips of all cues from Avatar Soundtrack are available for listening here. Here is a short interview with James Horner on the last day of recording Avatar Score. And here is a short review on the Avatar Score.
  
  
• Though the sample cue ‘Into the Navi World’ from Avatar Score is available for listening in avatarscore.com, it is not part of the original soundtrack track listing posted in the website. It is such a breath taking synth-orchestral piece. I hope it is a part of one of the tracks listed. Or is it a strategy to release version 2 of the soundtrack like they did for Titanic?
  
  
• There is a fixed playlist on arrahman.com ever since the site went live. In the playlist, there is a track titled ‘Killing Innocence’ from Mangal Pandey. This music piece plays in the End Credits of the movie. Full version can be heard here (Track 21). When the film got released, there were rumors about a separate Original Soundtrack CD release, which seems to be true.
  
  
• Surprisingly, in Pixar’s ‘UP’ DVD, there are no enough special features on Michael Giacchino’s Score. Even this video that seemed to be a part of the DVD special features is not available in the disk.
  

Needle Drops

• The most eagerly awaited James Horner’s “Avatar” Score is releasing on December 15th. The offical soundtrack tracklisting is available in avatarscore.com
  
  
• Oh! That serene solo violin in ‘Paa’ trailer music is bliss. I expected some instrumental themes in ‘Paa’ Soundtrack. ‘Cheenikum’ had a Veg and a Non-Veg Melody but here we get just a Paa theme remix. Paa Theme remix is not done by Ilaiyaraaja, it is by Vickky Goswami. I am a bit hopeful because, of all things, director Balki chose to talk about Ilaiyaraaja’s background score in the press meet.
  
  
• I love Karthik Raaja’s score for ‘Anything for you’ trailer, with an innate Indian melody, soulful orchestration, it is vintage Karthik Raja. Why doesn’t this guy do some non-film instrumental works like his father?
  
  
• It is good to see budding composers talking about their background scores as much as their songs. James Vasanthan says he has enrolled himself in a course on ‘Film Score Orchestration’.
  
  
• Recently finished reading a book called “Behind the Curtain – Making Music in Mumbai’s Film Studios”; it had some extensive information about how background scores were recorded earlier in Hindi films. The book is a very emotional account of the life of musicians in film orchestras that existed earlier and their subsequent downfall. And not so surprisingly, the music assistants and arrangers themselves admit in their interviews that almost 90% of the composers in Hindi films didn’t care about background scores. The video snippets of the interviews of musicians are available here.
  
  
• I haven’t seen ‘Yuvraaj’ yet, but I listened to the beautiful background score of the film here. How many more such movies, Rahman is going to waste his music on?
  
  
• And yes, I stole the title for this post ‘Needle Drops’ from John O’brien’s comment on ‘Listening Couples Retreat’ post.
  

Blogiversary

‘Background Score’ blog turns 2 today.

It has been quite a journey and a great learning experience so far. Thank you.

On this happy occasion, here is a feast for film score fans.

Score Quest Fest Answers

Score Quest Fest

Track 9 is from Punnagai Mannan. Composer – Ilaiyaraaja. I like to call this piece the prelude to the popular love theme. It appears when Kamal is deeply disturbed by the hallucination of him dancing with Revathi and angrily hits the Piano. It is a short piece with a beautiful melody and counter melodies.

Track 10 is from Raam. Composer – Yuvan Shankar Raja. It is the title score of the movie in which the scene takes us through every little detail of the place of crime. Yuvan uses a background score cue from the 7G, Rainbow colony and shifts to a new theme as the visuals shifts to the crime scene. I don’t remember where else the theme is used in the film as I didn’t like the film.

Score Quest Fest Answers

Score Quest Fest

Track 7 is from Parthiban Kanavu. Composer – Vidhyasagar. This simple sweet melody is the main love theme of the movie. It appears first when Srikanth sees Sneha and falls in love with her instantly. It continues to play in all the scenes where Srikanth chases her to find her place and identity.

Track 8 is from Porkaalam. Composer – Deva. This haunting melody is Meena’s theme in the movie. Right from the beginning, ever silent Meena expresses her love for Murali through this melody. Once everything collapses and Murali decides to marry a disabled girl, the shattered world of Meena is heard through the orchestral version of the same theme in the climax. The impact of the orchestral version is higher as we audience don’t know what is going to happen and we get shocked to see Meena walking with the disabled girl, whom Murali is getting married to.

Score Quest Fest Answers

Score Quest Fest

Track 5 is from Nattamai. Composer – Sirpi. This is the theme for the chief of the Nattamai family. Though overused throughout the film, the theme aptly adds to the honesty and regal of the head family of the village.

Track 6 is from Kushi. Composer – Deva. This is the omnipresent main love theme of the film that appears every time Siva and Jennifer meet. It sounds best in the scene where Siva and Jennifer both run to save the dying flame of a lamp in the temple. In this scene, music perfectly complemented every single shot. It seems as if the shots were composed and carefully edited keeping music in mind.