This week of Navarathri reminds me of the the time I used to spend singing in front of the “Bomma Kolu” at the Bhavan’s Bala Mandir Thrissur during my school days. To revisit my nostalgic memories I have added a devotional song dedicated to the Mookambika Devi.Please listen to”Kudajadriyil Kudikollum” and post your valuable comments.
I am not an expert in music and I don’t have even the basic ideas of the raaga/classical system. However, I love to compose songs occasionally. The first time I composed a song was many years back. It was a devotional song. It happened this way – our Church choir had an A grade in those days at All India Radio, Thrissur station. We were occasionally invited to the AIR studio to record songs for Easter or Christmas days. The songs had to be original works.
Once we had an invitation to record for the Easter week. Our main composer, George chettan, was kind of busy with working for albums and he could not do all the songs. There were about 5 to 6 songs scheduled for the recording session. So he asked if anybody had any songs composed and ready to orchestrate. My friend Lindsie knew that I had composed two devotional songs and she mentioned that to him [I owe you for that, Linu! 
]. I presented the songs before him, both which I wrote and composed. He liked the songs and agreed to orchestrate it.
The recording on that day at All India Radio, Thrissur is an unforgettable moment of my life. It was my first studio experience ever. The AIR studio used (I don’t know if they still use it) old recording techniques, so there was no studio softwares or punch-in options. If you misspell even just one word or go out of tune in one place, you would have to sing the entire song from the beginning to end. I was totally nervous (as I always am when I sing) but somehow managed to sing the songs.
I was so happy that day that I could sing my own song at AIR. I was even more happy when I listened to the song at my neighbor’s house through their radio (we did not have a radio in our house then). My heart nearly burst out when I heard the announcer saying my name and the song’s name before the song was played. I wanted to scream to the world that this is my song that you are hearing through All India Radio. The song I wrote, composed and sang [ Listen to the song here - not the original version, re-recorded many years later]. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get hold of a recorded version of the original. After many years, when I went to learn Karnatik music, I made my teacher listen to the song and he said that the song was based on Hamsadhwani. I had no idea of what raaga it was.
Now that’s a long introduction. Coming to the topic, I composed a song recently for a short film being directed by a friend’s friend. Here is the situation of the song as I learned from my friend:
The girl hasn’t met the boy yet. She has only heard so much about him. He is a revolutionary kinda person and she develops a heroic crush towards him. He is in jail. Even though they haven’t met each other yet, she begins to love him after she learns a about him from his family etc, and waits for him to return from jail. So this is not a sad song. This song is about waiting, but involves the pain of love. So I kept all of these in mind when I composed.
The song is written by Retheesh from Malappuram. I met him first at my house when he came in with the lyrics and explained the song situation. His beautiful lines inspired me to come up with the tune in a short span of time. He made several changes to the lyrics on my request. Orchestration was done by Rajith, a keyboard player who also owns a small studio in Thrissur. He has done an awesome job and made this song to what I had imagined it to be. When I requested Divya S Menon (who needs no introduction to the music blogging world) to sing the song, she happily agreed and did a wonderful job on the vocals. My thanks to all of them.
I sent this song to two of my close friends in the field of music and both of them gave me positive reviews. One said that the song fits the description very well and the other said that I should quit my job and become a full time music director. My thanks to you guys for your kind feedback.
Now, I leave the song to you guys to listen. Let me know how you like it. When the music video gets ready, I will post it here.
Song: Iniyethra Naal (Malayalam)
Lyrics: Ratheesh
Composed by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)
Orchestrated by: Rajith
Singer: Divya S Menon
Happy Onam to all of you!
This is my Onam Gift to all of my friends, for all the encouragements and prayers you have been showering on me!
Please listen to this and let me know how you all liked my gift! Yhappy.gif
Lyrics: Rahul Soman
Music / Orchestration / Voice : Arun
Vocal Interludes : Rakesh, Sminu, Anish V V, Aditi, Sindhu,Sandhya, Rahul.
Special thanks to my friend and Music Director Sibu Noyz (Off Beats) for his feedbacks and guidance!
Please watch my latest album song “Ente Ekantham” from the album “Off Beats”. Please let me know how you liked it.
Malayalam Album “off beats”.
Song: Ente Ekanthamam
Lyrics: Aswin Krishna
Music: Sibu Noyz
Voice: Arun
Direction: Aswin Krishna
Watch the video here:
Kannada Version of “Off Beats”
Song: Ello Ekanthadhena
Lyrics: Surya Prakash
Music: Sibu Noyz
Voice: Arun
Direction: Aswin Krishna
Watch the video here:
Thanks a lot for your encouragements and prayers!!!
Arun
Perhaps after Kangal Irandaal, this is one song that keeps me hooked to my iPod and I never get tired of listening to it. Such a beautiful, melodious song from Deepak Dev and it seems to be the come-back of Deepak after a short interval. This song is already a huge hit across Kerala. One thing I like about the orchestration of this song is that the vocals do not get miffed in the background music. It has very minimal use of background music so that the vocals is clear when you hear it. And this one is sung by the versatile Shankar Mahadevan and the Shankar – Deepak has made this song forever hit. Here is my humble attempt in singing “Picha Vacha Naal Muthal” from Puthiya Mukham.
Sally is a long time friend of mine and also the elder sister of Jessica, whose song I published in my old blog. Sally thought this song would suit me and requested to sing it. Here is the song for you, Sal.
And many thanks to Rosh for the karaoke track. She knew I love this song and sent me the karaoke. Thanks!
Song: Picha Vacha Naal Muthal
Movie: Puthiya Mukham
Music: Deepak Dev
Original singer: Shankar Mahadevan
Sung by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)
Karaoke provided by: Roshni
Song : SaagarangaLE
Composer : Bombay Ravi
Lyrics : Yousuf Ali Kachery
Singers : K.J.Yesudas
Movie : Panchagni
Performed by : Murali Venkatraman
Mixed by : Meera Manohar
I had written a bit about composer Bombay Ravi in dhool a while back : http://www.dhool.com/sotd2/567.html . He transitioned beautifully from Hindi to Malayalam in the 80s. And this was made possible by the director Hariharan who made some beautiful movies like Panchagni. Although I got to see the movie much later after it was made, I was really moved by the story line and the brilliant performances. And the music – 2 songs – SaagarangaLE and aa raatri maanju pOyi were just absolutely wonderful melodies enshrining the voices of Yesudas and Chitra individually.
This is the second song in the series of the songs that my mom has requested me to sing. Hope you like it. Meera helped mixing this so well.
Film : Kaliyaattom(1997)
Music Director : Kaithapram
Lyrics : Kaithapram
Original Singer : Padmabhooshan Dr.K.J.Yesudas
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Song : Oru Murai
Singers : K J Yesudas and K S Chitra
Music : M G Radhakrishnan
Cover By : Pradip Somasundaram and Srividya Kasturi
Here is a song from the Malayalam movie Thirakkatha. The album marks the come back of music director Sharath to the Malayalam cinema after a break. This is a duet song and I did it myself.
Movie: Thirakkatha
Music: Sharath
Original singers: Nishad, Swetha
Covered by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)
Movie : Vivahitha
Music : Devarajan
Lyrics : Vayalar
Singer : K J Yesudas
