Nested with love

Days go by slowly, months go faster! And we keep wondering how! Yes it is high time for yet another post from me. While it is interesting to experiment my voice and guitar with recording and mixing trends, it is also challenging to keep pace with new faster or retro rhythms simultaneously both on my vocal cord and the instrumental chord. This time I've uploaded a long forgotten RD Burman guitar number, when Jaya Bacchan was at the best of her charms as Jayabhaduri. Check it out on my jukebox. And the sequel to my previous post is coming up soon too.

As I'm even writing this post, my mind still wanders outside into my patio at this dark hour of the night, disturbed as well as awed by the dedicated little sparrow, which has laid its eggs into the nest that it built on one of our hanging pots out there. In spite of the complexity and convolution of the nest, I was able to take a quick peek into it last week after a great venture, to see how many eggs it actually is mothering. And here comes the picture of four cute small eggs. The darling little mother and its mate with some thugs along wouldn't let me water the plant nor even touch it! I'm now reading facts about how long it takes for a sparrow's eggs to hatch etc.. An interesting fact that I've learnt: "Disturbing any species of a migratory bird's nest, feathers or eggs is punishable".. as per the Migratory bird treaty Act ;-) although house sparrows are an exception.. Well it has been fun for more than two weeks now.. I hope it is just couple of more weeks to go for the babies to fly!

http://www.youtube.com/user/21uthra#p/u/0/Fj3zHlXWwbs

Ragas and Scales - Part 1

For quite a long time, I had been equating the western scales with our native south Indian carnatic or Hindustani ragas. It was effortless to learn it that way as a beginner in Guitar back home, when I started playing the Guitar ten years back. Just a few months and then I told myself, "oh there's nothing in this instrument! It doesn't have enough depth like the Veena" - and switched over to Veena, played it for more than five years.. a beauty by itself, I felt completely satisfied and in love with it. After so much of training on it, I kind of somehow got back to playing Guitar again. And all that was taught to me, not to blame the teacher, was that I just had to know two ragas Sankarabharanam & Keeravani plus some rhythms and that is all about a Guitar. It left me unsatisfied. I was sure that there was more to that instrument. Nor was I right when I felt that this instrument doesn't have any depth. It was then very rare to find an authentic place to learn all the Scales appropriately. So what are these Scales after all?? And what makes a raga different from a western scale?? Both Ragas and Scales are simply a combination of musical notes (swaras). Scale is a set of all the notes that are expected or allowed in a particular piece of music. And it is the same in a Raga too, which has a set of swaras of course with extra flavors, slidings and a dominant sequence of notes ascending or descending or both (often called Raga chaayal in the southern part of India). So what is it that's different about a Scale other than the native feel? Is it the same as a Raga? Pls leave your comments if you have an idea. I'll continue it in my next post.

And stay tuned till I work on my next medley of some 90's and 21st century Hindi songs.

180 No Rules - Nee korinal

I'm back with a latest flick in Tamil. This is a really beautiful mesmerizing song in Tamil after a long time by Karthik and Swetha. The whole album is too good, must listen! And this one is surely an innovative number in terms of rhythms and beats. The pace of the song increases slowly with a perfect mixing of traditional tune followed by jazzy beats. Music is by Sharreth or Sharat, relatively new composer in Tamil. Hopefully this movie of Siddarth doesn't turn out to be one like "Boys" again!

I'm uploading this one on Youtube and on my jukebox as well, since it is an Audio mixing that I've done with some minimal effects. It is again, my version.. This is the first time I'm using a recorder/mixer (finally started using it!). So there are a couple of places that I couldn't handle to perfection. Hope I get better next time. It is so much fun using a mixing software although it takes a lot of time. The song is definitely enjoyable. Listen to it and leave your comments.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thofzqGXyvw

No rains in Spring?

It is a weird phenomenon that we haven't got any rains yet this spring! The last two years that I have been, both the months March and April were raining non-stop! It is sad but true, it has started burning hot right after the day that winter was gone :-(

Praying for rains to come soon...

Here, pls tune to my channel for some of my most favorite numbers by RD Burman, Kishor Da, Asha, Andrea, Shankar Mahadevan, LR Eswari and more..

Pls leave your comments or press the like button on Youtube if you like them. Pls also do subscribe to the channel and stay tuned.

http://www.youtube.com/user/21uthra

Youtube uploads

I'm glad to share my videos uploaded on Youtube now. You should be asking me what made me start my channel on Youtube! There are few reasons that I discovered with some effort ;-) It was initially Mohan who was suggesting it since quite a long time, since I started my blog. But I kept dismissing that idea completely. Later I started realizing that I stopped using my diary, which I used to note the chords for the songs that I play. Now that I also have a new guitar, it simply became a reason to "just do it"! Now I can also have my chords and lyrics in place! So that's my newfound (electrifying) joy on the pic. And here's what you have to do. Tune in to my channel on Youtube to listen to my latest uploads. Subscribe to it and stay tuned!

http://www.youtube.com/user/21uthra?feature=mhum

Vacation

Yes.. a vacation is necessary at least once in 6 months. It may be a day's picnic or a week's fun, whatever is feasible. Be it winter, summer, fall or spring! We all need to stretch out our legs and dangle our souls away from the daily chores in to blissful treats. And what does it not have to offer us? Not just about the fun part of it, there is also a lot of learning involved! Whats and what nots! It helps one progress as an individual. You all know why I'm writing this ;-) clearly because I was on a vacation for just one week and it has taken so long for me to write a post after that. With great gusto we set out for a trip and had loads of learning experiences and adventures. Travelling to a not-so-very-familiar destination, lessons learnt from the small and big mistakes that we did helped us gain more exposure and there's no questioning why it only strengthens the relationship between each other.

And since I'm also trying to upgrade my instrument, I had been a little busy. Since I don't have my Guitars right now, here is some vocal effort from me. A couple of my favorite numbers. Idhuvarai from Goa and Ringa Ringa from Slumdog Millionare.

Break-even

Pongal has just passed with an extended weekend. Convenience takes a front seat when it comes to celebrating a festival, performing a religious ritual or even doing simple things like buying grocery here. There's nothing that is not prevalent here or not available here. For instance, plantain leaves are avaialble here, but there's hardly any practice of kanu on Kanum pongal. Driving winter, bad weather, long drive even to buy a can of milk! And btw, even if I do the kanu on a silver foil, who is going to have it?? Forget about crows, there are no birds AT ALL during winter here!! Going to temple has become a monthly, quarterly activity! Sometimes I wonder how to break-even with what we had learnt and what we are trying to achieve here.. compromising on a lot of things in pretense of leading a life of comfort. These festival days are the break-even points. Atleast the one thing that we haven't been missing so far is good food on special occasions! Sweet and hot Pongal, carrot kheer, Poli, vada, morekuzhambu and more.. Life is complete ;-)

With that Pongal menu, here comes two more songs on my jukebox. Andhi mazhai is an old Tamil song from Kamalhasan's 100th movie.. The other one is a mix of languages.. And not many of us know that the Harris number "Ondra Renda" was only a remake of his own song "Dil ko Tumse Pyaar hua" in the movie "RHTDM" released two years before "Kaaka Kaaka", and that film was also a remake of the movie "Minnale" music scored by his own self.. hee hee! Hope that wasn't confusing! Check out both the versions on my jukebox.

Here's the video of the Hindi song, with some variations w.r.t the Tamil version: