Saturday, December 23, 2006

Etho vaarmukilin::ഏതോ വാര്‍മുകിലിന്‍

Here is a great lullabi in Sree raagam.
ശ്രീ മംഗളകരമായ രാഗമായാണ് കണക്കാക്കപ്പെടുന്നത്.

Click on the player below to listen:


Song : Etho vaar mukilin kinaavile
Raagam : Sree
Movie : Pookkaalam varavaayi
Music : Auseppachan
Lyrics : Kaithapram(?)

The most popular kriti in Sreeraagam is Thyagaraja's
"entharo mahaanu bhaavulu". It has already appeared
in 3 or 4 Malayalam movies..

ഈ കീര്‍ത്തനത്തീനു പിന്നില്‍ ഒരു കഥയുണ്ട്.
സ്വാതി തുരുനാളിന്റെ സദസ്സിലെ ഗായകനായിരുന്ന
ഷട്കാല ഗോവിന്ദമാരാര്‍ ത്യാഗരാജസ്വാമിയെ സന്ദര്‍ശിച്ചു.
മാരാരുടെ സംഗീതനിപുണതയില്‍ അന്തം വിട്ട സ്വാമി
ഉടനടി ഒരു സ്തുതി ഗീതമായി `എന്തരോ മഹാനുഭാവുലു’
രചിച്ചു പാടി എന്നാണ് കഥ.

ഒരു അനുബന്ധ തമാശ:
മാരാര് തിരോന്തരം സ്വദേശിയായതിനാലാണോ
ത്യാഗരാജന്‍ ‘എന്തരോ’ പാടിയത്? :-)

Friday, December 22, 2006

RagaKairali URL updated -- finally!

After a long gap of almost an year, I have updated
Raaga Kairly URL with more song-raga info.
The site is now ad-free, so delete your
cookies and temporary browser files if you
still see the annoying yahoo advertisement tab.
Thanks to my friend Balakrishnan, we now also have
google search in place. I have been getting
this request from many for a long time
and its genuine -- many times the "use model"
is that you know a song and want to know its
raagam, and there was no easy way to find this.

Search is not yet fully functional since many
raaga pages lost their google cache once I forced
frame on them. I have removed this and gave a
link to the main frame-page (and blog) in every
raga page. Search will be fully functional once
google caches all the pages.

3 raagas have matured to have a page of their own:
Vaasanthi, Sarasaangi and NaattaKurinji.
I do this once there are more than one known
songs in that raagam. There are many new entries
from new films like AnandaBhadram, MadhuChandralekha
Rasathanthram, Classmates etc..

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Alarsara Parithapam::അലര്‍ശര പരിതാപം

For my first classical blog entry, I have chosen
a popular padam of Swathithirunal. ആ‍ദ്യ ക്ര്‌തി
മലയാളത്തില്‍ തന്നെയാകാമെന്ന് വിചാരിച്ചു. Its in raagam
Surutti and as the name suggests, this raga
has a very coiled ("ചുരുട്ടിയ") structure. This
sringara padam has become popular thru the biopic
"Swathithirunal(സ്വാതിതിരുനാള്‍)" by Lenin Rajendran.
It is also often used in mohiniyattam.

Click on the player below to listen:


Kriti : Alarsara parithapam
Ragam : Surutti
Composer : Swathithirunaal

Surutti is a very South Indian raaga and I will be surprised if it
has a Hindustani equivalent. Raaga Kairly lists 4 film songs in this raagam. My favorite is the Chithra-Krishnachandran duet "Vanasree mukham nokki(വനശ്രീ മുഖം നോക്കി)..."

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Onam song-വാതില്‍ പഴുതി..

Here is the song that seeded
the root for this music blog.
This was recorded with
something as primitive as
Window's Sound Recorder!
There are few
mistakes since it
was a trial-practice
version. Neverthless...


Click on the player below to listen:


Song : Vathil pazhuthilooden munnil
Ragam :  ശുദ്ധസാരംഗ്    (Earlier, it was classified as Hamsanaadam)
Movie : Idanazhiyil oru kaalocha
Music : Dakshinamurthy
Lyrics : ONV Kurup


Friday, September 15, 2006

How it all began.....

For years, I have been thinking about putting my songs as part of raga kairaly(രാഗകൈരളീ) URL, my raagam wise listing of Malayalam film songs.

But life got busy with creating a new life in a foreign country, work etc, added with laziness. I completed 6 years in USA on2006 Aug 21st!(phew!!!) കാലം പോ‍യ പോക്ക്!

Recently I forged my ties with Malayali community here in Boston and performed at the Christmas 2005 and Onam 2006 functions. While practicing with karaoke tracks for the onam programme, I recorded my song and mixed it with the track, solely for the purpose of feedback and correction. When I listened to it later, it appeared kind of cool and my desire to publish my songs online got re-ignited. Thus, "ragakairali" blog was born!

There was no concept of a blog when I started ragakairaly URL way back in 1997. You can read about my musical musings here. I hope to unearth un-noticed gems of songs in my own voice here. May be delve a little bit into underlying raagas. I also hope to present some carnatic compositions I learned, before I totally forget them.. If you have any comments about the postings, please record it in the blog itself. Alternately, you can write to me
(tokishor007@gmail.com) Song requests are welcome!