Instinctive Drive June 18 Instinctive Drive | Page 22

his composi-
tion ‘Rakamma Kaiya
Thattu’ from the 1991
film Thalapathi’ as the
fourth in the world's top
10 most popular songs of
all times. US-based world
cinema portal ‘Taste of
Cinema’ placed Ilaiyaraa-
ja at the 9th position in
its list of 25 greatest film
composers in the history filmmaker Danny Boyle of
Slumdog Millionaire fame.
of cinema, thus becoming
the only Indian composer
to feature in that list.
In a poll conducted by
CNN-IBN celebrating 100
years of Indian cinema in
2013, Ilaiyaraaja was vot-
ed the all-time greatest
film-music director of In-
dia with a maximum of
49%. One of his composi-
tions was part of the
playlist for the opening
ceremony of the 2012 Lon-
donOlympics, directed by
acclaimed Oscar-winning ence for the audience to feel
the emotions flavored
through his musical score. He
mastered this art of blending
music to the narration, which
very few others managed to
adapt themselves over a long-
er time.
The range of expressive pos-
sibilities in Indian film music
was broadened by Ilai-
yaraaja's methodical ap-
proach to arranging, record-
ing technique, and his draw-
ing of ideas from a diversity
of musical styles.
He creates the best experi-
influences. The melodic
structure of his songs de-
mand considerable vocal vir-
tuosity and have found ex-
pressive platform amongst
some of India's respected vo-
calists and playback singers.
Ilaiyaraaja has sung over 400
of his own compositions for
films, and is recognisable by
his stark, deep voice. He has
penned the lyrics for some of
his songs in Tamil. He be-
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The baselines in his songs
tend to be melodically dy-
namic, rising and falling in a
dramatic fash-
ion. Polyrythms are also ap-
parent, particularly in songs
with Indian folk or Carnatic
lieves he is the only composer
in the world to have com-
posed a song only in the as-
cending notes.
Ilaiyaraja, thus turned out to
be an all-rounder in music by
playing the role of a compos-
er, singer, instrumentalist,
orchestrator and lyricist in
the Indian film industry.