Bass Guitar Unusual conversations

Raja’s use of bass guitar is famous and we did cover this briefly in some of the earlier posts – ‘Basically Raja’. While there are so many examples on how Raja has used the bass guitar as part of his C&R arrangements in his interludes, I will call out two top of mind examples. The clip below has two segments separated by a few seconds of silence.

1. The first segment is from the song Thogai Ilamayil from Payanangal Mudivathillai (Tamil 1982). The first 5 seconds is a fantastic conversation between a bass guitar and a flute
2. The second segment is from the song Laali Laali from Swathi Mudhyam (Telugu 1985). Between 10 and 15 seconds you can hear a beautiful conversation between a bass guitar and a veena. Beyond that, the conversation gets into a counter melody which is outside the rules of this section. You may notice that between 15 and 25 seconds, a flute joins the melody and plays a different melody; between 25 and 30 seconds, the flute is replaced with violins

These are very unusual arrangements that only a gifted composer can think of. I am sure there are other such clips I may have overlooked. Readers may throw in their comments.

Let’s hear the sample of Raja’s bass guitar unusual conversations…