Friday, December 2, 2016

Piano based PolyCaRe arrangements in 201x – Background Scores

We will continue the journey on PolyCaRe arrangements of Raja, with his compositions based on piano as the background melody instrument. In this post, we will particularly focus on his background score compositions in the 201x. As we made it very clear in the definition, the PolyCaRe arrangement not only requires a background piano melody, it also requires two call and response melodies in the foreground played according to our rules of CaRe arrangements.

Let’s first start with the background score of Nandalala (Tamil 2010). This segment, which is part of the background score has piano as its background instrument. Here is how the segment is structured:


Score
Film
Year
Background instrument
CaRe - Instrument1
CaRe - Instrument2
Nandalala BGM
Nandalala
1991
Piano
Flute
Synthesizer

  1. The first four seconds has only the background piano melody that forms the background melody for the entire composition
  2. For the next 20 seconds, between 4 and 24 second, there is a very long flute melody that plays with the piano background melody in the background.
  3. There is a short five seconds call by the synthesizer between 24 and 29 seconds as the background melody of the piano continues
  4. Between 30 and 35 seconds, there is a response by the flute to the synthesizer call with the background piano melody
  5. Again, between 36 and 40 seconds, the piano background melody alone plays
  6. Between 40 and 57 seconds, there is this long flute melody (slightly different from #2) that plays with the piano background melody in the background.
  7. Between 58 and 72 seconds, there are two flute calls that are made for which the clip does not have the response


The foreground melodies can stand on their own feet as simple CaRe arrangement. The background guitar melody makes them polyphonic and hence PolyCaRe. There are 5 foreground melodies playing on top of the constant background piano melody in these 72 seconds. It must be stated that technically, it does not fully comply with our rules for a CaRe arrangement as the final two flute calls are not answered by the synthesizer. Given the melodious arrangement, I have included this PolyCaRe arrangement that almost meets our requirement more than 75%

Let’s hear the segment from the background score of Nandalala




Piano based PolyCaRe arrangements in 199x –interludes

We will continue the journey on PolyCaRe arrangements of Raja, with his compositions based on piano as the background melody instrument. In this post, we will particularly focus on his interlude compositions in the 199x. As we made it very clear in the definition, the PolyCaRe arrangement not only requires a background piano melody, it also requires two call and response melodies in the foreground played according to our rules of CaRe arrangements.

Both the clips in this section are from the interludes of one song – O Butterfly from Meera (Tamil 1992). This segment, which is part of the background score has piano as its background instrument. 

Here is how the segment is structured:


Song
Film
Year
Background instrument
CaRe - Instrument1
CaRe - Instrument2
O Butterfly
Meera
1992
Piano
Flute
Synthesizer

  1. The first five seconds has only the background piano melody that forms the background melody for the entire composition
  2. Between five and 17 seconds, there are seven CaRe arrangements where the call is made by the flute and the response is from the synthesizer. The background piano continues while this is going on in the foreground

The foreground melodies can stand on their own feet as simple CaRe arrangement. The background guitar melody makes them polyphonic and hence PolyCaRe. There are 14 foreground melodies playing on top of the constant background piano melody in these 17 seconds.

Let’s hear the piano/flute/synth PolyCaRe arrangement of O Butterfly…



The other interlude part in the same song is arranged as follows:

Song
Film
Year
Background instrument
CaRe - Instrument1
CaRe - Instrument2
O Butterfly
Meera
1992
Piano
Flute
Solo Violin

  1. The first 2 seconds is only the piano part (played with a synthesizer, I guess) which is the background melody for the entire composition. The overall melody will sway you so much, I strongly recommend that you hear just this piano part from start to finish in one go to confirm that the background melody is indeed being played. Ignore everything else. The solo violin can take your mind off the piano, but stay with it for one iteration. You will notice on the next iteration the foreground CaRe arrangements that ride on this background piano melody
  2.  Between 3 and 8 seconds, it is a long call by the flute for which there is a short response from the solo violin for 2 seconds
  3. Between 10 and 15 seconds, the flute melody is layered on top of the solo violin which is layered on top of the piano. However, you need to play it one more time to figure that the flute melody of this segment is exactly the same melody of the #2
  4. Between 16 and 17 seconds, the solo violin makes a call for which there is a rapid response from the flute, following which, Raja innovates what he does with #3
  5. Between 19 and 22 seconds, it is a short version of #3 where three melodies are arranges one on top of the other
  6. If you play this clip in slow speed and patiently listen to the CaRe arrangements in this clip of 22 seconds, you will be able to uncover about 25 melodies in these 22 seconds. Crazy genius!


Let’s hear the piano/flute/solo violin  PolyCaRe arrangement of O Butterfly…