Not that easy!!!

If you thought you are done with my tortures you are wrong!!! I am still here well and alive and with even more passion. Thanks to the horrible US economy you had a small break from me due to pressing needs at work. But not anymore...

This time I am posting a cover version of another evergreen of Illaiyaraja, Nee Paadhi Naan paadhi from the movie Keladi Kanmani originally rendered by K.J. Yesudas & Uma Ramanan. Nice clean romantic lyrics set to a soothing tune in Chakravagam.

Thanks to Meena for encouraging me to sing this song as well as covering Uma's parts. Over the past few months Meena has provided me with a lot of constructive criticisms and guidance that is helping me in avoiding "careless" singing (as Murali V. would say). She has been very patient and enthusiastic about it as well. This internet medium and fellow bloggers like you are truly great gifts for any "wanna be singers" like me.

As always, please take a few mins and help me by dropping your honest feedback.

Happy New Year

A couple of weeks back I stumbled upon this song Uyirum Neeye from Pavithra (Thanks to SunTV) which brought tears in my eyes thinking about my Mom. It is such a wonderful song which showed the brilliance of ARR and UnniKrishnan. Viramuthu's powerful, yet simple, lyrics is sure to touch any sensitive soul who listens to this song. I have never heard this song before just like so many other friends of mine to my surprise. When I looked for track I realized Jo has sung this song and I don't know how I missed it. I really feel bad about spending 15 years (the song came out in 1994) of my life without enjoying this song.

I learnt and recorded this song to wish my Mom HAPPY NEW YEAR. I couldn't find a track, so quickly created a mediocre track myself with a loop. Please give it a ear and let me know of your thoughts.

Wish you a HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS 2009.

Dreams do come true

IT finalllly happened. After all this hard work and tenacity, I got the much needed break. THE LEGENDARY CHITRA stumbled into this blog and was totally shocked by my skills and to realize that I am just a basement singer. The Nightingale herself immediatley made some key intros and arranged for me to record a song with her. Before I realized what was happening, I recorded my first song with "THE CHITRA".

The song came out really well and while WE were sitting in the studio and reviewing the song my daughter kept disturbing me saying "Daddy I have a bad soar throat and I really need water ...". I said "Baby I am really busy right now, can you please ask Amma to get you the water", for which she replied "Daddy you are just sleeping, can you please wake up and go down to get water for me ..." and rolled me out of bed and made me realize that I was in this beautiful dream world :). Thats how this blissful DREAM of mine ended folks :) .

The next morning I said, well technology is so good that I don't need this dream to come true for me to record a song with Chitra. I can do it irrespective of the fact that Chitra doesn't even know that I exisit in this earth in a corner. Here is the outcome of this dream. The song is "Yaaro Yaarukul ingu yaaro" from Chennai 28. It is one of the great songs in recent times (didn't become a big of a hit as it should have been) rendered by SPB and Chitra. Excellent clean lyrics By Vaali and incredible music compostion by Yuvan.

After hearing my version I realized why I am just a basement singer :). Hope you enjoy the song, and as always, appreciate your time and honest feedback.

I am still alive ...

Lately, I have been distracted a lot and never got the time to record a song. Thanks to Priti for this great duet suggestion, I immediately got motivated and time magically appeared to sing this wonderful masterpiece by IR. The song we are posting here is "Sundari Kannal" from Thalapathi. SPB and Janaki gave life to this incredible composition by Illayaraja. The movie was an incredible movie for Rajini fans too. Choreography of this song was one of those rare songs that stick to your mind for ever as well.

I have been always amazed at Priti's keen ears and musical sense. But more than that, I respected her honest and valuable feedback. She has done a wonderful job with her beautiful voice on this song. It was really a great experience doing this song with her and had a lot of fun. Please visit her site here, for a thought provoking article that accompanies this song .

I hope you enjoy the song and as always honest feedbacks are most welcome.

Manjal Veyil

When I started audio blogging my pitch was way lower than today and I wasn't able to sing most of the cine songs in the regular pitch. It use to be a fascination to be able to sing ARR songs without futzing with the scale. I never imagined I could do that in this lifetime, since I thought I was BORN with a lower pitch voice and there is nothing I could do. Thanks to the motivating comments from some of my dear audio blogging friends and my passion, I spent some time on researching this and realized how ignorant I was. Unlike most common people would believe, a few vocal exercise and some understanding about the SCIENCE behind singing would increase anyone's range and accuracy to an incredible level. That's exactly what I did, in this past year I learnt so much more and made so much progress to my surprise. I increased my range ALMOST by an octave.

Anyways, enough of my GRAMMY speech. Here is a high pitch energetic song from Vetaiyadu Vilaiyadu, sung by Hariharan. I love this song for the energy level and tried this just because now I COULD :). There are a few off key notes at the higher end, didn't feel like singing it again. Will do in the next go round after your feedback as well. Hopefully soon I can sing these songs with ease.


Please take a few mins as always for your honest feedback.

High time for a carnatic :)

After a long break, recently I started revisiting my old carnatic songs with the hope of improving my voice control. I thought it will be fun to pick a "lite carnatic" song and apply all the things I learnt from this past year of audioblogging experience to it as well.

The song I am posting today is a tamil song composed by N.S. Chidambaram set in Shamugapriya ragam. If you don't stop me now you might be in big trouble because I am planning to post more carnatic songs. So please take a quick second to place a red flag for your own good.

Thanks for your visit and as always appreciate your honest feedback to improve myself.

Adhisaya Raagam

This song I am posting today is one of the very best of KJY songs IMHO. When it comes to KJY’s Tamil songs, this and “Dheivam Thandha veedu” are probably the top favorites for most of his hardcore fans. I was thrilled to see this track on TKN and gave it a shot. The track wasn’t that great, esp. the flute in the original BGM was the life of this song and that was replaced with keyboard. Still couldn’t control my urge to attempt this song. It wasn’t an easy single take song as well, needless to say. Gave it my best shot and here is the result.

I am constantly looking for Dheivam Thandha veedu as well. Hope to render it someday as well. Your honest feedback will be greatly appreciated.