Malayalam Film Music

[Oldposts]

aruvi:

The difficulty for Malayalees in pronouncing Tamil words, and for Tamils to pronounce Malayalam words "properly" is because of the fact that there is a large number of common words written the same way, but pronounced differently in each language. In Malayalam, almost every sound has a specific letter for it. For example, the Tamil letter "ka" has 4 variations in Malayalam, ka, kha, ga, gha. This continues for "tha", "pa", "cha", and on and on and on. More than half of all words in a typical TFM song could mean the same thing in Malayalam, but are pronounced differently. This is one reason why KJY and other singers from Kerala may have an occasional "difficulty" with some Tamil words.

Talking about national awards, it is true that a lot of national awards were given to music and songs based of classical music. But this is not always true. Of the 7 national awards that KJY has won, I don't think there were more than 2 that were really classical based. Malayalam Film Music, unlike the Tamil field, is still very much melody based. This, of course, means that karnatic music is still a major influence. However, I think it is the melody that is the deciding factor.

Another big difference between TFM and MFM is the depth of the relatively small MFM field. There are 10 or more very talented MDs at any given time in MFM. Many of them are national award winners and are well known for their skills. This is true with actors, directors and singers too. Because of this, a discussion like who is better, (for example, MSV, IR or ARR?), will never be possible in MFM.

I hope that I have answered your questions without boring you too much with my long posting!