Ennodu Paattu Paadungal - Episode dated 05.05.2007

Dear SPB Fans,

I am glad to bring to you one of the previous episodes -EPP-05.05.07 (16th episode) (courtesy : Covai Ravee for the audio file links). Please excuse for the long delay in posting. All pending episodes will be posted shortly so that we are current on this.

This episode was a continuation of the episode dated 28.04.07 with the same set of 6 contestants. The chief judge for the previous episode was veena player Parthasarathy lovingly called as "Baatcha" by our SPB and he also continued his presence for this concluding episode of the contest.

Details of the program as follows :

Our SPB welcomed everyone.

Kural for the Episode :

(Kural No.1040)

இலமென்று அசைஇ இருப்பாரைக் காணின்

நிலமென்னும் நல்லாள் நகும்.

Fair good earth will laugh to see

Idlers pleading poverty

Our SPB explains it as follows : Should one search for something when he has it in his own hands, asks ThiruvaLLuvar. Having lands at hand and strength in the body, can one claim that he does not have any wealth, will not the Mother of the Earth laugh. What resource we do not have in our own country that we have to look for to other countries asks Kavignar Marudhagasi in line with ThiruvaLLuvar. Having good land resource at hand and being idle and then lamenting that one does not have anything, will one get food?. Do not be idle & lazy and then lament later, tells VaLLuvar. What a great saying. No one should be lazy. What we have and what we do not, is dependent on our own selves. If we have the will and strength in our body then we can do anything. This is what the KuraL brings out.

First Round of this Episode (second round of the contest):

As detailed in the previous posts, this round features fast paced or peppy or rhythm-oriented numbers chosen by the contestants themselves.

The list of songs of this round were,
1) Malar endra mugam...... from kaadhalikka nEramillai (L.R.Eswari)
The contestant was Viji Narayanan. Before the song, our SPB said some good words about the original singer L.R.Eswari. He said that she was like phosphorous & dynamite because one gets immediately ignited on seeing her. Such a vibrant singer she was, he said. On hearing the contestant's song, SPB was immediately impressed and said that he enjoyed it more for her body langauge apart from her singing. He said the piano bits in this song reminded him of Joseph Krishna the permanent pianist of music director M.S.Viswanathan troupe who was also an excellent violinist. He finally thanked the contestant for presenting a beautiful song

2) aadavaralaam.... from karuppu panam (L.R.Eswari)
Vidyalakshmi sang this song. SPB said that hearing this song reminded one of the Blues of the 60s. Without discarding this type of music as alien & foreign, but adapting it for our Tamil music is an important thing which M.S.Viswanathan had done. He also praised the chorus portion of this song. He also sang out the rhythm of a part of the song and asked the chief guest Baatcha how was it possible to make such improvisations without changing sruthi that too on the veena. Baatcha replied that normally one followed the traditional "sa pa sa" format while playing veena but while playing for film music one will not be in a position to frequently change the sruthi by tuning method and hence he said he had improvised by alternating between scales in the same tuning to achieve the effect of different sruthis. He said this was made possible by the encouragment he recieved from the renowned flutist Gunasingh. Our SPB also praised the flutist Gunasingh that he was one who could play different sruthis on the same flute. It was such that one could tune the tambura based on his flute play. He also said that he had played the flute on many occasions for his won music composition. Regarding the contestant's performance, he mentioned that her performance was far improved from the previous round and advised that she should show more energy in singing.

3) singaari sarakku...... from kakhi sattai (SPB)
Kedharnath rendered this song. Our SPB vey much enjoyed the presentation of this song by the contestant. He was in splits laughing it out heartily on hearing the energetic reproduction of the song by the contestant and he also commented that he had lost energy hearing the song. He said that for such a situation, nowadays, one would introduce a ghana song wherein one would not find much of variations whereas Kavignar Vaali the lyricist had written wonderful lyrics by even bringing out in his lyrics the method of liquor preparation. He was also in awe of actor Kamalahaasan for the way he had acted in the song. SPB said that he wondered whether he had sung the song after Kamal had acted for the song. Such was the feel with which Kamal had acted, he said. He then jokingly played around with the word "spirit" which conveyed dual meaning, by telling the contestant that he had sung with great spirit.

4) aathaadi ammaadi.... from idhayathai thirudathe (Chitra)
Bhargavi Sridhar rendered this. He praised ILayaRaja's composition for this song. He congratulated the contestant for a good performance. He pointed out that the contestant had sung at her own comfortable sruthi as against the original higher sruthi.

5) suttum vizhi sudarE.... from Gajini (Sriram Parthasarathy)
Pranesh sang this song. Before the song, SPB confirmed with Baatcha if the original singer Sriram was his son. About the song, he said that it was a rhythm based song and would fall in the category for this round. He praised the contestant by saying that the best thing (which was also agreed by Baatcha) about the contestant was that his song selection matched his soft voice and singing style. He mentioned that a song like "singaari sarakku" would not have suited him. Choosing a suitable song reflected the intelligence of a singer, he said. He then talked about the different singing styles of Rafi & Mukesh by singing a few lines of a Hindi song in both their styles and concluded that a music director selected a singer according to the nature of the song.

6) palinginaal oru maaligai........ from vallavan oruvan (L.R.Eswari)
Subashree sang this song. He acknowledged the good performance of the contestant and then complimented her for her beautiful smile.

Final Round of the contest :
This round featured songs which the contestants had to identify from the tune/rhythm pattern rendered by our SPB which was from a collection of songs submitted by the contestant during audition. He mentioned that till this 16th episode, everyone had unfailingly identified the songs from the tunes he had voiced out and complimented all for being knowledgeable about the songs. He also made known to the contestants once again that the score for this round was based not only on identification of the song but also rendering & presenting the song well. The songs under this category were

1) nilavE mugam kaattu.... from ejamaan (contestant : Viji Narayanan): Our SPB sang out a piece of the background score and asked the contestant to sing the charanam in her own comfortable sruthi after identifying the song . The contestant identified the song. Our SPB also sang along with the contestant who must have floating high singing with him. This composition, he said, was comparable to any good ghazal. He appreciated the contestant abundantly saying that she had reproduced both the male & female singers emotion in the song and presented it well. He sang out a few lines of the song as well. He then jovially asked her to get away from the dias to her seat having fulfilled her role aptly.

2) iyarkaiyennum ilayakanni..... from santhi nilayam (contestant : Vidyalakshmi) : Prior to voicing the tune for recognition, our SPB said that this song had an interesting affair with his life. The contestant recognised the song correctly. He then queried the contestant if she was able to find out the nature of affair the song had with him. The contestant duly replied that it was his first Tamil song. He said that he had sung the tune wrongly but still the contestant had identified it correctly.

3) angum ingum paadhai....from avargal (contestant : Kedharnath): Our SPB joined the contestant in singing towards the end of the song. Our Great then talked about the wonderful lyrics of Kannadaasan for this song which clearly presents the situation of the song very well through words. He also spoke about the wonderful tune. He then sang out the tune of the song once again saying that while recording he used to wonder how to present it well but had done so based on the encouragement from the music director M.S.Viswanathan

4) july maadham vandhaal.... (contestant : Bhargavi Sridhar) : Our Legend educated the contestant on proper diction of one of the words in the song "naaNum" which the contestant had pronounced as "naanum".

5) namma ooru singaari .... from ninaiththalE inikkum (contestant : Pranesh) : SPB announced to the contestant that he had intentionally selected this song to see how he would present it. In earlier rounds the contestant had chosen his own comfortable song. He concluded that this style of song did not suit the contestant. He said that the singing style for this song was entirely different from what the contestant had presented. He then sang out a few lines of the pallavi himself with lot of vibrations in the voice to show to the contestant how it should be sung. He said he loved all the songs in the film and said that each one was good in its own way. He finally told the contestant that he had sung the song subject to his limitations.

6) muthumani maala...... (contestant : Subashree): Our Great sang along with the contestant in the pallavi portion of the song. He said the performance was OK. However, he said that initially she had a problem with the sruthi but that she had made it up later in the song. He sang out the related portion of the song in order to explain to the contestant.

He appreciated all the contestants for their extraordinary IQ as they had identified all the songs based on the limited tune that he had voiced. He said that this was not a normal thing.

The competition came to end wih this round. All the three - our SPB, the chief judge "Baatcha" Parthasarathy and ManoBala came on to the stage. Our SPB thanked the chief judge for having participated in the program . He mentioned that 4 of the contestants were good and that it was a difficult preposition to select one from them. He also appreciated the contestants for their efforts in coming over to the studios twice inspite of their busy exam schedules and also for having come from places like Mumbai and Meerut in the case of two contestants. He thanked the parents, their gurus and everyone behind their effort. He then asked "Baatcha" Parthasarathy to bless all the contestants with a few words. Baatcha felt that all the contestants had enthusiastically practised and sung well and that all of them were very good. But he said that on technical grounds only one of them could be selected. This did not mean that the other were lesser. It only needed a bit of more effort to come to that level, he said. He then wished them all the best in their life.

Our SPB thanked Baatcha for saying nice and sweet things and then presented a small memento to him on behalf of the organisors. Then our SPB delivered his message for the episode.

Message from our SPB :
The message for this episode was "lot of IT and software companies buildings and Super markets have come up. There are lot of good shops to purchase anything. But everybody is forgetting the handicapped people. If one comes in a wheel chair to such establishments, it becomes diffcult for them. Even boarding buses is difficult for them. So, buses, public places including cinema halls should have ramps which are a must. Lof this things are not taken care during construction of buildings. Fire safety is not ensured. Lot of fire accidents take place. Rules and regulations are not followed. When there is fire, people get caught and die. All this is due to lack of safety precautions not being taken. Leaving alone this, there are lot of handicapped people who face difficulties at shops and on buses. So, i request all builders and constuctors to take these handicapped people, who form an appreciable count, into consideration during design of buildings and give them comforts"

Announcement of the Contest Winner :

ManoBala, the permanent judge, announced the scores as follows :(based on shruthi, thaalam, bhaavam & performance)

Subashree : 190, Pranesh : 173, Bhargavi Sridhar : 198, Kedharnath: 205, Vidyalakshmi: 215, Viji Narayanan : 235

ManoBala announced Viji Narayanan as the Winner based on the highest score of 235 that she had scored. ManoBala then asked the winner about her feelings having won the contest and thereby earning a chance to sing with SPB. SPB then humbly asked the contestant whether he should sing with her and then asked her further whether she will sing with him. The contestant earnestly asked one of them to pinch her to see if all this was real. She said that ever since he had come she could not believe herself that she was singing in front of him. Our SPB immediately reacted comically making gestures that it was him, it was really him. Everyone including the audience had a hearty laugh at that. Viji said that it was such a wonderful experience. She then said that she had never thought this would happen and when it happens all that she wanted to do was fall at his feet and get his blessings. Jaya TV had given a wonderful opportunity, she said and that she was able to perform in front of him to his expectations. Our SPB chipped in saying that she was capable of performing better than this. She then thanked her parents for having faith in her and for taking efforts to ensure her participation in the programme and also facing lot of tensions to see her perform and win the contest. Her mother had been her Guru. Our SPB finally said to her that she had lot of further rounds to face and that she had to come all the way from Mumbai.

SPB song :
Viji Narayanan then joined our SPB to sing the song "thoda thoda malardhadhenna....." from "Indira" thus accomplishing a life time dream. She indeed combined well with the Legend to come out with a good performance. Our SPB ended the song in his usual style singing some lines from the Hindi version of this song.

The next episode after this was on 12.05.07 with a fresh set of 6 contestants and a new chief guest/judge. Please wait for the posting on the next episode (episode no. 17)