Monday, 11 May 2015

A.R.Rahman Asianet Interview - May 3, 2008 Part-1

PostCredits: Bhuvi Suresh

Interviewer: "Do you pick up music from your sorroundings, and may be subconsciously perhaps?

ARR: Subconsciously I like to see what is happening in the area, like I was very pretty surprised when I went to Jeddah, and find the seal of Lebanon and Beirut, making a different kind of music. And Dubai ofcourse is another big creative place where I have been to. I have not followed that much because I have been involved in something else like Lord of the Rings and Elizabeth and my own projects which were K M Music. But I think it evolved in it, like Arabic music. There is a quality production at the same time maintaining the tradition of the Makkah..

Interviewer: "Do you obviously try to bring in the new element, let's say, like if it's Arabic or Sufi that now that affects you, do you try to subconsciously bring them to the songs that you do? Or is it really technical…

ARR: it's that it's mostly dependent on the Director. If something is good I tell them that you wanna hear this and he hears it and if they like it they embrace it, if they don't then I keep it as it.

Interviewer: Since you mentioned Lord of the Rings, you just completed album with that Warriors of Heaven and Earth, the Chinese movie… I mean you are really going international. Is it something that you really aspired for? What does it mean to you, this international reputation?

ARR: …For me I think music is…when I do music for a Tamil movie it is as respectful as when I do it for a Hollywood film. I don't think "oh it is a Tamil movie, let me do it all shoddy…give more finished work …(blurring )…hopefully I treat them all equally, whether it's American audience or Indian audience. And that's other one of the reasons why it transcends the audience.

Interviewer: When you work with the western orchestra, what is one similarity or one difference that you find compared to the Indian team with which you work?

ARR: I…here, I think once you work with musicians you know, you just have to say, we have to begin something and they will end that for you, they can take it further. But when you work with musicians you don't know, especially cast and orchestra, you need to write everything, you need to show them all, so you can't have it in mind and think that you can pull it off. You need to…there's a full process of orchestrating and copying down the stuff to the orchestra…

Interviewer: So it is more challenging?

ARR: It's not challenging, it's just the step towards that. I can't now wake up in the afternoon and say "call the orchestra, let me do a song." I can do that in Chennai. But I can't do that else. I need to have an orchestra booked three months in advance, I want to finish the scoring and then on the day of the recording they play. So it can't be done overnight. Everybody is preoccupied.

No comments:

Post a Comment