Salim-Sulaiman

                                   Music Composers

The duo composer who are siblings have given some really medious tunes and some great background scores to the new generation. Salim-Sulaiman have proved in every album that if one retains its root then it will sound great.

Early Life 

Salim - Sulaiman Merchant was born in Mumbai though their roots belong to Kutch,Gujrat.

were really inspired by their father who Sadruddin Merchant,who used to lead Ismaili Scouts Orchestra in India. They got really deep into their family tradition they chose music as their career.

Their father used to make instruments as a result they used to play more with the instruments rather then toys. Both took formal education of music Salim being a great pianist mastered the skills through Trinity College of London the same where legends Ilayaraja and A.R Rahman mastered it.

Sulaiman took percussions and learnt Tabla from maestro Ustad Zakir Khan and Taufiq Qureshi.

As a result their music has a strong sens of melody and strong rhythm. Salim says its like there is a healthy competition between us which encourages us to create more and more good work.

Salim-Sulaiman started the career by doing arrangements for composers like Anu Malik, Jatin-Lalit

they started doing their own work by doing background scores of the film.They were appreciated for their score in the film Bhoot , recollecting the memories Salim says that background score in horror movies plays a great role , what made us stand out is the silence in the movie which created more tension and the placements of the score were very distinctive they predominantly did the scores for the directors like Subhash Ghai, Ram Gopal Verma. During this period they did some commercials,Advertisements. They went on to become full fledged composers after composing songs for Kaal. The songs became a huge hit. After that there was never looking back they did films like Chak de!, Fashion, Rab ne banadi Jodi, Ladies v/s Ricky Bahl, Aaja Nachle, Aashayien,Band baja baarat The songs of Kurbaan was a huge hit were Salim debuted as a singer.

They love doing background scores but feel that it is more tiring and Indian cinema doesn't really care about the background scores only few filmmakers believe the importance of background score as a result they have cut down their projects of background score. They love performing live on stage.

International Projects

Salim Sulaiman performing in SS live

They have worked on a Bollywood remix for Lady Gaga's songs Born This Way and Judas.They also worked on I'm A Freak By Enrique. The duo are also composing music for the Hollywood film Sold, produced by Academy Award winner Jeffrey D. Brown.

The duo collaborated with South African singer Iso Bala and Kenyan singer and songwriter Eric Wainaina to record the anthem for 2010 FIFA World Cup. The anthem is the song "Africa – You're A Star"

Salim-Sulaiman judged reality shows like Indian Idol.Though they are full fledged composer but they still do the background scores for bollywood's large films like Krissh series, Dhoom 1,2, Bang bang 

Race series,Wanted,Cocktail,Kaabil and many more.. 

They love doing concerts,their SS Live is a huge hit.They are great performers and are extremely talented.

Danny Elfman

                                Music Composer

Starting from discovering the band Oingo boingo to becoming a prominent composer Danny Elfman's musical career has give the film fraternity one of the best scores.He has a unique scoring pattern.Danny worked for most of the large films of Hollywood. He's an atheist but worships music alot. Once an instructor suggested him to try play and practice music he smiles and says" I'm still trying "

Early Life

Danny Elfman was born to a Jewish family. His father was a teacher in air force. He spent most of his time in neighbourhood's local theatre and learning and appreciating the music of Bernard Hermann and Franz Waxman. After dropping out from high school,he followed his brother to France, where he perforned for circus and theatres.his brother soon formed a theatre group  originally called The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. his brother left the band to become a filmmaker off to the band's original concept, Richard Elfman created the film Forbidden Zone based on their stage performances. Danny Elfman composed his first score for the film and played the role of Satan.

In 1985 Tim Burton and Paul Reubens asked Danny to score the feature film Pee wee's big adventure.

Elfman was confused at first because of his lack of formal education,but with the assistance of arranger and guitarist of oingo boingo Steve Bartek. Elfman states that after hearing his composition played by full orchestra he describes it as one of the most thrilling experience ever in his life.In 1990, Elfman composed the iconic orchestra piece, 'Ice Dance', for the Tim Burton film Edward Scissorhands. 

Notable Works

 He wrote The Simpsons Theme  in 1989. which is considered as one of Elfman's notable compositions

In 2002 Elfman composed the opening theme for the Sam Raimi Spider-Man series. This as well as altered versions made its way to all three Spider-Man movies.He composed film Batman directed by Tim Burton which is considered as one of the iconic superhero film score, he got his first Grammy for the score.His score for Spider man series was also appreciated. His notable scores for movies like Alice in wonderland , Planet of apes, Avengers ,Mission Impossible, Men in Black series which got him first nomination for Academy award again got nominated for the film good will hunting.

Big fish directed by Tim Burton was nominated for Academy award, Golden globe,Grammy..Milk again bought him nomination for Academy award.Though after several nominations Danny didn't

won any academy award. 

Ilayaraja

                                     Music Composers

Ilayaraja being one of the earliest composer who started using western classical harmonies and orchestration makes him one of the greatest composers in India. His musical style has inspired several composers and has been a boon to change the approach of Indian filmmakers towards background scores.

Early life

Ilayaraja was born in a normal middle-class South Indian family,he lived in rural area as a result there was a huge influence of Folk music on him. He joined a local band formed by his elder brother and spent a decade performing for them.While working with them he first penned his composition.After sometime he began to learn from Professor Dhanraj who gave him an overview of western classical, 

composition techniques. Later on he did an distance course to learn Piano from Trinity college of music, London.

Career 

In 70's he played Guitar, Keyboard, Organ for several composers.He got an opportunity to assist the Legendary Kannada composer G.V Venkatesh. He used to orchestrate and work under the guidelines given by Venkatesh. In this period he learnt alot about film music and composition techniques. He would write his own compositions and would use Venkatesh's session musician and would tell then to play his work in leisure time. He got his first break with Tamil film' Annakali '. He was asked to compose 5 songs.He experimented the Tamil poetry with western classical arrangements which brought new sound in the film music.He soon got recognised as a Tamil film composer, his collaboration with some finest directors brought his music alot of attention.He is not only known for his songs but also for his background scores. He was the first Asian to write full symphony for Royal Philharmonic orchestra.He has scored for over 1000 film which include Tamil ,Kannada,Marathi ,

Hindi,English. And has composed over 7000 songs.He has won 5 National award  3 for best music director and 2 for background score

Musicality

Ilayaraja has always unique by experimenting with different genres, Jazz,Western Classical,Funk,Hip-Hop. He fuses the electronic sound with traditional rhythmic instruments and a sweet melody which makes it very catch and upbeat. He fuses Carnatic raagas with electronic sounds

and western classical string arrangements.his musical pieces are always up to the mark. He is also a gold medalist from Trinity college of Music ,London.

He has created a raga called ‘Panjamukhi’.His Rakkamma Kaiyatattu was placed #4 in the list of 10 most popular songs of the world. He has composed a telugu song by only using three notes (Sa, ri and ga).

He one of the living legend in India.

 

James Horner

                                       Music Composers

 One of the best and most soothing orchestral music was been composed by none other then James Horner. He was known for extracting out emotions from the scenes through his scores, typically following the orchestral scoring patter yet standing out to sound smooth and sweet orchestra. He was a legend who has scored one of the most iconic soundtrack and iconic score of the film Titanic.

The Legend describes composing by comparing it to a painter" He says composing is like painting adding colour to the moving images and bringing out emotions by structuring it on the blank canvas !

Early Life 

James after winning the oscars for Titanic

James Horner was an American composer, conductor, his music had a great influence of Celtic music ( European music) mostly with choral arrangements and electronic stuffs.He started composing for B grade films as his work gained attention he was offered large Hollywood movies, one of his first major score was for the movie The lady in red which was released in the year 1979 though he was not really established in 1982 he was asked to score for Star Trek ll: The wrath of Khan the score was well received and this made him established as a A-list Hollywood composer. Horner continued writing for some really large movies like 48Hrs, Krull (1983), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Commando (1985), Cocoon (1985), Aliens (1986),\Glory and Field of Dreams (1989). Aliens directed by James Cameron brought him his first oscar nomination for best original score category.

Later on he recieved nominations for the films like "Field of dreams, Apollo'13,Braveheart,Beautiful Mind,House of sand and fog,Avatar. Horner was nominated for 8 times in Oscars.

Horner-Cameron 

Though he got the first nomination for Aliens ,his relation with the producers and the director got a bit of sour because of the deadlines,Horner had to score and write the music overnight which was a huge task for any composer. he had to improvise the writing during the recording sessions itself as the first cut and the 2nd cut had major changes which created tension between the composer and the makers of the film. After that Cameron made 2 films with another composer and Horner gave another hit with the film Braveheart (1995) which again made Cameron to work again with Horner. And Horner too wanted to work with him.And so they acme to work again for the film Titanic for which he won two oscars for My heart will go on and original score. They both again collaborated for the most awaited film Avatar which had huge orchestration and some really ambient feel using some electronic sounds, for this again Horner got nomination in Oscar. 

 

Horner died on 22nd June 2015 because of the plane crash.

Ted X :

Ajay-Atul

                                        Music Composers

When Indian cinema music lost its original sound they came and retained the sound. They have always tried to sound very rooted to the Indian music with huge orchestra. Ajay-Atul the duo composers. Every time you listen to their songs or score you realise how rich our Indian music is and how huge it sounds !

Early Life 

Ajay and Atul Gogavale were born to Ahok Gogavale a revenue department officer in Pune  were brought up in different villages of Western Maharashtra as their Father had transferable job

Atul being the elder brother and Ajay being the younger one  always dreamt of becoming music composers, very average in studies yet always curious about different instruments, slowly started to experiment with music instruments and rhythms . In an NCC competition they presented the existing composition differently and won the prize. The achievement inspired them to explore their music potential. As they didn't had any musical background their parents always encouraged them and supported them , as they couldn't afford any musical instrument they started befriending people who had instruments and would request them to teach or give them to play on it ! They slowly started playing for local bands , schools. They started creating compositions when they used to ride cycles 

They would go to the producers and explain them about the arrangements and how the song would be like as they didn't had any instruments. They always wanted a keyboard so that they could execute the compositions which they had in mind and Ajay the younger one passed 10 the std with and average percentage decided to ask for keyboard, they asked Mom that can we afford the fees of college for further studies if yes then ill study religiously his mother said no we cannot then they asked for keyboard and would never ask for anything for life. Father got convinced and they bought the keyboard worth rupees 1,00,000 by taking loan from his friends. He said that "you never got any toys in childhood think as if its toy and play with it " And the journey started they did several pilot episodes, and songs. They came to Mumbai for work and arranged for established composers from Marathi industry. They did scores for Marathi serials, title songs and eventually started composing albums. 

First Break 

Ajay recieving the 66th National Award for Best Music Directiuon for the movie Jogwa

After religiously working hard for several composers as arranger a man from times group asked them after getting impressed that if they want to do something of their own and they immediately agreed they created a concept of presenting Ganesha aartis in a symphonic way. They wanted to create an imaginary idol through music. The album named Vishwavinayak was hit especially the song Shree Ganeshay Dheemahi! 

the sound engineer for the album Pramod Chandodkar played huge part in Ajay Atul's career. After listening to Vishwavinayak album Ram Gopal Verma called Ajay Atul and started narrating story and they got their first break with the movie Gayab . Ram Gopal Verma being atheist said that after listening to your album i feel God is there. After"Gayab" they did several movies in Marathi .Though the Marathi cinema was going through its lowest phase their songs were hit especially their dance numbers and devotional songs like Gondhal, Bhajans ,their first hit album was for movie "Aga bai areecha "where they composed 4 tracks and all of them were hit and very distinctively different from each other, and they got famous in the industry. Soon they gave some really back to back hits, and they started to score some plays and they received there very first award for one of the play called Sahi re sahi! They had a strong collaboration with Mahesh Manjrekar they did "Virrudh" and some really good movies with him. Another strong collaboration with renowned filmmaker Ravi Jadhav on his very first venture Natrang brought back the richness of Lavanis the songs Apsara aali and Wajle ki baara was also appreciated by non Maharashtrians. Their tracks Morya Morya, Varyavarti gandh and many more were appreciated by the people and also A.R Rahman appreciated the song ans well as the composers !. They won the 66th national award  under best Music Direction category for the movie Jogwa strangely it ws the first national award for Marathi music.

soon they had already created their sound which had huge orchestration and heavy rhythms and a very beautiful melody and their strong conviction towards Indian music made them very different from other composers. Soon they stepped into Bollywood with Rohit Shetty's Singham and the album was huge hit but this wasn't really the path breaking album for them to become as a Bollywood composer. Karan Johar after listening to some of their album offered them Agneepath which again was a huge hit especially the dance number Chikni Chameli which was recreated  from one of their Marathi song brought back the 80's sound. Soon they got Brothers, Shuddhi and many more ..
They took one year break from the movies as they went through low phase because of the father's demise
They composed 4 songs for the most awaited  movie in Marathi Lai Bhaari which was directed by Nishikant Kamath  The songs became a huge hit especially Mauli song.They even composed music for Make in India as PM Modi was very much impressed with them. 

Musicality 

Ajay Atul performing in the concert 

Ajay Atul always loved songs which had rhythm and always learnt from Laxmikant-Pyarelal, R.D Burman , Bappi Lahiri but the love towards symphony was initiated by listening to a score from 'Appu Raja' composed by Illayaraja. The piece made them cry and from that day itself they took the music too seriously and also became a huge fan of orchestral music as well as Illayaraja. They say that whatever they have learn't about symphonies is all because of the music of Illayaraja.
Their rhythm part is very much inspired by the sound of Laxmikanth-Pyarelal. They brought Dhol tashas in their rhythm part! Ajay is also a vocalist and has been singing for the other composers too . His versatile voice with rustic texture and great range makes him very unique in the singers community!
The best part of their music is they do all the arrangements of the song by their own which is very rare, and they try their best to record with live musicians from rhythm to orchestra and the capturing the soundscape is done by their dear friend and their sound engineer Vijay Dayal. They always say that" sometimes we feel bad that we couldn't learn music formally but now it seems that it is better that we didn't, it helped us to think more wider without any boundaries"

Sairat 

Ajay-Atul with Mark Graham and other crew members in LA, Sony MGM studios

After giving some really great stuff in bollywood and in marathi industry they were offered Sairat 

which was directed by Nagraj Manjule who won  national award for his short film and won accolades for his film Fandry. They started working on this project with strong conviction and insisted the producers to record the symphonies outside looking at the marvellous symphonies and hits of the duo the immediately agreed and they recorded the score as well as songs in the Sony MGM studio with 66 piece orchestra which was been used for some really iconic scores in the Hollywood.

The players were shocked after playing it they couldn't believe that Ajay Atul were self taught musician ! The conducting was done by renowned conductor Mark Graham. He appreciated the music and the composers.

The songs created history and was the first film from India to go and record in that studio. 

The song "Zingaat" became one of the most loved dance number , every song from that album was a hit!
Ajay Atul wrote the lyrics for all the songs in the album.

Other Ventures 

Ajay Atul also became a producer of a Marathi film called Jaudyana Balasaheb directed by Girish Kulkarni. They had started a platform for Dhol-Tasha players in Pune called as Dhol Generation 

They were judges in Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Marathi. 

A.R Rahman

                               Music Composers 

   In the era of 80's and 90's Indian cinema music especially Bollywood was going through its bad phase where old composers like R.D Burman ,Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji stopped giving music to the films as the requirement of the sound was highly influenced from western genres as a result duo composers like Nadeem-Shravan, Anu Malik took over the era with some hits and majorly flops though Nadeem-Shravan gave some consistent hits like Aashiqui and Dhadkan and many more but still the was lack of melodies and forcing western beats into the arrangements were really very noisy! But in the year 1992 Tamil film Roja got released and ignited some hope amongst the Indians that melodious music is still alive ! The music was exceptional with the current scenario ! The album was a huge hit and people were curious who was the person behind it? When asked to the director of the film Mani Ratnam he said " though the music looks as if a very experienced composer has composed it but there's a young guy who works in his garage turned studio and producing music named A.R Rahman "

Early Life

Extremely introvert and spiritual Rahman started playing keyboards at the age of 4, his father being a renowned  arranger/composer in the south industry took young Rahman to studios for recording sessions. Due to ill health his father died and then he was forced to opt out from the school and earn bread butter for his family Rahman being the smallest kid in the family started renting out instruments to big composers and soon started playing keyboards for them ! Till then it was just the medium of earning bread-butter ,no passion as such. He was more curious and fascinated with machines and technology! Always wanted to become an engineer ! As he grew up he started assisting renowned composers like Ilayaraja and used to compose jingles for ad commercial or documentaries! The schedule was fixed doing work for other in the day and working on the commercials and his own work at night, one fine day he met Mani Ratnam in a party through common friend and Rahman asked him to visit his studio yet never expected Ratnam to actually visit him but after 6 months Ratnam came and went through the tunes which were composed, he picked up 4 tunes which went with the script and the rest is history he wins national award for Roja ! The albums uniqueness is the fusion of Indian Carnatic raaga with western arrangements which easily attracted young audience easily at that I time ! 

Rahman soon got recognition in South industry and did multiple projects ! Ram Gopal Verma asked him to compose for his film called as Rangeela which again got hit and by this Rahman had already stepped into Bollywood! Though he was constantly consistent with good work in the putt with films like Thiruda Thiruda , Romeo , Duet , Gentleman. Rahman followed this with successful scores and songs for Tamil films for the Chennai film industry. The Bombay theme from the film is considered as one of the greatest musical pieces, till then everyone knew that he's a genius ! His work in the film Dil se is exceptional just like his every other album.

Taal was considered as one of the best album of Rahman with great symphonic arrangements and western rhythms yet keeping it very Indian is genius ! He won his second National award for the film Minasara Kanavu.
Followed with some really great scores he did Lagaan and it was the first Indian movie to get nominated for best score 

Oscars!

One day Rahman got a call from  hollywood filmmaker Danny Boyle to score for his next Indo-western venture called Slumdog Millionaire, this movie changed Rahman's life as he won2 Academy awards for this film ,Golden Globe,BAFTA ,Grammy for best original score as well as for song of the year ! He initially planned out to work for the score in 2 months but it took only 20 days to score this movie which was very unusual
The song Jai ho was appreciated and were in top charts in almost every region! The song was initially made for the movie yuvraaj made by Subhash k Jha but because of the filmmaker not wanting it Rahman kept it for another film and this created history as the second Indian to get this award. After this there was no looking back for Rahman various western composers appreciated his work especially Hans Zimmer who is also a great friend and a neighbour to Rahman's L.A studio. Hans stated that he just loved the latika's theme and stated that it is one of his favourite composition of Rahman. Rahman after that did some hollywood movies like 127 hrs which again was nominated for oscars , People like us ,Million dollar Arm, Couple's Retreat, Pele, Muhammad and many more..

Mani Ratnam - A.R Rahman

Rahman calls Mani Ratnam his mentor and big brother it is said that only Mani Ratnam could enter his house without any prior intimation. This duo has given some great films and great music to Indian cinema like very first collaboration that is Roja (1992), Bombay, Saathiya, Yuva, Guru , Raavan , Dil se, Katru Vellyidai (2017) his recent collaboration with Mani Ratnam won him another national award. A great incident Rahman shared in an interview where he was asked how did he came with the tune of Tere Bina , he said earlier there was no situation in the film for that song but one of the song i.e Ay Hairathe had this hook of same tune and i thought that this would create another new song which will be more meledious Ratnam instantly agreed and created a situation for the song and the song was a huge hit ! Another such instance where Ratnam was asked that had he considered someone else in the place of Rahman ? Rahman quickly responds don't give him such bad ideas !

 KM Conservatory 

Rahman always wanted to set a up a music school where students can learn everything related to music under one roof , he successfully plays the principal and founder of K.M Conservatory where he has appointed different teachers and has setup Sunshine orchestra where unprivileged kids free education.

Along with some high honorary awards like Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri he has received Doctorates 
from Anna University, Aligarh University ,Middlesex University, Royal Conservations of Scotland,
Berklee College of Music.
Rahman is a maestro and truly a gem !

John Williams

                               Music Composers

  As mentioned in the earlier blog that there are few composers that have kept the tradition of western classical music and symphonies going on especially in the background score of the movies one such Legendary composer is John Williams. John Williams is said to be the master of adding music on the moving images ! He has given some very iconic scores to the world.
John Williams is living legend with a record of most nominated person in academy awards ! With more than 50 nominations in his account he has won 5 academy awards ,24 Grammy awards  and four Golden Globe awards !!