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Ilaiyaraaja was one of the early Indian film composers to use Western classical music harmonies and string arrangements in Indian film music.This allowed him to craft a rich tapestry of sounds for films, and his themes and background score gained notice and appreciation amongst Indian film audiences.The range of expressive possibilities in Indian film music was broadened by Ilaiyaraaja's methodical approach to arranging, recording technique, and his drawing of ideas from a diversity of musical styles.

According to musicologist P. Greene, Ilaiyaraaja's "deep understanding of so many different styles of music allowed him to create syncretic pieces of music combining very different musical idioms in unified, coherent musical statements" Ilaiyaraaja has composed Indian film songs that amalgamated elements of genres such as pop,acoustic guitar-propelled Western folk,jazz,rock and roll, dance music (e.g., disco),psychedelia,funk,doo-wop,march, bossa nova, flamenco, pathos, Indian folk/traditional, Afro-tribal, and Indian classical.

By virtue of this variety and his interfusion of Western, Indian folk and Carnatic elements, Ilaiyaraaja's compositions appeal to the Indian rural dweller for its rhythmic folk qualities, the Indian classical music enthusiast for the employment of Carnatic ragams, and the urbanite for its modern, Western-music sound.

Although Ilaiyaraaja uses a range of complex compositional techniques, he often sketches out the basic melodic ideas for films in a very spontaneous fashion. The Indian filmmaker Mani Ratnam illustrates:

"Ilayaraja (sic) would look at the [film] scene once, and immediately start giving notes to his assistants, as a bunch of musicians, hovering around him, would collect the notes [(musical parts)] for their instrument[s] and go to their places... A [film] director can be taken by surprise at the speed of events."


Musical characteristics

Ilaiyaraaja's music is characterised by the use of an orchestration technique that is a synthesis of Western and Indian instruments and musical modes. He used electronic music technology that integrated synthesisers, electric guitars and keyboards, drum machines, rhythm boxes and MIDI with large orchestras that feature traditional instruments such as the veena, venu, nadaswaram, dholak, mridangam and tabla as well as Western lead instruments such as saxophones and flutes.

He uses catchy melodies fleshed out with a variety of chord progressions, beats and timbres.Ilaiyaraaja's songs typically have a musical form where vocal stanzas and choruses are interspersed with orchestral preludes and interludes.They often contain polyphonic melodies, where the lead vocals are interwoven with supporting melody lines sung by another voice or played by instruments.

The bass lines in his songs tend to be (melodically) dynamic, rising and falling in a dramatic fashion.Polyrhythms are also apparent, particularly in songs with Indian folk or Carnatic influences. The melodic structure of his songs demand considerable vocal virtuosity, and have found expressive platform amongst some of India's respected vocalists and playback singers, such as K.J. Yesudas, S.P. Balasubramaniam, S. Janaki, Sujatha, Swarnalatha, P. Susheela, K.S. Chithra, Malaysia Vasudevan, Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar.Ilaiyaraaja has sung over 400 of his own compositions for films, and is recognisable by his stark, nasal voice. He has penned the lyrics for some of his songs in Tamil and other languages.Ilaiyaraaja's film scores are known both for the dramatic and evocative melodies, and for the more subtle background music that he uses to provide texture or mood for scenes in films such as Mouna Raagam (1986) and Geethanjali (1989).

Non-cinematic output

Ilaiyaraaja's first two non-film albums were explorations in the fusion of Indian and Western classical music. The first, How To Name It? (1986), is dedicated to the Carnatic master Tyāgarāja and to J. S. Bach. It features a fusion of the Carnatic form and ragas with Bach partitas, fugues and Baroque musical textures.The second, Nothing But Wind (1988), was performed by flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia and a 50-piece orchestra and takes the conceptual approach suggested in the title — that music is a natural phenomenon akin to various forms of air currents (e.g., the wind, breeze, tempest etc.).

He has composed a set of Carnatic kritis that was recorded by electric mandolinist U. Srinivas for the album Ilayaraaja's Classicals on the Mandolin (1994). Ilaiyaraaja has also composed albums of religious/devotional songs. His Guru Ramana Geetam (2004) is a cycle of prayer songs inspired by the Hindu mystic Ramana Maharishi,and his Thiruvasakam in Symphony (2005) is an oratorio of ancient Tamil poems transcribed partially in English by American lyricist Stephen Schwartz and performed by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra.Ilaiyaraaja's most recent release is a world music-oriented album called The Music Messiah (2006).Its musical concept is based against a mythological narrative.His recent release in nov.2008 is Manikantan Geet Mala released by india tales with 9 songs praising lord ayyappa in almost all south indian languages.


Notable works

The cover of the Ilaiyaraaja album Thiruvasakam in Symphony (2005)Ilaiyaraaja's composition Rakkama Kaiya Thattu from the movie Thalapathi (1991) was amongst the songs listed in a BBC World Top Ten music poll.[64] He composed the music for Nayakan (1987), an Indian film ranked by TIME Magazine as one of the all-time 100 best movies,a number of India's official entries to the Oscars, such as Anjali (1990)[66] and Hey Ram (2000), and for Indian art films such as Adoor Gopalakrishnan's FIPRESCI Prize-winning Nizhalkkuthu ('The Dance of Shadows') (2002). Ilaiyaraaja has composed music for events such as the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant that was held in Bangalore, India, and for a documentary called India 24 Hours (1996).The pop/hip-hop band Black Eyed Peas sampled an Ilaiyaraaja composition called "Unakkum Ennakum", from the film Sri Raghavendra (1985), for their tune "The Elephunk Theme" from their breakout album, Elephunk (2003).The alternative artist M.I.A. sampled his composition "Kaatukuyilu," from the film Thalapathi (1991) for her song "Bamboo Banga" on the album Kala (2007).


Live performances

Ilaiyaraaja rarely performs his music live, which may be due to the time he devotes to his composing activities.His last major live performance, the first in 25 years, was a four-hour concert held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai, India on October 16, 2005.The show was widely televised both in India and abroad. Less well-known was his live 2004 performance in Italy at the Teatro Comunale di Modena, an event-concert presented for the 14th edition of Angelica, Festival Internazionale Di Musica, co-produced with the L'Altro Suono Festival.He had done a few small-scale shows early in his career in Sri Lanka and Malaysia and was involved in a charity concert to raise funds for the construction of a Hindu temple in India.A television retrospective titled Ithu Ilaiyaraja ('This is Ilaiyaraja') was produced, chronicling his career