PART 2 ON PANCHAM DA:
In this part I shall try to explain why he is given so much of critical acclaim:
It is no surprise that all great composers have been great instrumentalists, it is said that Pancham could play whatever instruments he could lay his hand on, in fact he learnt Sarod from Ustad Akbar Ali Khan when he was only 3 years old.
If you want to gauge the capability of any composer please give a lot of attention to the background music of the film, who can forget the chase sequence of Sholay where Basanti is chased by dacoits & the dominant back ground music follows, played on several tablas, tuned to diff. notes by Pt. Samta Prasad. Few other great background music by Pancham have been the one where Amitabh is chased & shot by Dilip Kumar in Shakti (remember the one played on violin & North African drums) & Arjun (where Sunny Deol heads for a showdown with goons, in fact latter this music was included as opening music of Mamayiya kero mama song in same movie).
The legendry notes played on lead & bass guitar in dum maro dum was so dominating over the movie that Dev sahib decided to remove one entire antaara from this song not to let the music completely take over his direction…….!! The entire rock genre of music to Bollywood was introduced through this movie: HRHK.
Pancham introduced several miscellaneous instruments & their peculiar effects, he also added superior sound mixing, engg., multi track recording etc.
Bass guitar was introduced in "Hare Rama Hare Krishna." Even though he was a good bass guitarist, he sometimes became very simple when he did the bass guitar in "Preetam Aan Milo Dukhiya Jeevan Kaise Bitaun" from "Angoor." The bass hit only 1 note: Sa.... Sa... Sa.. Sa. In that song, there were sound effects of wind, cats, dogs, frogs, doors opening, ticktock, horses galloping. A gallery of sounds!
But his usage of this instrument became far more complicated in 1980s by him where I notice him using it in hard core way ( Shaan, Sitamgar, Hum naujwaan).
Panchamda was a great tabla player. Whenever he was a child, he would accompany his father, S.D. Burman during practice sessions. When Panchamda became a music director, he used his tabla set in a very unusual way. In "tere bina jiya jayen na" from "Ghar", Panchamda played chords on tabla tarang (fifteen tabla dayans tuned different notes).
He used a tabla tuning hammer to produce the unsual sound in the rhythm for Muttu Koi Kawadi (Do Phool)... the song Twinkle sang in SRGMP.
He used drumsticks on the tabla for the song "Pyar Hua Chupke Se" from 1942 love story.
He transposed pitch in Main Chali Main Chali from Padosan (like Western compositions).
In Padosan with the Ek Chatur Naar song, Mannada (singing for South Indian Mehmood) had mridangam and morsing accompanying him in aadi talam and had him sing taans in Carnatic style while singing in South Indian accent. Kishoreda (singing for himself and North Indian Sunil Dutt) had the tabla playing in tintal singing in tyical Hindi accent.
Pancham introduced the twin track effect in 'Baharon Ke Sapne'. which he later used to create the mesmerizing 'qatra qatra miltee hai' (Ijaazat) and a few more songs.
He also pioneered the use of electronic organ in Indian Films with the song 'O mere Sona re' (Teesri Manzil).
RD was, as Gulzar says, as good a craftsman as he was a musician. He picked the sounds for his songs from very indigenous sources.
In 'Chura liya' he used the sound of a spoon hitting a glass .
For the Kitaab song 'Master jee kee aa gayee chiTThee' he brought some desks from a classroom in the studio while recording and used them as percussion. In Abdullah he used the sound of a bamboo whistle with a balloon tied to it for a song.
Once to get the sound of raindrops, he spent a whole rainy night in his house's balcony recording the sound he wanted.
In the song 'O Manjhi Re' from the movie 'Khushboo', R.D. Burman used bottles with water filled at different levels and created a hollow sound by blowing into them and this sound effect was used with the orchestra.
Thanks Panchamda….!! Your ardent fans like us shall always keep your music alive…!! MAY GOD BLESS YOUR SOUL…!!
with wonderful opinion of Kishore Bhakta.
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Veer Hanuman
Kumkum Bhagya
