Be it scripting and sketching his characters, designing costume or directing and composing background scores, Satyajit Ray was a master of all. However, not many knew about his musical side. On World Music Day, let’s celebrate the musical genius in Ray.
Satyajit Ray’s music was not just highly appreciated but also set new trends. In his earlier film works like the ‘Apu’ Trilogy, ‘Devi,’ ‘Jalsaghar’ and ‘Paras Pathar,’ Ray had the opportunity to work with legends such as Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan and Ali Akbar Khan.
He formed a great combination with Ravi Shankar. It’s safe to say Satyajit Ray discovered his musical soul while working with the sitar maestro. Ravi Shankar on several occasions had said that Ray was the greatest director he had worked with. We all know how mind-blowing is the scores for ‘Pather Panchali,’ ‘Aparajito,’ ‘Apur Sansar’ and ‘Paras Pathar’.
And then came ‘Teen Kanya,’ based on three of Tagore’s short stories. It witnessed the birth of Satyajit Ray, the music director. Starting with ‘Teen Kanya’ every Ray film would come with a theme music which would often underline the central plot of his film and would also express the elite motive deep inside the complex structure of his film.
Ray started mastering western notations. Till his immortal allegory, ‘Goopy Gayen Bagha Bayen,’ Ray had composed all of his scores following the occidental musical notes. Then he found out the musicians in Bengal were not actually accustomed to western notations. So, it took them time to convert the notations to Indian, particularly Bengali ones. So, he learnt and also started composing in Bengali notations. And the rest is history!
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