A.R. Rahman launches his biography

Music maestro A.R. Rahman got a little nostalgic remembering his old days, during the launch of his biography "A.R. Rahman: The Spirit of Music" in Mumbai Wednesday night.

The book has been penned by renowned writer Nasreen Munni Kabir.

The launch was also attended by Rahman's family, including his wife, sister and mother and filmmakers like Mani Ratnam, Ram Gopal Varma, Subhash Ghai, Ashutosh Gowarikar and Imtiaz Ali.

"I want to thank Munni for having the patience to sit with me and do this and to have an intension to do this," Rahman said.

"While working on this book with Munni, I relived many old memories. But the one moment that I relived and can never forget was when I had no money to buy any equipment. I needed four lakh rupees and I didn't have that money. So my mother immediately sold off my sister's jewellery and gave me the money," he said.

The book will provide a fascinating window into the world of the "Mozart of Madras", who became the first Indian composer to win two Academy Awards for the 2008 blockbuster "Slumdog Millionaire".

Talking about her experience of writing the book, Kabir said: "The idea of writing this film was actually trying and finding a way of creating a conversational biography that would record a person's thinking, a sweep of one's life upto now and some understanding of his craft and his personality."

She thanked Rahman for giving her the opportunity to write the book.

The book took approximately eight years to finish, and Kabir said she witnessed no major changes in Rahman in all these years, even though his popularity rose manifold during the course of this period.

"The interaction with Rahman took place in many countries, spread over many years. He has changed a little bit. The core person is the same but the life is different. There are lot more pressures, tremendous success but he wears his success lightly, which means that he is still very humble about it and the people he respected and regarded then are the same people, he respects and regards even now," the author said.
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Musical notation

Modern notation

An example of modern musical notation: Prelude, Op. 28, No. 7, by Frederic Chopin

 Modern music notation originated in European classical music and is now used by musicians of many different genres throughout the world.

The system uses a five-line staff. Pitch is shown by placement of notes on the staff (sometimes modified by accidentals), and duration is shown with different note values and additional symbols such as dots and ties. Notation is read from left to right, which makes setting music for right-to-left scripts difficult.

A staff (or stave, in British English) of written music generally begins with a clef, which indicates the position of one particular note on the staff. The treble or G clef was originally a letter G and it identifies the second line up on the five line staff as the note G above middle C. The bass or F clef shows the position of the note F below middle C. Notes representing a pitch outside of the scope of the five line staff can be represented using ledger lines, which provide a single note with additional lines and spaces.

Following the clef, the key signature on a staff indicates the key of the piece by specifying certain notes to be flat or sharp throughout the piece, unless otherwise indicated.

Following the key signature is the time signature. Measures (bars) divide the piece into groups of beats, and the time signatures specify those groupings.

Directions to the player regarding matters such as tempo and dynamics are added above or below the staff. For vocal music, lyrics are written. For short pauses (breaths), retakes (looks like ') are added.

In music for ensembles, a "score" shows music for all players together, while "parts" contain only the music played by an individual musician. A score can be constructed from a complete set of parts and vice versa. The process can be laborious but computer software offers a more convenient and flexible method. Specialized notation conventions

    * Percussion notation conventions are varied because of the wide range of percussion instruments. Percussion instruments are generally grouped into two categories: pitched and non-pitched. The notation of non-pitched percussion instruments is the more problematic and less standardized.
    * Figured bass notation originated in Baroque basso continuo parts. It is also used extensively in accordion notation. The bass notes of the music are conventionally notated, along with numbers and other signs which determine the chords to be played. It does not, however, specify the exact pitches of the harmony, leaving that for the performer to improvise.

    * A lead sheet specifies only the melody, lyrics and harmony, using one staff with chord symbols placed above and lyrics below. It is used to capture the essential elements of a popular song without specifying how the song should be arranged or performed.

    * A chord chart or "chart" contains little or no melodic information at all but provides detailed harmonic and rhythmic information, using slash notation and rhythmic notation. This is the most common kind of written music used by professional session musicians playing jazz or other forms of popular music and is intended primarily for the rhythm section (usually containing piano, guitar, bass and drums).
    * Simpler chord charts for songs may contain only the chord changes, placed above the lyrics where they occur. Such charts depend on prior knowledge of the melody, and are used as reminders in performance or informal group singing.
    * The shape note system is found in some church hymnals, sheet music, and song books, especially in the Southern United States. Instead of the customary elliptical note head, note heads of various shapes are used to show the position of the note on the major scale. Sacred Harp is one of the most popular tune books using shape notes.
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