by Krishna Trilok (Music 780.92 Rah)
This book is about a composer who is extremely famous outside of the US. In 2002, an international BBC poll found that one of their songs was the 2nd-most famous song in the entire world, and that same song also holds Guinness world records as the song performed in the most languages. The artist in question is A.R. Rahman, best known as a prolific composer of songs and music for Bollywood films who has been active since the early 1990s. A great biography of his life and work, called Notes of a Dream written by Krishna Trilok, is available from the Polley Music Library.
Rahman is quite the celebrity in India, but remains considerably lesser known here. Some of this is probably due to the film industry that most of his music is written for. It seems like many other parts of the world have at least a passing familiarity with the English language, so Hollywood movies can be shown overseas with some success. But for Bollywood films, the name often given to the film industry in India, the languages used in these films have been somewhat a barrier for their distribution here. For some readers, it might be useful to have a broader understanding of the Indian film industry before jumping into the Rahman biography, and if that includes you, We have a couple of books here at Polley that discuss it, as well as the broader musical scene in modern-day India: More Than Bollywood: Studies in Indian Popular Music by Gregory Booth and Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance by Sangita Gopal.
From those books, you’ll see that the history of cinema within India goes back just as far as Western filmmaking, and that Rahman’s work as a film composer starting in the 90s was stepping into a tradition that’s now around a century old. Hindi-language film has always leaned into musicals as a favored art form, and the music has a long history of combining familiar Indian folk and classical styles with the latest modern sounds coming out of Western culture. Rahman’s work has carried on that kind of tradition, and added newer Western musical styles like electronic music into his work, as well as some middle-eastern stylings. It truly is a remarkable kind of world music that can stand on its own even without the films (but of course the films are fun, too).
In Notes of a Dream, author Trilok follows a fairly conventional formula for a celebrity biography, starting with Rahman’s childhood. And it turns out that his is a kind of rags-to-riches story that would make for a great Bollywood film itself! I don’t want to give away too much of the story here — it’s a really inspiring book if you’re interested in Rahman’s music or Bollywood music in general — but suffice it to say that Rahman’s father, R.K. Shekhar, was also a musician in the Indian film industry. Sadly, he died when Rahman was still very young, leaving the family to struggle. His mother insisted on making sure that he continue his studies, and he was also able to help the family initially by helping to rent his father’s musical equipment to other musicians, and he soon learned to play and compose himself. His life could have turned out very differently–many boys his age in similar circumstances ended up leaving school and begging on the streets. Ultimately, Rahman did leave school early, but his music career was already becoming well established, and he simply didn’t have time for both pursuits.
Notes of a Dream jumps around a little bit chronologically, which I found enjoyable. For example, while the 2nd part of the book primarily focuses on Rahman’s early forays into writing music for film, its introduction discusses some of his newest efforts related to film, which have now expanded from music to being a director himself. It’s a useful present-day setup to the rest of the section, which describes his steady rise into the world of film music. It started with writing a lot of commercial jingles throughout the 1980s, and then he got his first opportunity to write for a film with the 1992 production of “Roja,” a movie that went on to win numerous awards. This immediately thrust Rahman into the spotlight as a film composer, as the soundtrack itself was also very well received. In this section, we start to read more remembrances from many who have worked with him on films, reflecting on what it’s like to collaborate with him, how he’s a perfectionist, and some quirks of his style, like frequently running late to meetings and taking his time turning in music (mostly because of his perfectionist nature).
It’s noteworthy that evolving music technology has played a significant role in Rahman’s career. The book describes the beginnings of his “home studio,” a facility he started to build in 1989 with the help of loans and his mother selling lots of jewelry. Rahman always had a knack for using and even fixing new music technology like the first digital keyboards, and once he started to have a bit of success scoring films, he was able to build this space out to be the highest tech studio in India. He was able to take control of his own workflow in this way about a generation before many of us were able to produce studio-quality work at home due to computer music tech, and just reading about how he was able to control his own work and keep his overhead costs down by having his own high-quality space is a fantastic model for what almost anyone can do now with just a little bit of money and some thoughtful design. From that perspective, at times this book functions as more than a biography—there is lots of valuable information in here about how to control your own destiny while navigating the music business and the film industry.
The last two sections of the book are shorter, and focus more on Rahman’s recent history. Phase three (the parts are called “phases”) largely focuses on the breakout success of the 2008 film “Slumdog Millionaire,” which led to much more recognition for Rahman’s music in the Western world. And the final section gets into more detail about his personal life, such as his religious practices and his founding of the KM College of Music and Technology (again emphasizing the importance of technology to contemporary music literacy) and his A.R. Rahman Foundation. His optimism and passion are clear throughout the book, and besides being a solid musical biography, the book serves as an inspirational sketch of one of the most dedicated and successful musicians in the world.
(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try More Than Bollywood: Studies in Indian Popular Music by Gregory Booth or Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance by Sangita Gopal.)
( publisher’s official Notes of a Dream web page ) | ( official Krishna Trilok Twitter feed )
Recommended
by Scott S.
Polley Music Library
Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
Check out this, and all the other great music resources, at the Polley Music Library, located on the 2nd floor of the Bennett Martin Public Library at 14th & "N" St. in downtown Lincoln. You'll find biographies of musicians, books about music history, instructional books, sheet music, CDs, music-related magazines, and much more. Also check out Polley Music Library Picks, the Polley Music Library's e-mail newsletter, and follow them on Facebook!
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