6 - Pollaa Vinaiyen - Part-4

A Capella, that’s a mind blowing attempt by IR.

(Digression: It's all male chorus singing harmonised notes alongwith the main solo singer. To some extent IR's Thaamtha Theemtha in Pagalil Oru Iravu, an all female modern A Capella, giving both choral harmony and instruments substitution can be considered as a fore runner)

A Capella (In the style of Chapel , in the style of Church) is defined as Choral or vocal music performed without instrumental accompaniment as per Virginia Tech Music Dictionary

Now, you can understand the reason for the sudden withdrawal of all instruments in the “Namasivaya Vaazhga” before the A Capella portion !


So far, in Polla Vinayen, IR has been effecting modulation between verses and paras.

But here in A Capella, he is effecting modulations after every few words of each and every line.


Further, the accompanying chorus and counter melody lines also effecting such modulations so drastically.

So finding raagams is almost a difficult exercise.

(like one can experience in the “I met Bach” where Bach’s Partita is accompanied by the Carnatic violin/voice harmony parts, wherein such enormous Raagam shades are shown).

As such I limit myself here with the scale followed in the melody part.

Sl No - 13

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While the previous verses “Vetru Vihara” has ended in the D-Minor Gowrimanohari,

the A-Capella starts in the D-Flat Major and end in the B-Flat Minor,

then through a transition it reaches back to D-Minor (Masatra Sodhi) where it left the “Vetru Vihara” earlier !

In between it shuttles between B-Flat Minor and A-flat Major and D-flat Major as shown in the table below:

(experts can confirm, as I have omitted the effect of chords and only consider the IR-melody part in these modulations).

One can imagine the difficulty of ascertaining the modulating scales in such passages without the actual notated notes.

Also in each scale, the song is only covering a few notes in the upper half only, so one has to assume the balance notes as well as the tonic identification.

The additional and foremost difficulty is to come out of the beauty of the song flow to determine these !!!

Somehow, the very brief transition in the end, reminds me a shade of Subha panthuvarali ! I don’t know why !

Anyway, after such mind blowing piece, IR takes us into a deep soul stirring ( or soul arresting ?!) melody of “Maasatra Sodhi”.

It’s a virtual challenge by IR to every listener, “can you control your emotion and weeping while listening this?”

Sl No - 14 and 15

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Scalewise, it begins like simple D-Melodic Minor, but it expands and well settle in the form of Carnatic semi-classical melody, which we are often used to hear from IR.

The rhythm in 5/8 is also well known to us!

That’s the reason for the success of this part which is acclaimed by everybody from their very first hearing !

Mostly it follows the Suddha Dhanyasi + Karaharapriya combinations and hence carnatically one may claim this under the category of Aabheri !

Finally, through the transition we lands up in the B-Minor where we started the very first line of “Polla Vinayen”.

But, here, it is B-Minor in Shanmuga priya.

Sl No - 16

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Harcourt sings with such emotions in Shanmugapriya “Deep in my soul.”

With the climax of “beginning to be free” he sets himself free from the song !

But not from our heart !

The Chorus "Easan Adi Potri..." that follows,  needs  no explanations !

It’s the “Joyous hail” all over by everybody, from IR to Western chorus to our Indian chorus etc etc !

What a grand finale, one cannot expect more than this for this 20-minute masterpiece !

Sl No - 17 and 18

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Here also, the last paragraphs, "Namasivaaya Vaazhga..." have been again modulated to one last time from Shanmugapriya to Simmendhra Madhyamam which involves just change of one note “Ni”.

So in a 20-minutes roller-coaster ride, you have been served with around 25 such ragas/scales through modulations (may be more also) and varying rhythms, varying forms of music of Western and Carnatic etc.


Thus creating all the various emotions IR wanted us to feel and attain that everlasting spiritual experience !


He has more than succeeded in his objective!

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