An analysis of the musical elements in the film 'Three Idiots'.

Music Work Sheet

Name: Sumaiya Hossain                                                        Director: Rajkumar Irani Student no: 210757144                                                        Year: 2009

Movie Title: 3 Idiots                                                lyricist:         Swanand Kirkire        

Music Director: Shantanu Moitra                                                 

Singers: Sonu Nigam, Swanand Kirkire, Shaan, Shreya Ghosal , Shantanu Moitra & Suraj Jagan

PLOT:  It is a story based on true friendship. Farhan Qureshi (R. Madhavan) and Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi) are in search of their engineering college (modeled after IIT) room-mate, Rancho (Aamir Khan) accompanied by Pia (Kareena Kapoor), when a geek Chatur Ramalingam (Omi Vaidya) after 10 years brings them together after being ‘made fun of’ in college. The entire story is unfolded as a flashback during their college days. At present, Rancho is actually the genius and the famous scientist, Phunsuk Wangdu. Chatur is left feeling stupid at the end of the film. The film in spite of being a comedy sends a message about humanity and rat-race. 

 Song #1:   “Zoobi Doobi” – Sung by Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghosal , the song is a signature composition of Shantanu Moitra. To begin with, the song is composed with simple tunes and lyrics and comes across as a rain track that have been heard and seen in Bollywood over the decades. The song further adds 50s and 60s Jazz rhyme which is why the arrangement of the instruments is kept simple and westernized. Thus the instruments used in this song are mostly wind instruments such as metal flute and brass wind instruments like saxophone which is responsible to create a potential wider range of timbre and volume levels in the song. Moreover, with instruments such as electric bass adds the jazz vibe to the song while very little emphasis given on the musical interlude of the song. Therefore, it is vocal in the song that syncs the song with the lyrics. The essence of the “raag” is unfolded with the “alaap” where little or no instruments are heard. With such effect, the romantic mood of the song is captured within in the audience until the “mukhada” of the song takes its entrance where the mood shifts to a happy and joyful ambiance. Additionally, with instruments such as synthesizer and electric organ very distinctive sound effects were created to add the jazz and western effect to the song. The timbre of the music is very bright and playful while the dynamics heard in the song is always loud. Instead of instrumental interlude, there’s an extension of the first verse which extends the melody of the instruments and the voices to make a longer rhythm. As the song progresses, some portion of the piece is repeated with variation in the vocals where the pitch shifts from traditional to western mostly . However, in the second interlude of the song, the ornamentation of the instruments are arranged in a way that embellishes the melody creating an echo which is heard as a repetition of the tune played with different instruments. On the other hand the rhythm of the music in the song follows a repeated pattern throughout which controls the movement of the music in adjacent with the vocals. With a fast tempo and layering effect of various instruments in the song, the song can be described to have a solid texture. Lastly the jazz effect of the song becomes very prominent towards the end of the song when the tone of the vocal completely changes to westernized style.  In my opinion, the music gives a very retro feeling while the simple lyrics make the song easily hummable. It’s a very foot tapping old westernized song that can make one get up and dance in a happy mood.