Yes, Lekha Rathnakumar has ended music directors' woes involved in composing background music for a film or advertisement. How? By introducing a background music library.
The most difficult task for music directors is setting suitable background score, be it for a film or TV show or documentary or ad film. They have to compose music for each and every scene depending on the ambience the scene depicts, the mood and emotions involved; most of the times, it gets repeated in their other film or ad ventures.
Imagine a scene depicting a perfect western ballroom party, or a military bugle call, or the roar of a lion, or sounds of nature. If these sounds were available readymade for use in films, it would save a lot of time and money currently involved in reproducing them or recording them. Then, presume a film or ad film nneds to use music native to or identified with a nation. The hardship involved in procuring that exact music or repeating the same without compromising on authenticity is unimaginable. It is also financially taxing, especially if it is for an ad film.
But now, music directors and producers can relax as they have a library for background sounds and musical scores – Lekha-Sonoton background music library near Kodambakkam. This is a joint venture of very famous ad filmmaker Lekha Rathnakumar and Sonoton background music library of Germany. The library houses thousands of CDs that contain background musical scores and sounds that can be used according to the requirements of a scene. Such libraries are very common in Hollywood and Europe. Usually, films in Hollywood or Europe 'borrow' background music from these libraries. They either use the same piece of music for background or modify it to meet their needs.
The idea of bringing Sonoton to Chennai flitted across Lekha’s mind when he was in Germany and was in need of 'magudi'sound, a traditional Indian instrument associated with snake charming (a false belief, though!). He searched the Sonoton library in Germany but was unable to find it. Later, at their request, he ended up supplying them with sounds of all traditional Indian instruments. Thus was born a collaboration which resulted in the inception of this background library in Chennai.
Also, Lekha Rathnakumar has introduced a new scheme, by which one can become a member for one year by paying a nominal fee and have access to ten CDs containing different types of background scores. This access is usually enough for any music director to compose background music for a film or jingles/ background score for advertisement.
The proof of this background music library idea is Cloverfield, a Hollywood film which has borrowed some music from this library and Pathini, a movie whose background score was entirely taken from this library.
Now this library is going to save a lot of time for music directors and money for producers, which can be used for enhancing the quality of their work.
