Sonu Niigaam hits highest note for patriotic song

Music director Shamir Tandon can’t stop raving about Sonu Niigaam who hit the highest note ever for a patriotic track in the film Kandahar.

Music director Shamir Tandon can’t stop raving about Sonu Niigaam who hit the highest note ever for a patriotic track in the film

Kandahar

. Directed by retired army officer, Major Ravi, the trilingual project in Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam, toplines Amitabh Bachchan and Mohanlal.

“The song in question is

Naman hai..

and Sonu has hit the highest note in human vocal registry with an open-throat effort without singing falsetto,” explains Tandon. Technically, the last octave is the highest possible note that can be humanly hit. And it’s usually achieved while singing falsetto when the voice begins to vibrate and turns shrill.

“Sonu was unaware of what he had done. Very few people in the world can go this far. The late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was an exception but even he sounded shrill. Sonu sustained the pitch admirably and the heaviness in his voice added a melancholic touch to the song,” exults Tandon.

Naman hai…

has been penned by lyricist Sandeep Nath who also wrote verses for Tandon’s earlier soundtracks for movies like

Page 3

and

Corporate

. “Ravi wanted lines that weren’t overdramatic and he wanted a Hindi synonym of

salaam

that could be used across the three languages.

Naman

is another word for salute in Hindi,” says Tandon.

This soft rock number, complete with electric violin, guitar distortion and live drums, though in Hindi, will be used in all three versions of the film. The other songs will be dubbed in the respective languages.