Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

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Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by Sachi_R »

Dear rasikas,
If I want to start an online music portal that does EVERYTHING YOU WISH for,
what would be your TOP FIVE expectations?

Please write down only five, per rasika. Take into account all the wonderful things we have experienced during the lockdown:
  • 1. Sabha live stream
    2. Musician podcast
    3. Artiste jam
    4. Short videos with good outdoor videos 5. Rehash medley
    6. Audio only streams, archives
    7. archived concerts from Sabhas - in part and in full
    8. New kind of fusion
    9. Multiple singers on a theme
    10. Orchestras
    ....
So go ahead and give me your five.

Thank you!

shankarank
Posts: 4042
Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by shankarank »

For close to Authentic Carnatic experience, it is the live stream synchronized with Audio , where I can observe the layam and body language ( how they themselves enjoy and react to their own music) of the artistes. Others in the list are either supplementary like podcasts or some of them just fads.

I would also like @parvadini and @Arkay to cover minimally the audience ( unless they have privacy concerns!) , at least the VIPs who walk in and get acknowledged by the artistes themselves!

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by Sachi_R »

Great Shankaran. Precisely my thoughts!

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by Sachi_R »

@CRama @sureshvv @SrinathK
Please give your thoughts. This will be important to many.

Thanks,

SrinathK
Posts: 2477
Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by SrinathK »

It should totally have a Link to rasikas.org for the best insights and reviews, that will last, and also for sharing urls over here.

hnbhagavan
Posts: 1655
Joined: 21 Jun 2008, 22:06

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by hnbhagavan »

1. Sabha Live
2. Archived Concerts Video stream
3.Artists Jam Session
4.Short Videos with good outdoor theme
5. Musician Podcast

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by Sachi_R »

HNB
My request is that you define what should be the FEATURES of such a portal. Artiste podcast and Sabha stream may be the contents offered.

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by Sachi_R »

SrinathK wrote: 25 Feb 2021, 08:09 It should totally have a Link to rasikas.org for the best insights and reviews, that will last, and also for sharing urls over here.
This should be easy 😊

RSR
Posts: 3427
Joined: 11 Oct 2015, 23:31

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by RSR »

audio only streams...Absolutely no visuals.
just like the AIR relays.
--------------------------------------
1) Visual streaming is fine for sports events and political rallies. Not for classical music. Nor is it necessary. Actually, visuals for CM concerts are revolting.
I have been amazed that we have among our rasikas, quite a few veterans, who could identify the mrudhangam and violin artistes, by simply listening! without any information or visuals!
----------------
There were some notorious Greats from the ' Golden Period ' who made pleasantries , jokes, and other unwanted exclamations on stage. Most irritating. and unbecoming . Lady artistes like Smt.DKP and Smt.MS, never indulged in that.

Radio concerts and audio only-streaming will rule out such undesirable distractions.
---
Lec-dems are another horror.
Have the mods noticed? Though this forum has so many sections, MOST are inactive most of the time. Except for lyrics, notations .
-----------------
Most veterans have huge collection in their tapes and casettes and cd's but do not know , how to
a) digitize
b) split the audio / video
c) how to SHARE in public domain.
d) how to store in reliable cloud like Google Drive.
After all, things are FREE.
=============================
The main purpose of this forum in the earlier years was SHARING of audio files. But all those links are dead .
The best thing may be not even to upload to tube ( as most are marred by abnoxious commercial advts- monetizing)
It will be enough if the audio files are uploaded to the Drive and link given.
And all serious rasikas should have their own blogs / websites instead of using rasikas forum as their blog!

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by Sachi_R »

Thank you folks.

shankarank
Posts: 4042
Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by shankarank »

SrinathK wrote: 25 Feb 2021, 08:09 It should totally have a Link to rasikas.org for the best insights and reviews, that will last, and also for sharing urls over here.
Some times in social media ( twitter) I share something with others who seem interested via private message. Can rasikas withstand additional traffic/attention , don't mean volume or load, but people who are not in this mold? I am always cautious :mrgreen: ! But if I start posting myself in youtube links to my posts, I promise ( well can I really!) whoever comes here won't be like me :lol:

TheRaghuKumar
Posts: 22
Joined: 11 Jan 2019, 21:40

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by TheRaghuKumar »

Clear monetization/revenue generation funnels not dependant upon donations

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by Sachi_R »

@TheRaghuKumar Interesting you say this. My own experience-
1.When musicians themselves promote their output and sell them (BEST case TMK), they get tons of traction and lots of jingle in the cash box. This of course requires them to be very message-savvy and with a loyal following to attract and seed new fans.

Whenever I have bought subscriptions or membership or a season ticket etc. I have regretted it. It costs a lot for the 20% I enjoy and thrusts 80% on me which is a waste.

Most ventures of portals to sell content and subscriptions have failed miserably.

I do not know the success of Carnatica.

and Kalakendra Sanskriti Series efforts of late. Would be very interesting to know their marketing success of the recent Margazhi season ticket.


I feel, and you can see from the answers already, people are quite content with free audios.

So I think one has to come up with a portal which has heavy, organised, mostly audio- free content, and well marketed one-off events with great immersive experience for a price.

It also calls for stand-out social media marketing. And best would be some real. live physical attendance events co-marketed with intelligent and attractive programming.

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by Sachi_R »

And where does it leave portals of today? abjectly dependent on donations and ads.

Would be very interesting to analyse monetisation models of Youtube channels and their success.

hnbhagavan
Posts: 1655
Joined: 21 Jun 2008, 22:06

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by hnbhagavan »

Sanjay has announced his own YOUTUBE channel by subscription. There are various categories like Patron,Member etc.
Members will get to hear exclusive concerts under good sound conditions.

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by Sachi_R »

That is a good initiative from him. because he has perhaps the best handle, among all artistes, on his fan following and has been serving free and paid-for concerts for some years now.

But if there is a portal driven by listeners rather than artistes and Sabhas, I feel it will have much better success.

Sangeethapriya did a good job so far but they have to adapt to new concepts and listening habits and devices in use.
Also a lot of their content has poor audio quality for legacy reasons. We don't know the quality rating of different files.

We also don't have the interactivity and social media connect that FB and YT offer. Also their platform is based on donations and not paid for streams.

zi feel the time is ripe for a brand new comprehensive well-structured interactive video+audio Freemium model.
Last edited by Sachi_R on 27 Feb 2021, 17:04, edited 1 time in total.

rajeshnat
Posts: 9906
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by rajeshnat »

@Sachi_R
I know I am not answering directly, but just my thoughts based on spending non stop for last 20 plus years in forums and writing . Also quite recently being not able to influence anyone around my family or friends to listen to CM is also weighing me to write this post

What Sanjay is doing a right thing , he is putting a secure wall in first place . All that he is doing putting his content , very likely his chosen close accompanist who donot very likely question his commercial dealings . He has a big IT team that works on all the Business process and monetization part(He has the history of creating a portal and pulling the plug with zero notice) . Surely all artists have to do exactly what Sanjay has done , considering most of them are going to find a struggle post pandemic in general as arts and cinemas are having the same fate .

On What you stated Sachi in post #1
=========================
If a portal tries to go on the areas that you state , it only becomes a jar fall of bees in a glass beaker. Not even one will come out of the beaker , if the top tries to jump out the one preceding that will pull down exactly at that point. In short this is a disaster to drive away adoption of musical attention.

Sanjay as a musician will have great commercial success in his venture but he cannot assure the art is living far beyond with more patronage. All said what we need is a real revitalization of sabha which are like temples and concert is like hymns inside the temple. Some thoughts on that

1. Absolutely No content online at all .If people want to come and hear music let them come to sabha or temple . Period. Manual interaction and slowly liking disliking ragas talas or artists is a slow evolving process. IF on line takes up we will soon have after 30 mins a 2 mins advertisement which says Please donot go away after the break , we are going to hear another krithi Kurai Onrum Illai at the other side of the break.

2. Now the difficulty is how to pull more patrons .I like to take few keywords that Shankarank stated before in some thread that cultural alignment only leads to musical pull and that usually becomes a prerequisite with few edge cases where the cultural alignment is not needed . For many many years i thought it was not necessary , but now i realize that is a prerequisite with my next generation at home . Quite frankly in the last 5 years i am seeing only new customer(rasikas) acquisition is the most important thing .I am having my kid and almost all kids in her school showing near zero interest in anything that has a bit of little ancient Indian flavor , be it music or dance or literature( literature is worst to inculcate). I think if we subscribe Disney Junior Channel :roll: in TV at your home ,your life towards nextgen propagation ends right there(just in gest , but that is the truth)

I am putting few points here as may be action items
-----------------------------------------------------------------

#1A# Find ways to monetize money like community of college friends and school friends where only say 100 have interest in say Carnatic music in a strength of 10,000. Or each of us have with our bulk of our relatives in NorthAmerica , let us pool money sufficiently. With that money collection start an endowment .

#1B# With 1A let say 5 get elected as leads and those should become the future Nadopasana Sreenivasan or Safe Ramabadran or Pozhichalur Krishnamurthy . Having a hall like say academy or ragasudha and then having a sabha like MusicAcademy or naadainbam is much easier .But when we donot own hall but if we have to conduct sabhas like what Ramabadran or Sreenivasan did just for love of CM , needs an entire different mindset. If there is few future Nalli Kuppuswamy Chettiar who has perennially supported, we are indeed lucky. This work is what we have to share and do.

#1C# Do all promotions by putting small clips about musicians . Internet branding , promotions and all your marketing wisdom add it . But absolutely no live musical content anywhere in internet that too for free

#1D# Once when 1B is done , select schools and colleges and be a SPIC Macay like thing . Possibly spread the news and get CM out of core bastions away from few Mylapore and T Nagar and keep a tab on geographies and spread , just putting some of them that i have gone
Hall in Tambaram East that saraswati vaggeyakkara conducts
Bhavans School in Kilpauk
School in Thiruvanmiyur that Carnatica conducts dec festival that i forgot the name now
AshokNagar Mahodaya Hall

Pick a sat and sunday every quarter atleast once and hold concerts together and propagate to everyone chennai is spreading with more CM everywhere, participate and hear so that the trickle is laid out with more diverse new faces all at the same time.

#1E#. I just picked 4 places in madras in different directions, where we can just rent a hall . The key is branding has to happen in one name .Slowly this has to be an AMUL like brand . CM suffers from organizers lacking brand value which appear undiscoverable for new gen rasikas. Music Academy and their mouth piece The Hindu do that , they are lucky . I have seen somewhat NGS and Krishna Gana Sabha doing that ,now all of them are almost not registered in any of the minds of any new fresh blood entrants . They also have slided a bit , few folks like Mudhra do it with limited success. Lack of unified branding like AMUL is killling CM.Most of them think CM is like an old age home (I am not talking about young practioners who maximize as Abhishek Raghuram/Amrutha Venkatesh or a minimal sarali varisai mayamalavagowlai dropout. I am talking 98 percent of them who are like me who know for sure that they cannot sing or play even sa pa sa. ).

#1F# Education ,Artist Jam, New kind of Podcast, Talkshows and tit bits are all left to Crama , Sachi_R and Srinathk in rasikas.org or the latest newspaper or sruthi magazine . Content Content Content with no diversion is the key . The thought has to be on these lines Oh pantuvarali submain will there be a todi or bhairavi main , is there a chance to hear hamsanandi RTP this is what musicians should think and future rasikas condition. If we go with all these miscellaneous artist jam etc then you are competing with BollyWood or Kollywood , you get absolutely nothing all future rasikas will dump totally and stick permenantly to NetFlix.

The day when you stop uploading music (that too free)in internet , i see we as a nice CM community can stop the onslaught of attention deficit future rasikas who have near zero crave for classical music. The effect of globalization and the generation of brain drain of atleast my gen towards North America has created snowball effect.

sureshvv
Posts: 5523
Joined: 05 Jul 2007, 18:17

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by sureshvv »

I would love to have a knowledgeable RJ who can weave some thematic programs and present insights into the presentation from the musical and the literary points of view. Kind of like R.K.Sriram Kumar or Jim Ladd!

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by Sachi_R »

Superb points Rajesh and Suresh.
I returned from my overseas sojourn in 2011. I immeduately set about creating a Carnatic music "radio" which had all the features I liked :
programming
presentation by knowledgeable listeners
artiste interviews
listener interactivity
etc.
I wanted to gift FM radios to thousands of senior citizens who would find the radio a great companion.

I gave up the ideas after talking to some lawyers (😁 my mistake no entrepreneur should make)

I then started Rasaanveshanam exactly on the lines Rajesh suggested. We had home concerts. We had thematic locale-based concerts etc. on the cards.

I found 3 problems:

1. Nobody wants to spend time or money.
2. People relate to CM only in terms of "Oh let me. listen to xxxxxx song I like very much... by such and such an artiste..." or gossip and scandal mode or "let me tell you how knowledgeable I am or how well connected..."

More than anything else I know EVERY venture to present CM as a for-profit venture to be under water.

Somehow Fort High school, Saamagaana Sabha etc. have managed to get lots of sponsors and connect with big names and pull it off perhaps with unaccounted monies. But the music is rarely the best.

Sabhas like SRLKM live hand to mouth but give great music and experiences.

The Covid 19 has made streaming and live portal ideas mainstream in CM.

There is no going back.

Somebody can do a good job of this. And leave an imprint in the history of CM.

Music Academy has made a start but they are too much agenda-driven.

RSR
Posts: 3427
Joined: 11 Oct 2015, 23:31

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by RSR »

p-19
"Sabhas like SRLKM live hand to mouth but give great music and experiences...The Covid 19 has made streaming and live portal ideas mainstream in CM..There is no going back.
Somebody can do a good job of this. And leave an imprint in the history of CM."
===============
Quite.
-
@rajeshnat
The objection to streaming live concerts is puzzling. Instead of a few hundreds of listeners in a concert hall, web-casting can reach literally millions across the world. Combined with a brand name like MA, it can be a gold-mine too. and MA is open to new ideas surely

shankarank
Posts: 4042
Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by shankarank »

rajeshnat wrote: 27 Feb 2021, 20:05
2. Now the difficulty is how to pull more patrons .I like to take few keywords that Shankarank stated before in some thread that cultural alignment only leads to musical pull and that usually becomes a prerequisite with few edge cases where the cultural alignment is not needed . For many many years i thought it was not necessary , but now i realize that is a prerequisite with my next generation at home . Quite frankly in the last 5 years i am seeing only new customer(rasikas) acquisition is the most important thing .I am having my kid and almost all kids in her school showing near zero interest in anything that has a bit of little ancient Indian flavor , be it music or dance or literature( literature is worst to inculcate). I think if we subscribe Disney Junior Channel :roll: in TV at your home ,your life towards nextgen propagation ends right there(just in gest , but that is the truth)
Well I was lucky! If not for Ashok Kalidas and his cohorts who after the ragging session told me that KVN is the then authentic musician , I would not have left my KJY Tarangini cassettes and may be couple of BMK ones. And actually, I did not get to listen to KVN live even still until I was in the U.S after 10 years or so. And I have missed listening to DKJ live at all. The Culture shock was a weird one for me, I should say :lol: . We need to find ways to reverse culture shock youngsters and bring them out of cultural slumber! SPIC Macay was helpful. You may get a fraction of future audience from that!

Sachi_R
Posts: 2174
Joined: 31 Jan 2017, 20:20

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by Sachi_R »

Good point Shankaran

Manian
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Joined: 09 Aug 2020, 13:48

Re: Have your Say: What is the ideal online music portal?

Post by Manian »

rajeshnat :rajeshnat Your idea of endowment is a fine one. However, based on my search, I found that as soon as you establish an endowment, politics from within and the outside – why not make this as a government organization by appropriating everything – will derail the original intent. I have a cousin who was a trustee of a private temple- High court in 1932 declared it as private and I have seen the judgment paper- yet it was maintained by a very few dedicated honest people. So, the temple has not hundi(that is the first attracts HRD), jelwells and land which were in private name and passed on legally to the following trustees. When I was there once, they had about 1 Lakh Rs left from a Kumbabhishekam by collection private donation. It was to be spent on a flower garrden with a motor in a well situated in the garden plot donated by a devote.
There were about five youngsters wanted to steal the money. So they organized a protest and called for a meeting. That afternoon, I was resting in my brothers place. The temple protecting gorup came to see me and asked my help. I just asked them if they had any written document that shows that the money was ment for the well and garden. They said it was decided but we did not write it down. So, I told them, fine write it down “as decided in the meeting on such and such day where the following members were present, the money was earmarked for the rehabilitation of the well etc. Sign, predate it and bring to the meeting. They did. I then told all those present that this is a private temple, here is a copy of 1932 judgement. Thus none of you have any right to question what is being done. Also, here is the transcript of the meeting that specifies that the money is for rebuilding, motorizing the well. You can go home. It was a peaceful settlement. I am not writing this to tell the story but such outsides taking over is a real issue. So, if Nalli Kuppuswami like person can hold the trust, then collect money to get Sanjay's music. Otherwise, his music will find place only in history.

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