Challenges for Rasikas.Org -Active Writing Is going down

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 14 Mar 2020, 08:15

All
We in rasikas were the foremost site for CM. We are still #1 though the struggles to make it float as #1 is very much there with the advent of facebook and whatsapp .

Usually the biggest topics of content that interests majority are Vidwans and Vidushis, Concert Reviews, Ragas and Vaggeyakkaras and ofcourse few significant topics in General Discussions /Members Stuff and Lounge topics that will be so wonderful that brings the best in each of us.

However musicians poach good writers from here and keep a walled economy like situation where they ask some phenomenal contributors to write only in that particular artist facebook, But in a long run those facebook posts are usually echo chambers and there is heavy cloying . However in rasikas due to threaded phpbb in nature , we can have lovely posts with two diametrically different viewpoints, still say relevant . WE dont have 1 great post with 500 likes and 100 coments that says wonderful , thumbs up symbol all is perennnial annoyance of Facebook long wagging tail .

Rasikas is indexed for life unlike facebook and whatsapp.

Some tough decisions that may not be popular has to be taken to increase
1. Active Writers
2. That will funnel more Active Readers
3. More importantly more youngsters like say srinathk have to take up with MKR and PonBhairavi exiting out permenantly.

I have nothing against srkris and few mods . They are 9.9 out of 10 ,but we need to do few things for sure to encourage active participation .

I have lot of thoughts which i will write bit later in a cogent manner .

SrinathK · Post by **SrinathK** » 14 Mar 2020, 10:23

Rajesh, you brought a good point. What do you do on a place where all the old timers are departing, and the rest of us are getting bogged down with all kinds of challenges both professional and personal? This is by far our biggest problem. All the old guard is down and out.

And how do we stay afloat in the era of social media?

I say, we should share our best posts on FB and whatsapp and groups and blogs - this is an easy way that more people in our circles might at least find it in their feeds. Most of social media only thrives because of selfies, endless news feeds, cross linking to articles and videos, and fan pages. Keep the writing here and the sharing there.

The attempts to share music here also is not being done well enough compared to the early days. Either people are content with sharing a link in musicians and composers with no word on how they felt listening to this recording, or nothing musical to add. Only some old timers are still trying to recapture those good old days of scarce recordings. Unforunately when there is no discussion, no one seems to realize its existence.

Youtube has taken away all the commentator rasikas who were satisfied with one line one para responses.

Music sharing to illustrate some important stuff or music sharing of valuable recordings for the sake of archival will no doubt be valuable. We can always look at it raga wise or composition wise or musician wise and see how they handled a piece of music. And it will stay up here as long as that link exists.

The most involved discussions these days aren't about music at all, but other issues, most often TM Krishna.

There are also those who prefer their own blogs where they may write without the need to participate in a discussion. The next gen after me prefers whatsapp as they do fast food. I too use more of whatsapp for looser unorganized discussion, but when I have to write something deeper and much more I prefer to write it here. All those whatsapp talks with others come in real handy then.

Also one more challenge here is that you can't really discuss the spicy stuff like you could do in private, especially at home or on whatsapp. There's an audience that exists only for that. But to me that's not much of a loss musically.

We are also no match for social media when it comes to sharing pics and videos. At best, we make a good collective blog - one that's neatly organized into sections - something that blogs can't do.

There is another problem when you write articles of deep depth and then share them on FB or whatsapp - no one who has any intent of doing research or publishing their work would do this. It can easily be stolen by someone else. So scholarly stuff or stuff that you'd publish in a book or magazine - nah, those people won't write here. I tell them that if they shared some things here only a few people might read them, so there's much LESS chance of their work getting stolen. But ok, I'll wait for them to publish their work first. We can always put a link up

Right now the usp of this forum is the reviews section (which of course becomes more relevant only when shared on FB) and the forum format with permanent indexing. There is no social media, no blog, no website and definitely no newspaper that can compare to the rasikas.org reviews section. What we write here isn't going to go down into the news feed and vanish into some corner of some cloud server never to be heard from again. And when it is not that, the other main usp is single handedly due to Lakshman sir for being the largest living CM resource in history.

When we have to discuss a category of topics in one place, there is no resource with the potential of rasikas.org to have it all in one place. And that is the greatest strength of this place. We are the most categorically organized resource of Carnatic music. Whatever others do elsewhere, we can organize and collect it here and share what we write on social media as well. The forum's ability to leverage is it's other great strength. And we archive something, it will never really disappear like the short term memory of social media. That is because of the forum's format.

Ultimately whether it is raga, or tala, or sabha or concert, or musician, we are fundamentally a reviews site and a resource archival site. That's what we really do, whether we review ragas or musicians. We can be technical, but only to some extent, anything more is better published in a thesis or a book, or handled practically in a workshop or lab. But with our forum format, no one can really do this work as well as this site. All other things social media can do way better. Social media is the modern newspaper, rasikas.org is closer to a book.

So in the end, there's no way a forum can play the social media game directly and win. Instead of competing with social media, this place needs to learn how to make itself more visible by working with social media and then just sticking to its main strength that cannot be matched by social media - being a collective blog featuring depth of writing and long term easily accessible visibility and an archive of musical resources.

So Rajesh, you better break your code and sign up on FB.

CRama · Post by **CRama** » 15 Mar 2020, 10:55

I am also many times getting demotivated because the concert reviews do not get the response, it used to get a couple of years back. I am not on face book either. It takes ones precious time and energy to go to a concert and write the review with minute details which we do simply out of the urge to share our happiness with our forumites. But when very good concerts do not elicit any response, a question arises, why I should do this. At the some time, for some trivial posts, somebody do respond. But as a forumite, I feel that we should carry on this forum with all its glory and knowledge base and I invite more participation from the esteemed forumites.

kvchellappa · Post by **kvchellappa** » 15 Mar 2020, 13:11

I recall RaGa candid talk when they wondered whether they would succeed as vocalists and a musician (I did not hear her name keenly) told them. 'You are lucky being able to sing. Don't you get joy singing?'
An artist has the urge to create. He does not create just because there is an audience.
You write, Sri C Ramakrishnan, because you enjoy writing.
Surely, there are many that enjoy. A true creation lives without fanfare.
Please continue writing in your pleasing and information-packed style.
Maybe Rajesh is prophetic. The future generations will enjoy besides the few that lap it up currently.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 15 Mar 2020, 21:20

Rajesh,
Good point, but no need to be overly concerned about it.
After Kalki, after Subbudu, they wondered who would write effective reviews. Reviews are still around, in newspapers and at Rasikas and elsewhere. Just as we cannot stop going to concerts and enjoying them, there will also be those who want to share their experience with us, whatever their status as a rasikA--from a gnAtA to a newbie.
We are an admixture of listeners here, and reviews by all will be read and appreciated. The learned reviews are prized of course, and are always available for us to go back to and learn from.
The movie industry hasn't closed shop just because there aren't lines of people trying to get into theatres. Movies live on.
just a gentle reminder and encouragement to writers of reviews and wannabes is all that is needed.

CRama, keep writing. We look forward to your reviews...

Keep posting, all other rasikAs too

.

Sivaramakrishnan · Post by **Sivaramakrishnan** » 16 Mar 2020, 18:54

Writing for rasikas.org is something like addressing family members (who used to actively respond)and putting across messages to professional artists subtly. Perhaps its absence has prompted rajeshnat to open the subject joined in among others by CRama - one of the most active contributors.

I have observed that concert reviews of front-rankers / topics sensational in nature elicit responses from forumites which is quite natural. However the issue at hand seems to be the lack of involvement from members who were once active or prepared to engage in meaningful discussions. This is more perceptible in concert reviews - the most vibrant forum of rasikas.org.

kvchellappa's message, with the tag line 'a true creation lives without fanfare', in my humble opinion, would relate more to artists than those who discuss their creations. Our forum - mainly the concert reviews- is 'silently read' by several artists who but do not admit it due to reasons best known to them. Hence more the deliberations, more responsible they might feel. That will be our indirect yet constructive contribution to the music field.

Not to say of proliferation of facebook accounts and WhatsApp which offer rasikas easy, one to one dialogue with artists (and vice versa). But it lacks seriousness and mainly finds its end in promotion of the artists. Thus our forum shall endeavour to feature active participation of members - even a line of comment would mean much to us as well as artists.

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 17 Mar 2020, 18:25

Why worry when we have @shankarank who can single-handedly make up for any deficit in post metrics?

Sachi_R · Post by **Sachi_R** » 17 Mar 2020, 19:30

Folks, True rasikas of CM form its core capital. I know personally that artistes value the opinion and appreciation of knowledgeable rasikas.

Rasikas.org began as a forum for these knowledgeable ones and others to chat about CM. We all know how much sharing our joys and views adds to our pleasure of enjoying CM.

However, today, with the onslaught of social media networking and music sharing there; and streaming and archived music from so many sources, people have started listening to music more online and have no time for sitting down and penning views here. Just see the kind of aahs and oohs in the chat section of any streamed concert on YT or FB. That kind of interchanges seems to make the listeners happy enough.

Another aspect is that everyone knows this fact: music appreciation is a very subjective and personal experience and people want to avoid debates and confrontations about one another's opinions.

I do visit rasikas.org at least once a day. I find a LOT OF VALUE.

Musicians have a three-pronged strategy these days:
1. Practise and perform well.
2. Package and position the music to attract audiences and applause - this is the basic criterion of success.
3. Market themselves aggressively and cleverly through social media. Nothing wrong with it.

If a rasika is worried about becoming irrelevant, I can assure you musicians are paranoid about competition. This is a discernible undercurrent in EVERYTHING musicians do these days.

Also, really young stars like Soorya gayathri and Rahul Vellal have simply stormed the CM scene. They have disrupted the entire kutcheri-based CM scene.

And then there are half-baked musicians being marketed through Indian Raga and such. (I have regretted wasting my time every time I have watched any of these videos.)

Rasikas.org should stick to its core activity of Rasikas attending and discussing concerts. Some like CRama, Sivaramakrishnan, Rajesnat and VV Suresh are MVPs in this domain.

I can understand Rajesh and appreciate his sincerity.

shankarank · Post by **shankarank** » 18 Mar 2020, 00:16

sureshvv wrote: ↑17 Mar 2020, 18:25 Why worry when we have @shankarank who can single-handedly make up for any deficit in post metrics?

Hey a search and read on my userid link should provide many a book material

! Intellectual property? There are no quotation marks in Indian heritage output.

SrI tyAgaraja paid his bibliographic obeisance in "endarO mahanubhAvulu!". SrI dikshitar copiously adopted from scriptures and devotional hymns.

Just give it away - if it is about music. A book goes into oblivion! Nobody gets it after a while!

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 18 Mar 2020, 10:07

Sachi_R wrote: ↑17 Mar 2020, 19:30 Also, really young stars like Soorya gayathri and Rahul Vellal have simply stormed the CM scene. They have disrupted the entire kutcheri-based CM scene.

Really? How so?

Sachi_R · Post by **Sachi_R** » 18 Mar 2020, 11:22

Suresh,
Why a disruption of the kutcheri paradigm?
Answer:
Listener-centric, online, well-presented, capsular - this will appeal to large numbers of listeners. SG+RV etc. to the power of KMP. A great CM value proposition. No ragas, no swaras, no RTP. True. But composition is king in CM.
This excludes folks like you and perhaps me. But large numbers of footfalls are going down and will go down further in kutcheris.

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 18 Mar 2020, 17:54

I am not sure I agree with this diagnosis.

1. More people listen/watch music online now. Streaming music is now preferred over CDs and other media. But this has not been at the cost of live concert attendance.

2. This type of music is attractive to the Namasankeetana / Bhajan Sandhya audience. Not the CM audience. Their season concerts in Chennai don't draw the huge audiences you imply.

Sachi_R · Post by **Sachi_R** » 18 Mar 2020, 19:04

Perhaps we both are saying the same thing. I have some estimates

:

There are about 10000 avid CM concert goers. The definition being at least 6-8 concerts per year.
There are about 200000 infrequent but serious concert goers. They attend 2-4 concerts in a year.

There are about 2000000 CM listeners who consume CM in all forms but perhaps never go to a CM concert.

Then there are some 20000000 listeners (who listen to the kind of music you mention) who get led by YT and FB to the Kuldeep Pai Indian Raga and such uploads. Sometimes even concerts on YT. They don't intend to go to concerts.

Around me, in my family, which has around 6-7 knowledgeable rasikas, we attend live concerts between all of us some one dozen times at most in a year. That's two concerts per person per year.

But we listen to some form of CM everyday - say about 1.5-2 hours on average.

We do consume a lot of the YT and FB stuff. Willy nilly. And that applies to about 15 more people in my family. The rest 9 (15-6)don't attend concerts. Unless it is a multisession dance/music HM/CM type of event with tickets and jazz.

So where does that put me and my family? Not a serious concert going type. But we all love CM and enjoy talking about it too

And often I have learnt to keep my mouth shut in big discussions as the talk is more about personalities, how sensational that upload is, wait till you hear THAT one... And so on.

Sachi_R · Post by **Sachi_R** » 18 Mar 2020, 19:19

And to your point that SG and RV don't do too well in concerts, I know they both had sensational 1hr - 2hr concerts in Mumbai recently and did very well. But they are young and launched too soon. That's why they need KMP and their USP is the canned version with air-rushed audio and video.

kvchellappa · Post by **kvchellappa** » 18 Mar 2020, 19:40

It is so heartening that there are 2 cr. CM listeners. Where are they? I wonder overall whether would be even 1m listeners. Sri Suresh Subrahmanayan came with an estimate of about 10000-20000 listeners in Chennai during December. Seriously how many people would really not mind CM?

kvchellappa · Post by **kvchellappa** » 18 Mar 2020, 19:40

It is so heartening that there are 2 cr. CM listeners. Where are they? I wonder overall whether would be even 1m listeners. Sri Suresh Subrahmanayan came with an estimate of about 10000-20000 listeners in Chennai during December. Seriously how many people would really not mind CM?
Whatever their career graph, the two youngsters cannot affect concert attendance of other artists or dilute the standard of CM. If anything, after listening to them, a few may trickle into serious CM listening.
As for their own prospects, there is no assurance that they would enjoy a great future if they shut themselves up now. Let us first cross coronavirus hurdle!
Seriously Sri RSachi, you must write more on music, which we benefit from.

CRama · Post by **CRama** » 18 Mar 2020, 20:07

R Sachi and SureshVV.
The habitual Carnatic music concert goers like you and me will continue to go to live concerts provided the logistics and our health are in favour. We will listen to webcast and you tube recordings but, nothing can give you the satisfaction of a live concert.
Prodigious talents like Rahul Vellal and Sooryagathri have got a niche audience for their live programmes. Tend to disagree with Suresh here giving two instances.

1. During the season, Bharat Kalachar used to hold a concert at 10 AM slot on Sundays and it used to be free. Sid Sreeram first sang here only a few years back. This venue is near to my house, so last season I went to the venue to hear Suryagayathri’s devotional music programme. BY the time I reached at 9.45 AM, the hall was over flowing with crowd and tickets of Rs.500 only was available. I did not intend to spend 500 for this programme and came back. But the audience is a different crowd like what Suresh told.

2. The traditional concert of Rahul Vellal was there in Arkay on a working day morning 10 AM. By the time I reached at 10 AM, there was no space even to drop a pin. Squeezed myself behind one pillar and heard two songs and came back. Later I heard the concert in you tube and I have given a wonderful review in this forum and also in Sruti magazine. Rahul’s was a complete concert with all the elements very impressively performed.
So, these young musicians have impressed a whole lot of rasikas- but the crowd is different. More people come to see the young boy and girl out of familiarity in the you tube. That will not eat into pure CM lovers.

To a certain extent, webcast is affecting CM crowd, but I am seeing four super senior citizens coming to all the concerts with the help of attendants and that speak of the deep rooted passion for Carnatic music among the seasoned rasikas.

Same passion drives us to post reviews in rasikas.org immediately after a concert.

Sachi_R · Post by **Sachi_R** » 18 Mar 2020, 21:03

What CRama states, and even Suresh, applies to the 10000 avid concert goers. I am happy CRama found RV sings well. I also have a high expectation from both youngsters.

About my 20 million number, KVC Sir, just think about it. Most of our south Indian prayers are sung in CM. Once you start searching for these tracks on YT or FB or wherever, they have AI machine learning algorithms to start feeding you similar CM tracks. Nowadays people want to share music after downloading it from YT etc. on WhatsApp. Quite often I receive the same forwards from several people. An example was that video of a guy who sang a whole lot of raga samples walking around his home. I routinely get KMP video WhatsApp forwards. And YT notifications!
Once you start listening to these singers on YT, you will be constantly fed new tracks. Even if you click one in ten, that makes you an "accidental" CM listener and counts in my 20 million number. But I do not consider these "clickers" as core CM listeners. Similarly the throng I find in TMK concerts are there for the fun and not for CM.

Remember India has 1300-1400 million people. About 40% of them live in cities. The southern states and UT etc. have about 300 million people. I just googled and found this stat:
In terms of average, the state of Tamil Nadu experiences a population growth of 1.95424 Million every year. Currently, the population in the year 2020 as per estimates is 86.3712 Million + 1.95424 Million = 88.32544 Million.
TN (88M)Kerala (35M), Karnataka (67M) Andhra (52M) and Telangana (37M).

There is a site called India population clock which says India has 1391 million people already!

This virtual audience is hankering for music tracks and videos and consuming them at an "alarming" rate. That's how a popular CM star can have several hundred thousand followers. Kuldeep M Pai has 1.32 million followers on YT.

Sachi_R · Post by **Sachi_R** » 18 Mar 2020, 21:36

How many CM listeners are there in the Indian diaspora? Any guesses?
My number would be another 10000

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 19 Mar 2020, 01:44

The avid concert goer in Chennai can probably count several hundred concerts a year. IE it is what they will do with their evening, almost by default, so long as family/work/etc commitments do not prevent. But that's Chennai: obviously it has its advantages for the concert goer.

But the total number of rasikas who have more than a passing/accidental/incidental relationship with carnatic music? Am I wrong to say that it is (mostly) a small subset of a small minority community, and therefore would be a small number?

shankarank · Post by **shankarank** » 19 Mar 2020, 07:03

RV * SG Kaalinga nardhana tillana had 2 Million views on youtube.

But K J Yesudas - vAtapi with full svarams has 2.4 Million views - divide that by repeat listeners and the time since video - at least 400 K? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSq0islk3XY

His Maha ganapathim has 7.4 Million views . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSq0islk3XY - 10 years and on.

Brick and Mortar Carnatic music is now as obscure as chamber music was in golden era.

Many Chennai suburbs like the West side: Vadapalani/Virugambakkam and surrounds don't have sabhas active thru the year. No nuclear surge of interest - yet? May be only in season KK Nagar shows up some. I know there is captive population there!

If anything can be done, needs to be done soon as captive population is aging and cannot set a precedent for next gen, who will loose it!

Nanganallur had a nuclear development around the temple and a sabha as well. It has produced a family of artistes and some percussionists who learnt there!

Pratyaksham Bala · Post by **Pratyaksham Bala** » 19 Mar 2020, 07:31

.
Time to change the heading of the thread to 'Live kutcheries vs Recorded music' !

shankarank · Post by **shankarank** » 19 Mar 2020, 08:03

I began a topic , but they started talking about it here ! - May be just merge it

Sachi_R · Post by **Sachi_R** » 19 Mar 2020, 10:30

I lived in Chennai long back.

In Bangalore the concert scene is like this nowadays:
1. Many sabhas hold annual series - may be 8-10 series round the year around festivals. Their halls hold many hundred. The same audiences can be seen in most places. They perhaps number about 2000 overall.
Still I doubt how many attend 20+concerts a year. May be around 200.

My key theme is personalised Listener-centric experience. I just finished listening to Ramakrishnan Murthy sing Kedaram in FIE Crossroads Festival on YT. Held in Manipal in Jan. 2020 and uploaded on YT 16 hours ago. Already it has garnered 2600+ views.

Sivaramakrishnan · Post by **Sivaramakrishnan** » 19 Mar 2020, 14:12

'No. of views' in YouTube would include the number of 'peeps' as well since there is no mechanism to find out if a given viewer listened to the link fully (as I understand). Thus the number could just be an indication of the popularity of the artist/production and not necessarily its acceptability at all levels.

Sachi_R · Post by **Sachi_R** » 19 Mar 2020, 19:13

Sure. But that is the way the web works. So it is never a serious audience. You also have ads thrown at you all the time. At those moments people just go to something else.
Its not just popularity, but social media networking. 4F: Followers, Floats, Forwards and Fans.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 19 Mar 2020, 19:42

social media networking. 4F: Followers, Floats, Forwards and Fans.

I got stuck in the age of 1F: Forums!

And I frequent enough of them to keep me as computer-bound as any facebooker.

Sachi_R · Post by **Sachi_R** » 19 Mar 2020, 20:43

Sure. Social media networking is all about Followers, Floats, Forwards and Fans. These are all about popularity and clever marketing, surely not a measure of Rasikaship.

CRama · Post by **CRama** » 20 Mar 2020, 08:18

RSachi, I love to hear mostly full length concerts or long pieces in you tube. Thanks to you for telling about Anandanatana prakasam by Ramakrishnanmurthy. Very nice rendition as always.
Arkay Ramakrishnan, the man who has taken a missionary zeal to present quality music concerts to rasikas in Chennai, has uploaded to you tube two of the old concerts held there. A Sanjay concert held in 2015 and a concert of Alamelu Mani held in 2013. Both are very good concerts. Sanjay is too good. Giving below the links. Please listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01u5F_EG3Ik&t=3186s – Alamelu Mani.
https://youtu.be/pTkDal5_xOU - Sanjay Subramaniam

Sachi_R · Post by **Sachi_R** » 20 Mar 2020, 09:36

CRama,
As usual, a great service from you to all here! Yes, let's start listening to archived full length concerts and radio/TV concerts and write reviews. Something that resonates very well with every rasika for sure, especially since those archived can be watched/heard and enjoyed after reading the review, too!

kvchellappa · Post by **kvchellappa** » 20 Mar 2020, 11:04

Excellent suggestion, Sri RSachi. Hope you can steal some time and write some reviews.

Sachi_R · Post by **Sachi_R** » 20 Mar 2020, 13:01

Sir, what steal and all, sir.
Will surely write a review of a full concert in the next 3 days

CRama · Post by **CRama** » 20 Mar 2020, 15:22

Let us start a new thread in Concert reviews for you tube links and reviews of yt uploads. I am doing it right now.
Go to the following link
viewtopic.php?f=13&p=361198#p361198

msakella · Post by **msakella** » 29 Mar 2020, 09:09

Facts are always very bitter which hypocrites hate to face them.

At this age of 82 I don't like to enter into any dialogue with hypocrites but am compelled to bring out some very important facts to non-hypocrites only.

Being a full-time professional music-teacher coupled with vast concert experience of more than 50 years as a Violin-accompanist I have, somehow, been awarded TTK Award by Chennai Music Academy for my innovative talents in teaching music in 2010. Thus, after washing their hands, even this very highly reputed institution did do nothing to benefit our generation in respect of such innovations.

I have written more than 500 critical articles on the methods of music-learning itself bringing out many logical and unknown facts in this respect which are unknown to many of our so called Sangita Kalanidhis or Sangita Kalacharyas who, in fact, are far more of performing perspective only than teaching perspective. But, most unfortunately, the response is very poor and I am gradually losing my interests in further bringing out much of my experiments or even to continue my membership in this forum. amsharma

thenpaanan · Post by **thenpaanan** » 30 Mar 2020, 19:51

Nick H wrote: ↑19 Mar 2020, 19:42
social media networking. 4F: Followers, Floats, Forwards and Fans.
I got stuck in the age of 1F: Forums!

And I frequent enough of them to keep me as computer-bound as any facebooker.

Wow. Are the old style forums still active? I used to frequent a couple of groups on Usenet back in the 90s -- they got a new lease of life when they became google groups -- but those died a while ago. I am surprised that some have still survived. Where are they hosted?

-T

vgovindan · Post by **vgovindan** » 31 Mar 2020, 08:01

ஆசை அறுபது நாள். மோகம் முப்பது நாள். All the discriminating people will revert back to these sorts of dedicated forums, once they realise as to what kind of dirt and fake is found in social media. I found out. Let others take their time.

shripathi_g · Post by **shripathi_g** » 06 Apr 2020, 07:21

I used to lurk a lot here and enjoy the conversations. I've learnt quite a bit by just following the discussions. Personally what has kept me away (besides my own personal issues) is a lot of discussions moving off the General Discussions page. There's too much segmentation. The categorization probably helps but there isn't an easy to get a high level view of discussions when one logs in. I'd prefer a more 'Reddit' style view where my 'feed' is a list of latest updates from different topics I subscribe to. I don't know where the current set of youngsters discuss carnatic music like I used to back in late 90s on sangeetham.com.

sureshvv · Post by **sureshvv** » 06 Apr 2020, 13:00

@shripathi_g Check out the "Active Topics" menu item. You need to login though.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 06 Apr 2020, 18:34

I use a bookmark to an unread-posts search to access the site:

http://www.rasikas.org/forums/search.ph ... nreadposts

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 18 May 2020, 10:57

@srkris
I want to put one main point here. This is just like facebook vs youtube. You have encouraged anonymous viewership, so what happens most of them just come to the site usually just see general discussion , concert reviews . They hardly care about other posts . Hence most of them just read and hardly care to write . (Let us put into rest so many diverse topics may not be a reason). This is you tube approach.

The alternate approach is to force everyone to login and then only read . That way all of them are forced into intrinsic collaboration because post login, they are forced to read and discreetly they are egged to write. That subliminally happens and is far deeper .THis is facebook approach .

There are few cons with my suggestion but there are more pros with my suggestion .

Active writing has to go up and you have to continue to have the competitive advantage of we having starting first with extreme like minded CM focussed folks. All artists will slowly ask their chelas/friends to post concert reviews from facebook into rasikas.org as there is aggregated carnatic music readership in only one single site in the world which is rasikas.org. Face book reviews is one sided drone with no counter opinions and with more and more starting it is just too much for anyone to shift from fb site to another fb site.

I have thought through lot of angles . I studied few things like say 200 simultaneous logins hardly willl not have any stability issue. By having as forced login donot think this will become like facebook , simply because we have categorized as PHP BB threaded discussion.

I and many 'have written reviews like suguna purushotaman, TK govinda rao etc. Does suguna and Govinda Rao have facebook. WHere can anyone find collated writing like MS subbulakshmi, MMI ,SSI etc... and not to speak of Thyagaraja, DIkshitar other than rasikas.org. So much of theft happens even from here to newspaper sites.

Content wise rasikas.org is the king only when active writing is seriously encouraged and we have to be watchful. This is the only place we preserve, aggregate and there is only one threaded discussion for cm that is here in rasikas.org due to phpbb feature.

Once when we bring far more writership say in december season in say 2020 or 2021, then we can recallibarate if we have made mistakes . In the last 15 days apart from CRama, Rajeshnat, Srinathk, Ranganayaki, VGovindan Sir and another say 7 more or so , thats it are writers when all are full time in home.

I am writing this as an offshoot after i see that Arkay ramakrishnan is moving away from anonymous free youbtube into forced login facebook.

Only You hold the key for our continued success welcoming new faces of active passionate next generation writers. Fight headlong as an active chembai that you were in sangeetham.com . The next gen concert reviewers of say Raga sisters, sanjay in facebook are our new market that needs to be pulled into Rasikas.org and more importantly people should login to see the content here.

Facebook fatigue is quite high with everyone as artists have doubled , let them come here. WE can work where every one logs into to see the content , few will write initially in that lot without much content, But more serious writing will slowly come after a period of time as slowly camaraderie sets in. YOu already have put lot of process in place where 90 percent discussion is only on CM.

Walled garden-post login is the key , rasikas.org is 1000 x bigger than all facebook account of all carnatic musicians , But we were 2500 x bigger before say 10 years back.

If my viewpoint is incorrrect or having any major flaws SPEAK OUT.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 18 May 2020, 15:49

Arkay ramakrishnan is moving away from anonymous free youbtube into forced login facebook.

The concerts are available freely without logging in. The choice of platform is, in some ways unfortunate: the interface is not as good, and the sound, which is what it is all about, is not as good.

Rajesh, I appreciate your concerns, and your feelings, and I do not want to hurt them, but I am afraid that you are crying into the wind. Serious contributors have left rasikas.org over the years due to various ailments that afflicted the site and were allowed to continue. Those people are not willing to come back. although we have less personal poison now, thanks to good moderating, we still have ailments. You can say that this should be and that should be for ever, and it won't make it be.

I certainly don't believe in no access without login: that will kill any future growth. Nobody will bother. I don't bother to visit sites that make me jump through a hoop before I can even see what is there.

In terms of marketing, Facebook is the new Microsoft. It has been mostly successful in ensuring that it is the platform that people want on their phones and their computers

Continuing to make your contribution is the only thing you can do about it.

The water is here, but in this case, not only can we not make the horse drink, we cannot even lead the horse.

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 18 May 2020, 20:15

Are you saying in facebook you can access without logging in. Is that possible. Is that what arkay is doing.

I.like when you said certain ailments were allowed to continue for many years. Atleast one great lovely poster said that is why he is not writing much explicitly and he posts very very sparingly.

All those are bygones so let us not worry. So what ups and downs are part of life. More than ailment some superb contributors like mkr ponbhairavi are all gone.
I am not seeing any fight from us to challenge the perennial spamming facebook and whatsapp diarrhea.

But see the strength of threaded bulletin board discussion and rasikas.org

1. Facebook is a cloying master. If rajesh writes a review nick hayssen cannot reply as another lovely thread. For eg see at at times just watching ranganayaki and vgovindan disagreeing in few topics. Just reading without zero writing makes,me happy.

2. Where is topic categorization as topics and threads.

3. The rasikas org posters can refer for life , in fb does anyone remember even 1 month back what he she posted in fb. I personally recollect almost everything in rasikas even a bit of sangeetham.com because I took some time to put it right place and the index is fine and best.

Srkris has done a fanta fabulous job .He has to leave a legacy in another 20 years which is unreachable. I am one half era after you .another half era later me is srinathk. Who are the peers for srinathk , we had some superb writer like srinivasraghavan who wrote well as srinathk. Now Very very few.....

one can permenantly signin once and I need not login again. So no irritation aspect nick.

We have to target all folks who once actively wrote and new users to login and then they automatically are enticed to write few words. But when read is given without login writership habit is gone.

We dont need 100000 readers with 250 active writers. I prefer 50000 readers with 500 active writers.

Giving counter opinions like fb has taken over , no video support here is not convincing. Rasikas.org should make strategic moves right.We only have single largest consumer assets in one single place. So many musician priducers love our site but though they may not go public on that. As such this is a tactical and engineering problem.that rasikas org team of srkris should help taking if needed help with few experts to bring back writership.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 18 May 2020, 20:30

You can watch the Arkay videos on Facebook without logging in. I doubt that one can join in discussion, etc. I don't want to even join Facebook! I agree with everything you say.

Except... people will come or not come. If you want to encourage, then get on the phone to them, e-mail them, talk to them. You probably know or can find out who most of those old-timers are: it is a small world.

Otherwise, they will come or not come. Logged in or not, they will write or not write. Logging in is not an issue.

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 18 May 2020, 20:47

Nick H wrote: ↑18 May 2020, 20:30

If you want to encourage, then get on the phone to them, e-mail them, talk to them. You probably know or can find out who most of those old-timers are: it is a small world.

I will.put few names in top of my head arunk and sujiram . Arunk I have seen and talked sujiram have not seen her. Bilahari and vijay knew them well forgottten them

Enna_solven and sangeet rasik phenomenal contribuors .donot even know them at all like this there are atleast 500 I can recollect. Where is vasanthakokilam .

I bet they say in the last 7 years would visit rasikas with no login . They all would have read as a guest they would have just left. If the login was enforced those folks would have felt writing atleast three 4 liners. Somebody would have replied encouraged them all these great escape stars they all would be continuing as active posters . Some kind of revival would have happened.

We let go of that tactical re enticement phase.

I made few edits in my previous post post your post nick. Re read my last post nick

Pratyaksham Bala · Post by **Pratyaksham Bala** » 18 May 2020, 21:09

We dont need 100000 readers with 250 active writers. I prefer 5000 readers with 500 active writers.

Welcome More Footfalls :
For stability and growth, any site needs more footfalls. If readers get the message that they are not welcome, the site will become dry and deserted.

Create Pleasant Atmosphere :
And the atmosphere should be pleasant and encouraging. If all the music teachers are repeatedly allowed to be called ‘cheaters’, which music teacher or musician would love to become a member ?

Encourage Participation :
The new members should find it encouraging to participate with a few lines of message occasionally. If their tiny posts are welcome, they may opt to write more. If we decry tiny posts, it is like killing the saplings and wishing for trees!

The Strengths :
As of date, the strength of the Forum is availability of lyrics, notations and translations. These should continue to be the welcoming features. Rest will follow.

Most Important :
But firstly, we should stop sending the message that all are not welcome! THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT.

RSR · Post by **RSR** » 18 May 2020, 22:10

@45-> Splendid.
-----------------
There are close to 700 kritis of Thyagaraja Swamy, about 500 of MD and about 100 of Shyama Sastry. Sri.P.Bala was doing a very good job during the last three months, in giving youtube links to quite a few renderings of veterans of the Golden Era of Thyagaraja Swami kritis along with links to lyrics and meaning.
There is no use in writing a review without the accompanying audio , preferably from youtube ( to avoid broken links). Almost all the links in ragas section are having broken links. A good model is the blog by saidvk.( http://saidvk.blogspot.com/)

As it is a blog, it is rather difficult to access each page sequentially.
To get total perspective of the ragams covered and to enable direct access, I have created a page in my website. I hope that this will be useful to learners.
https://sites.google.com/site/cmhm4me/h ... blog-links

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 19 May 2020, 11:40

Pratyaksham Bala wrote: ↑18 May 2020, 21:09 Encourage Participation :
The new members should find it encouraging to participate with a few lines of message occasionally. If their tiny posts are welcome, they may opt to write more. If we decry tiny posts, it is like killing the saplings and wishing for trees!

Devil is in details and extrapolate please with the below specifics.

Let us take one specific poster . The name id is Tyson . Tyson has so far asked 69 posts in the last 6 months. All 69 were only asking notations in last 6 months All the post of Tyson was asking notations and the only reply we got was "Sent". No actual content pasted to be indexed in google or search. There are atleast 300 to 400 posters like Tyson in the last 6 months.

Tyson post is in below link
memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=24156.

For heavens sake I am on the highest prodders where i must have encouraged atleast few hundreds from day one of the forum to write more even when they just got started with the forum. Atleast 10 to 15 active writers have returned to our forum after I personally requested them to be back in an offline basis. Atleast 50 times i have asked atleast 20 ids offline to write reviews of concerts, anecdotes about vidwans/vidushi and vaggeyakkaras.Take this example , there was one poster by name PonBhairavi. I encouraged him to write and created a seperate thread on his musical and writing skills .

You help me with your logic where you extrapolate in your own words "THat Tyson is a sapling that will grow as tree".

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 19 May 2020, 11:44

Pratyaksham Bala and RajeshNat had two problems or miscommunication - Let us both have truce please:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. ONe is when Pbala posted Thyagaraja krithi every day daily a rendition link of Thyagaraja link , till I asked he did not say it for only a dozen plus shiva krithis of Thyagaraja. At that point it appeared he was pushing a link of youtube of every thygaraja krithi each day of an artist . I thought the issue was Done and Dusted ,You seem to have a vent with me even now . Drop it . Million Apologies , i see in recent months you taking up this vent forward.

2. Very recently when i put something on illayaraja . YOu posted and discouraged me , I was kind of 50 50 . I wanted srkris to reply and he has not replied. I already have two posts typed in notepad and i have not posted in rasikas.org. No big deal i can drop illayaraja . I had in mind to go with illayaraja and carnatic ragas and take one song and explain .

Yesterday I intended to say We dont need 100000 readers with 250 active writers. I prefer 50,000 readers with 500 active writers.

I missed a 0 yesterday and said 5000 readers instead of 50,000 readers .

I offer a correction in next post not addressing you but addressing srkris.

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 19 May 2020, 12:10

I have a question primarily to srkris and vasanthakokilam only:
-----------------------------
@vasanthakokilam AND @srkris
Let us consider we have the same count of 100,000 readers and how to find a way to increase active writership from say from 250 to 500 . I thought for this extremely difficult problem statement i could think of 2 solutions

1. I was thinking adding illayaraja content will help. I got started but it was discouraged by PBala . I wanted to slowly describe illayaraja the way he handles carnatic music . I am ok to drop this. I typed two contents of illayaraja and i have not posted it yet to rasikas.org

2. I sincerely feel enticing people to write can be done by tactically forcing every one to mandatorily login for them to read

I am not blaming Mods at all that they could have moderated better blah blah . You and VK are fantafabulous there , contextual moderation is not possible in internet. None of use ever discouraged musicians and rasikas here

What is the solution that srkris and vasanthakokilam wants to work to increase writership in rasikas.org . We can form a small team of likeminded folks who have actively contributed in last 10 years to work on adding more writership . I implemented #1 and i think #2 is a great idea. I cannot take reply from anyone that facebook drone and whatsapp spam gaints defeated rasikas.org here.

Pratyaksham Bala · Post by **Pratyaksham Bala** » 19 May 2020, 12:24

rajeshnat wrote: ↑19 May 2020, 11:40... ... Let us take one specific poster . The name id is Tyson . Tyson has so far asked 69 posts in the last 6 months. All 69 were only asking notations in last 6 months All the post of Tyson was asking notations and the only reply we got was "Sent". No actual content pasted to be indexed in google or search. There are atleast 300 to 400 posters like Tyson in the last 6 months. ...

So what ?

Are you suggesting that Rasikas.org should not allow / help CM students or musicians who seek notations? What is this tendency? What logic is this?

And you want saplings to grow into trees overnight! CM students may take years to grow into full-fledged musician / rasika. Till then they should have a positive image of the Forum.

The above negative message is addressed not to just one member; but to all students/musicians of CM. What a discouragement! This may be your personal view. But certainly this negativity may not be the intention of this Forum.

Even if only a few of the info seekers of today turn into active members after a few years, what do we lose? Do you really feel that Rasikas.org should not help members with Notations, Lyrics, Meanings, etc..? Are you really convinced that the help/support/service rendered by @Lakshman, @aaaaabbbbb, @rshankar & others should be stopped? Do you mean to say that these Doyens have wasted their precious time all these years by responding to members who seek help?

OMG.