Journalism of Courage
The first of the series of seminars and conferences organised by Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan elaborated on the role of Internet in the field of music
Sunday morning at Sun n Sand Hotel played host to a gathering of eminent musicians,instrument-makers and music lovers,at the seminar ‘Sangeet Aapka Sangati Internet Ki’ conducted by educational technology expert Parimala Inamdar. This was the first of a series of seminars,workshops and conferences that singer Shubha Mudgal and tabla player Aneesh Pradhan plan to organise over the next three years,in association with their record company,Underscore Records.
Shubha Mudgal,who herself is quite tech-savvy and actively uses social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook,said ” The biggest problem is that Indian classical music has very specific needs and requirements which are different from most other genres of music. Most software available on the Internet cannot be customised to suit these requirements. For example,a seven-minute song would cost the same as a forty five-minute ghazal on software such as Itunes. We need to appeal to developers to create applications to suit our music,but we cannot do that unless we establish a presence online,and use our strength of numbers to do so. Niche genres such as ours should be given the freedom to decide the terms and conditions under which our music will be distributed and marketed.”
The seminar presented a bird’s-eye-view of technology and the potential of the Internet,and an overall view of its relevance to the music industry. The upcoming seminars will cover a variety of topics,which musicians encounter,such as intellectual property rights,music softwares as well as an introductory session to promotional tools such as blogs and social networking.
