to be seen or heard - Page 6

Originally posted by: sweety001

👏👏👏i agree with you madhavi didi!!!!

your points well taken, madhavir108! but still not sure if i feel we have an answer to:

1. do we have more of the need to be "cool" these days in campuses like DU. i think even earlier there was a westernized-cool look. and is it the westernized-cool look we find offensive, or all cool-looks? if we were voting, wld we say YES, NO, NOT SURE, MAYBE?

2. do we have any less penetration of classical music than was the case earlier? i think it was a smallish niche segment even earlier, each region with their own. and nothing wrong in that- it is fairly hard to derive economies of scale from regional products/ music. at the end of the day the producers and manufactures and MDs do need money to thrive and sustain their art... So qn still is, have we lost something in terms of "reach" that was previously there? YES, NO, NOT SURE, MAYBE?

3. re visual factors, i did mention that some music appeals so much to some of us at times that it goes beyond visual elements. So i think we are in agreement on that? For some, it may be all classical music, for someone else it may be more selective...

but good topic, madhavi didi!!!!😊

Hi rahul wow U are really getting seriously into posting thoughts thesedays 😛

Originally posted by: Rahul

your points well taken, madhavir108! but still not sure if i feel we have an answer to:

1. do we have more of the need to be "cool" these days in campuses like DU. i think even earlier there was a westernized-cool look. and is it the westernized-cool look we find offensive, or all cool-looks? if we were voting, wld we say YES, NO, NOT SURE, MAYBE?

2. do we have any less penetration of classical music than was the case earlier? i think it was a smallish niche segment even earlier, each region with their own. and nothing wrong in that- it is fairly hard to derive economies of scale from regional products/ music. at the end of the day the producers and manufactures and MDs do need money to thrive and sustain their art... So qn still is, have we lost something in terms of "reach" that was previously there? YES, NO, NOT SURE, MAYBE?

3. re visual factors, i did mention that some music appeals so much to some of us at times that it goes beyond visual elements. So i think we are in agreement on that? For some, it may be all classical music, for someone else it may be more selective...

but good topic, madhavi didi!!!!

Rahul, as answers to your questions,

1. How would u define cool? If you are Carnegie Melon, its cool to wear a shirt with Maxwell's equations written on it, if you are doing Engineering at University of Toronto(where I study currently), its perfectly normal to come in purple colour to class, if you are at an IIT, it 'cool' to wear chappals to class! Defining cool is hard.. Abhi is not against wearing western clothes (i hope not), he was against the fact that people who want to still be Indian are looked down upon.. I think students like that who dress in Indian should not give a **** to what others say, because its their identity and they should be proud of what tehy are.. as for people who dress in western, its their identity and they should also be proud of it!

2. We have not lost that reach, infact with the growth of media it has increased more. Why else will Hariharan, a trained musician in Carnatic music learn Hindustani ?! Today the divide is merging.. so many Carnatic music teachers in south teach hindi bhajans n I have heard Annamaya's kirtanas rendered by some Hindustani classical singers... so the reach has increased.. even MDs incorporate classical stuff into their songs esp. in period movies and they work..

3. yes, i agree with u when u say some music is beyond visual factors..

Originally posted by: giggles_2005

Pls guys...I have promised to keep HR out of this 😆

thank u soo much...😃

Originally posted by: madhavir108

Rahul, as answers to your questions,

1. How would u define cool? If you are Carnegie Melon, its cool to wear a shirt with Maxwell's equations written on it, if you are doing Engineering at University of Toronto(where I study currently), its perfectly normal to come in purple colour to class, if you are at an IIT, it 'cool' to wear chappals to class! Defining cool is hard.. Abhi is not against wearing western clothes (i hope not), he was against the fact that people who want to still be Indian are looked down upon.. I think students like that who dress in Indian should not give a **** to what others say, because its their identity and they should be proud of what tehy are.. as for people who dress in western, its their identity and they should also be proud of it!

2. We have not lost that reach, infact with the growth of media it has increased more. Why else will Hariharan, a trained musician in Carnatic music learn Hindustani ?! Today the divide is merging.. so many Carnatic music teachers in south teach hindi bhajans n I have heard Annamaya's kirtanas rendered by some Hindustani classical singers... so the reach has increased.. even MDs incorporate classical stuff into their songs esp. in period movies and they work..

3. yes, i agree with u when u say some music is beyond visual factors..

1. cool? i guess the idea is to "fit in" or "appear smarter". true not just in university campuses but also in corporate life. everyone else wears casuals n someone wears a suit, they'll be considered weird. n opposite is also true. i think reasonable options wherever we find ourselves are probably

a) try to fit in;
b) rail against it;
c) be strong enough to take it and have the character to know oneself;
d) escape- get out, go back;
e) mold others;

I generally see a), c) and e) as reasonable responses, definitely not b).

not sure if there is an answer somewhere but i get the sense that there is no more, and no less, need today to look cool. And that was the point i wanted to make with the question.

2. thanks. again makes the point i had behind my question- if i'd tried stating it, i'd have folks jumping over me. as it was, it appeared some folks were deploring the state of affairs today and the impression one cld have gotten was that things have taken a turn for the worse today. am glad to learn that is not the case.

3. great we established that- probably the central element of the topic.

maybe i'll try this format next time as well...😉

Thanks all for reading and writing in...madhavi, sareg, chatbuster et al...

thanks for starting this poll giggles_2005 !

Originally posted by: chatbuster

great post!!! some questions/ comments:

1. when we talk about DU, i remember folks were always into looking "cool". do we have more of that now?

2. i am not sure some regions were ever that much into classical music. when we bemoan the loss of our classical music culture, are we talking abt regions where it was previously strong? that wld of course mean more.

3. i think TV has of course changed the way we look at the world. RELATIVELY-SPEAKING (and pls note the caps here, so pls no jagda on this), it is rather boring to have to only listen- whether it's a speech or a song. Even when we see a speaker, we want more than just the content or the ability to see the speaker. We want animation, hand movements, eye contact, connection with the audience. When we have all that, we feel more involved. Classical music has a hard time offering all of that visual animation.

4. i think classical music in general has always had only a niche following. nothing wrong with that. most of us want our food served to us on a platter, similarly for music which is designed to appeal to the masses who dont have to bother to train.

5. there is still a lot to feel happy about with the influence of visual factors. case in point is the Nixon- Kennedy Pres debate. Based on folk lore, if you heard it, u'd have thot that Nixon had won. if you saw it on TV, u'd have thot that Kennedy won. With visuals, u get the total "picture" and i do not see anything wrong with having more information.

6. there is something to be said for making things user-friendly. if we are denouncing folks for being uncultured and for not liking classical music, its like attacking a customer for not liking our product. whose fault is that? and if you do want to reach that customer, who has the onus- the producer or the customer?

7. i think we always gain by being open and by taking in positive points from other cultures. for those who say that western music is vulgar etc., perhaps that's the case with some of the music. But there is a lot which is perhaps as, if not more, refined than what we have.

Overall, my answer to your question would be Yes- Indian classical music is less popular as it is not visually appealing. but of course that's a generalization and there is some music that is so appealing that it transcends the visual factors for some of us sometimes.

I think that Indian clasical music...and why just classical..lets include folk and Indian dances here ,are by and large a product whose potential is not fully exploited...that is why my submission that what it needs is proper marketing, packaging, presentation..whatever u call it...

Is TV the medium...it is indeed the most powerful medium these days and must be utilized...but since it is a visual medium and classical music lacks that visual appeal how to do it?

Airtel providing classical music as ringtones...who knows that might just catch up with the yougsters....

why can't some great marketing minds get together and do something about it seriously...because we might be at a stage where it is not a question of popularizing classical music but protecting it!