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Music is the BEST

(Published in "Studio Systems" July-August 2001 issue)

Music World

Recently, my album "Spicy Mango-Raapchick Remix" (Universal) reached no 1 at the Music World store in Pune and I was very pleasantly surprised to receive an email from Umesh Iyer, their dynamic manager, informing me about this and inviting me to their newly opened store. My next visit to Pune promptly saw me at this fabulous place, which has become the hot spot for the youth of the city. Spread over a large area and decorated with bright colors, the ambience of the store was breathtaking and the wealth of music available, the friendly staff, not to speak of the excellent coffee available at the snack bar, makes this place a pleasure to shop in. Music World, a RPG enterprise, has branches in Chennai, Cochin, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, New Delhi , Ahmedabad, and now Pune. It promises to be a major force in the retailing revolution that is sweeping the nation and truly a major boast for the music connoisseur!

Another revolution unique to Music World is the Karaoke Studio. Started as an experiment at the Pune store, this can be a major boast to talent who would like to showcase their musical abilities. A regular studio is housed at the end of the store with a sound proofed room. It is equipped with a professional microphone and the Digidesign 001 hard disc recording system. It comes with a licensed library of Hindi minus one tracks and for RS 300, you can burn a CD of you, singing your favorite song! As any struggling artiste would tell you, this is an extremely cost-effective way to get a demo CD for distribution to future clients and friends. Music World needs all the support that it can get and I hope it can come up with many more innovative ideas to further the cause of Music

Sourcing of Music

India, with its wealth of cultures and languages, sourcing of music can truly be a pain and chains of stores like Music World can greatly alleviate this problem. It is also important that the mail and courier companies get into the act with sensible pricing solutions as the volumes will surely increase with the enhancement in its efficiency and reliability. Also with the rise in the use of credit cards and strong security in payment gateways on the net, consumers could expect to source 'difficult to find' albums with ease from the net. This could greatly increase the viability of non-pop albums thus succeeding in further enriching the musical spectrum of the nation.
My experience of music shopping of the net has been a happy one, although it has not been in this country. Music Boulevard (USA) got me 2 rare CDs of an American artiste and I could help noticing that one of them was a German release. And all in a matter of days! Inventory control is a difficult task in businesses like books and music where the number of products are many and its demand, difficult to predict and service. The most efficient way of distribution would have to be the downloading of music as digital files from the net. Unfortunately the numerous hurdles that such a solution faces makes me feel that it will be ages before we can use this method in India. The costs of telephone lines and other Internet relating costs along with its lack of speed and reliability, which is further compounded by piracy concerns, actually supports the adoption of a more inefficient model! I guess we music lovers will never be satisfied.

 

Pune

In recent times, a music project makes it necessary for me to travel to Pune often. It had been ten years since I visited Pune last and the changes that have taken place in this burgeoning town have indeed been a revelation to me! The media world has hit Pune in a big way with the rise of numerous small recording studios opening up. The spurt of Marathi channels has also seen the setting up of video studios and I have heard plans of the setting up of a shooting floor. Pune was the leading production center for the film industry in the earlier half of the century and it is great to see this town bustling with creative audiovisual work after the grand old days of Prabhat studios. The Film Institute stands as a testimony to the great heritage of this beautiful metropolis and the various shooting facilities and equipment have been preserved to remind us of the glory days of yesteryear.
Pune has traditionally been the center of cultural activity and hence has a huge talent pool. It is no secret that some of our great Classical masters prefer this town to the hustle bustle of Bombay but the youth of the city have also asserted themselves to be on the cutting edge of the creative and technology fields. It wont be long before we see artistes of international caliber from this city rule the concert stages of the world. The recent figures, giving the highest computer penetration in the country to Pune, go a long way in telling us about the importance that Puneites place in the power of the IT industry as the driving force in the development of the nation. I hope the downturn in the Internet world does not dampen the enthusiasm of this vibrant city. With every crisis, there are opportunities and fortune always favors the brave!
The rise in the development of smaller towns in India is indeed a welcome advance for the growth of the media industry in the country. The different regional language TV channels and music labels have fuelled this growth and the improvement of infrastructure in this area will have a cascading effect on demand for media hardware along with relevant human resources. We have seen how the downturn in today's market situation has provided an alternative to the excess facilities created during the media boom a few years back. As the regional media and other industries grow in strength, the nation will develop evenly unlike the concentration in the metros we have seen in the past. The future lies in the development of software to work in the different languages of the nation so that the power of this technology is carried to the masses.

 

AES and PALM

AES India section continued its seminar series with a lecture demonstration on "Surround Sound Monitoring" by Clifford Pereira of Genelec at the Mehboob Studio in Bandra, Bombay, a subject which surely needed enlightening considering the recent upswing in the motion picture industry of India. The emphasis on technical quality has increased fourfold within the last few years and it has finally been noticed that the quality of sound plays a vital role in the impact of the film. We have started seeing films where Sound Design has been featured in the credits and this important function will cease to be just one of the jobs of the sound mixer of the film. Palm 2001 will feature a separate conference day for the important role that sound plays in the Indian cinema of today and the steady rise of multiplexes in the country will ensure that we will see many more films mixed in the Surround system. The sound engineers of this nation need to equip themselves in the latest that the west has to offer and the conference days at PALM 2001, which have been planned in association with AES India section, will go a long way in doing just that. I hope to see the maximum number of sound engineers take advantage of this.

Live Music

It has been a few years since I did a full length singing show and so it was some trepidation that I approached my performance at the "Not Just Jazz By the Bay" recently. A three hour-long performance is nothing to sneeze at! I was glad that my fears were totally unfounded as we socked it to the over crowded club whose warm welcome totally overwhelmed me. I had the crowd singing along with me through the evening and the club finally had to put an end to it at 3.15 am! It was great to be back and a lot more shows are being planned, as I write this. I was happy to know that live music is alive and well in this country and a lot more people are enjoying the spontaneity and power of music creation in the flesh rather than the canned variety. The musicians have equipped themselves adequately to take on this challenge and I hope we can see more places where such talent can be showcased. Bombay has, in the last few years, seen the opening up of places where live music is encouraged even if it just a solo artiste. The human element can go a long way in satisfying the aesthetic needs of another! I would like to leave you with this quotation.

 

"Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music… Music is the BEST."

Nandu Bhende

homesite :http://nandu_bhende.tripod.com

 


 

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