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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