Editorial

   

Date: April 15, 2001

Dear art-lovers,

As you might have already observed, our entire portal has acquired a new look. The reformatting and redesigning process which we undertook, stage by stage, has just been completed. We have tried to use a consistent colour scheme for every portion of the portal, so as to enable you to navigate the site easily. As mentioned in an earlier editorial, the portal has been divided into various sections. The top portion is like a Current Affairs section with reviews, reports and interviews and shall be updated regularly. The main sections have been designed with a 4-E formula of Education, Entertainment, Exposure and E-commerce.

The Education section comprises everything from Sangeetanubhava to the CAC Newsletter and is meant to be a comprehensive encyclopaedia covering the A to Z of Carnatic music.

The Entertainment section, comprising all the sections from Special Features to Brain Stimulators, will feature interesting articles by musicians and also special sections like the Kiddies' Corner, Top 10, Comic melodies (cartoons) and so on.

The Exposure section, as the name indicates, is meant throw more light on other music systems, like Hindustani, Western and Javanese music. We also have separate sections on related art forms, namely, Dance, Harikatha etc. Our exclusive sections on Tamil, Folk (Country tunes) and Devotional music cover these vast subjects independently.

The E-commerce section allows you to shop online through the Arcade, in addition to providing special services such as, conversion of old spool tapes or cassettes into CDs or dat tapes, finding a good music teacher for your children in a place close to you, and so on.

You will also find that Carnatica's discussion forum, namely, the Rasika Forum, has been relaunched in a new, more user-friendly format. We invite you to actively participate in it and share your thoughts on anything related to music.

The other new section that needs to be mentioned is the Composition Bank. As the name suggests, this is meant to be a database of the lyrics and notations of Carnatic compositions. We have already provided the lyrics of about 30 odd kritis and are working on converting them into pdf files so as to give the most accurate English transliteration for Indian words. Notating compositions on the internet involves numerous complications and we are working on a solution that will be satisfactory to all. We hope to be able to get this feature online at the earliest.

Going to our offline activities, Carnatica Archival Centre is now a force to reckon with in Bangalore too. In early March, the Centre, in association with the well-established organisation, Gayana Samaja, conducted its pioneering and highly acclaimed Raganubhava session in a glittering and well-attended function at the Garden City. The 2-day programme, which included a mini-Sahityanubhava session, highlighting the compositions of Haridasas, received tremendous response from the musicians and music lovers of Bangalore. The thematic concerts featured popular musicians, S Sowmya and T N Seshagopalan.

On the agenda are two more 'anubhava' themes - Layanubhava and Natyanubhava - where the rhythmic aspects of music and the music of dance can be experienced. We shall keep you updated on these activities. Looking forward to your active support and participation in making these as successful as Raganubhava and Sahityanubhava,

Kiranavali Vidyasankar,
Editor, Carnatica

   

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