Editorial
The Carnatica team wishes you all a very happy New Year!
Dated: 3rd January, 2002
This editorial comes to you after a long gap and it is our pleasure to get back to you after the very hectic Madras music season. While we would have liked to present a more exhaustive coverage of various artistes and venues, our team has done a professional and sincere job in trying to present as fair a picture as possible.
Our special review team has attempted to cover a representative set of concerts/artistes within the given timeframe. Our reviews seem to have garnered an interesting variety of responses, ranging from eloquent praise to acerbic criticism. In a few cases, we have even received responses that are diagonally opposite to those expressed in our reviews. We have also heard that some of our reviews have hurt the sentiments of the concerned musicians and their fans, because the language was perceived to be harsh. Since its inception, Carnatica has been fortunate in receiving great support from both artistes and the general community of music lovers. We appreciate the fact that as our true well-wishers, an overwhelming majority of the Carnatic music community has openly shared all their views with us.
The Carnatica team would like to reiterate that each review is based only on a single day's performance and is not to be taken as a reflection on an artiste's overall ability or musicianship. None of our reviews has been written with malicious intent. We would like to assure our readers that we value freedom of speech and that we only intend to be a constructive force, as we respect each musician for what he/she is. We had asked our reviewers to present their opinions in a new format, by evaluating various dimensions of each concert in a quantitative manner. In addition to the evaluation of individual concerts, a special CAC newsletter, which was distributed in various Sabhas, carries a set of ratings of different artistes, which has not yet appeared online. Several musicians, musicologists and music-lovers have praised us for introducing these novel concepts. We thank all of them, while also acknowledging the negative responses from a few. We would like to emphasize that unlike in cricket or tennis, these ratings are not to be taken as an indication of the professional ranking of any given artiste, and the numbers given to one artiste are not to be directly compared with another. We do acknowledge that this is only a beginning, and are therefore undertaking serious efforts to fine-tune our rating methodology in order to develop it into a scientific and logical system. We are open to suggestions on this count too.
While oral responses during and after the season have been extremely valuable, we would also like written responses from Carnatic music lovers, in order to present the total picture to our readers. We have opened an exclusive thread in the Rasika Forum, titled "Madras Music Mela 2001 - Review Feedback," for you to express your opinions on individual concerts. If you prefer not to write in a public forum, we would also be happy to receive your views by private email to the Carnatica team (carnatica@carnatica.com) or to the website editor (kiranavali@hotmail.com). Those who prefer paper correspondence can write to us at the following address: Carnatica.com, 10/4, 16th Cross Street, Krishna Enclave, Indira Nagar, Adyar, Chennai 600 020.
We welcome all kinds of views regarding our reviews, from both musicians and rasikas who attended the respective concerts. In particular, do let us know what you think about the quantitative reviewing methodology we have adopted. Should we continue with it and improve it, or should we scrap it altogether?
In addition to what will instantly appear online through our Rasika Forum, Carnatica.com plans to bring out another special newsletter containing the responses that we receive before the 20th of January. We assure you that except for an introductory note, the editor's blue pencil will remain unused in the publication of this newsletter!
S Sowmya, K N Shashikiran & Kiranavali Vidyasankar
