SNEHA RAMESH
IN CONVERSATION WITH
VIDUSHI KALA RAMNATH
Could you tell us in detail about your website .
Indianclassicalmusic . com came into being in 2021 . But the idea took shape in my mind when I was invited to a seminar over 20 years ago . I did not have answers to certain questions on the theory of music as there are no books which talk about it . Indian classical music is the most ancient form of music in this world but we have had no proper documentation ever so much so that out of the purported 4840 raags which were there in ancient times , today we have probably a maximum of 500 raags with only 100-150 in circulation . All are lost . So , I decided that there should be a library to save this art from extinction and what better way than an online one where everyone around the world can have answers to all these questions . I also quickly realized that Indian music cannot be understood through books . You need practical demonstrations . The reason being this music has continuity between the notes and isn ’ t like western music where the music is on the notes which is easy to document in writing .
Then I thought why not make a website which I can tailor to meet the interests of a curious layman , a student and even a performing artiste or a connoisseur ! Thus Indianclassicalmusic . com was born .
It was inaugurated and blessed by Ustaad Zakir Hussain in 2021 on the auspicious day of Guru Purnima . Till date I have made around 85 videos , some of which are up on the site and some going up as we speak on various topics like explanation of Raags with demonstrations in 4Kvideos , Raag theory and presentation etc .
. Having navigated through the website , we found it to be a goldmine add extremely interesting . How long did it take you to build it ?
It ’ s not over yet . I started collating data in 2020 and the website was inaugurated by Ustaad Zakir Hussain on the day of Guru Purnima in 2021- a very sacred day for all students and practitioners of music where one offers his or her homage to their Gurus . It should take me another 5-6 years to get everything on Hindustani Music there . And mind you this is just Hindustani Classical Music which is just one stream of our
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