Blogswara has been featured again in the media. This time it is Metro Plus, The Hindu, Kochi edition.
Check it out online in The Hindu website or click on the image below to read.
Phew! It’s been a long time since I have posted some music here. As much as I love music, I have to admit that I am getting sick of posting karaokes. I just don’t feel much enthusiasm that I had during the initial days of music blogging to do the karaokes. I feel like a ghost of someone else when I do karaokes. People have a tendency to compare your version with the original regardless of how much you try to put your own signature to the song. And that makes me sick. I don’t want to be a ghost anymore. And that might perhaps mark the end of my online singing pretty soon if I don’t get to do the originals. (Yes, I still want do an album of myself with the original songs, composed and sung by myself, but I don’t have a producer yet). But still, the karaoke singing at least helps me keep up with music – singing – because otherwise I don’t seriously sing anything, so this is sort of a practice medium.
The song of the day is from the Malayalam movie Bodyguard, composed by my favorite music director Ouseppachan and sung by Ranjith. This is a pretty tough song that challenges the breath control with it’s fast pace and the plans that comes in between. Here is my try anyway.
Movie: Bodyguard (Malayalam)
Music: Ouseppachan
Original singer: Ranjith
Covered by: Joseph Thomas (Jo)
Download “Arikathaayaro” (3.77 MB)
(image courtesy: Sify.com)
Starting from the year 2006, Blogswara has released 6 online albums with 61 original songs in 5 Indian languages (Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada) by 101 individual artists. So much effort has gone into the release of each Blogswara album by everyone involved in this project. What Blogswara aimed for was never a commercial benefit out of it, or to make a band of our own, but to promote amateur music and give a platform for musicians who otherwise would not have been heard in the public. People who have participated in Blogswara have dreamed of sharing the music for free using the power of Internet. Many people who have participated in the Blogswara, who have worked together on a song, have not even met in the real world but made music happen. It was proof that music can unite people. It was all this and much more that has kept the spirit of Blogswara going.
But we think not everything is fair. Our audience has been consistent but limited, considering the wide reach that the Internet offers. And I think that the Blogswara members / musicians deserve a wider audience for the effort they put in. And we tried to reach out to the world. We had our bit of media publicity too. But it seems that the best way to reach out to a wider audience is through tapping the offline audience that comes in huge numbers.
You need money and marketing techniques to promote an album offline. Since Blogswara is a non-profit entity, it is impossible to pour in money. The other way is to get your songs and the concept aired through the radio – but they don’t seem to be interested in broadcasting anything other than filmy music.
At this moment, I think the time has come to think of a revamp, a fresh outlook to the whole concept. Keeping in mind that the very idea of Blogswara came through various discussions with online friends, I request you to put your thoughts, answers or criticism in the comments section.
Please take your time and give us your thoughtful inputs. look forward to that. Thank you!
This happened many years back. It was the early hours of the night. I was sitting in the veranda with the earphones of the walkman plugged into my ears. Soft, soothing music flowed. I fell into a light sleep.
Then…
An empty beach in the twilight. Wind blows lightly. Soft piano tones.
There stands a woman, so beautiful, her white robe floats in the wind. She stands against me and smiles at me. A set of violins and cellos rises, with a light tone of flute. Music is heavenly.
Now she is walking along.
A hug. Eyes closed. Kiss.
Then rises a set of strings of violin and cello. Her fangs, goes deep into my neck, sucking off my blood.
Then I woke up. The music was almost over. Soft piano tones were playing to mark the end of the song. I sat there wondering what just happened. I wasn’t in a deep sleep. I could remember the melody which was being played, while having this dream. Yet, that dream, however short it was, felt so real. I took the album cover and searched for the song name. I read the song title in total awe – One Man’s Dream.
That was the first and only time that I can remember when music created a clear imagery while listening to a song.
This song is one of my most favorites from M Jayachandran. A very melodious number, originally sung by Karthik, I love this song for its soulful music and orchestration. I had posted an unplugged version of this song before and now here it comes with full karaoke track. This is my first recorded song after marriage which means after a gap of more than 2 months. 🙂
Dedicating this song to all those “modernists” of music who say melody sucks (the term “melody” here is not used in the musical terms, but as a substitute for soulful music) but seldom knows that even most of their musical favorites have a strong base of melody. The God of the modernists is A R Rahman, who is mostly remembered for his melodious numbers than his forgettable fast paced songs (remember Roja, Karuthamma etc). They say A R Rahman is “fresh” in orchestration, even though he has not created anything fresh than what many Indo-American fusion artistes have already done. But since film music is the popular form of music in India, Rahman continues to don the role of bringing freshness to Indian popular music scene (I respect A R Rahman for another thing – for giving proper credits to lead instrumentalists in the album cover).
I pity those modernists whose idea of “Freshness” in music is very limited. They often point to other musicians from across the globe – for example, a Sufi singer who has sung only Sufi music to his death, or a musician of a particular Genre who has never tried any other Genre than what he/she has been singing from the very beginning and they call it “fresh”. But when an Indian musician/singer does the same thing, it’s called “boring”. And their enemy #1 is K J Yesudas.
I listen to all kind of music, perhaps except death metal and appreciate each of them for it’s own good and according to my mood to hear a particular genre of music. But to call an entire society’s taste “boring”, just because they listen to Yesudas or melodious music in general? Well, Pity is the word.
Music: M Jayachandran
Lyrics: Gireesh Puthenchery
Movie: Orkkuka Vallappozhum
Singer: Karthik
Download “Etho January Maasam (cover)” MP3 file (4:09 MB)
I came across this TED talk by Robert Gupta, a Violinist with Los Angeles philharmonic orchestra. I have heard people mockingly asking me “so, if music can heal, can it be used to cure cancer?” etc. I don’t know what are the possibilities of using music in the field of medicine (there are a lot of researches going on about this already), but I can testify that music really heals the emotional troubles and it soothes the soul. And if music can do such wonders with our mind, I believe it definitely can make an effect in the body too, if we are to believe that our mind and body are connected. And if placebo effect, holistic medicine etc are working, why not music as a medicine?
Anyways, you will enjoy Mr. Gupta’s talk more if you have seen the movie The Soloist. For now, over to Robert Gupta:
Related post: Why do you listen to music?
I must thank Indian Express for their continued support to a non-commercial platform like Blogswara. This article appeared in their Kochi edition in the beginning of the month. Thanks to you guys, for your continued support to sustain the uncelebrated, off-stream music. (By the way, have you heard the songs yet?)
Express Features
First Published : 05 Mar 2010 12:48:00 AM ISTKOCHI: Blogswara , the internet music community that acts as a common platform for amateur musicians, has released its sixth album.
The album has 14 songs sung by 22 new artists in four Indian languages.
A free music movement where visitors/ listeners can listen and download mp3 files free of cost, Blogswara (www.blogswara.in) began as a blogging initiative by a few people around the globe, who loved to sing.
Till date, many of the singers associated with Blogswara have not met each other.
According to Joseph Thomas, who was one of the first to launch the concept of Blogswara, the attempt is to showcase the hidden talent of amateur singers before the world by producing original music and sharing it over the internet.
“Soon after the release of Blogswara version 5, we had begun with the work of the 6th album. For the first time, we have included a Telugu song, last time we had included a Kannada song. It’s the first time that so many amateurs are joining the effort, last time we had 15 new singers,” says Joseph.
Professional singers like Pradeep Somasundaram and TV anchor Divya have also rendered their voice for the album.
Blogswara proves that people, wherever they are or whatever languages they speak, can come together for a cause – here the cause being music.
And the digital age has made it easy for them to collaborate, the blog says.
True to its tagline, ‘United in Music’, the album has many lyricists and music composers from across the globe, who worked from their respective places together to come up with the album.
What better way to celebrate this year’s Holi! Celebrate it musically!! Go and listen to the songs from Blogswara‘s 6th online album which has just been released. This album comes with 14 songs in 4 Indian languages and 22 new artists. Listen to the songs from the website and share the buzz with your friends. Tweet it, blog it, post it in your Orkut/Facebook pages and show support the best platform available for free independent music and let the Blogswara saga continue!
Our special thanks to Jyothis E for his continued support in providing the space to host the songs and to Pradip Somasundaran for all the technical help extended. Thank you both! And to the panel members who spent their time reviewing the songs – Vijay, Nandu, Roshni and JK. Thank you!!
Follow us @Blogswara for Twitter updates.
It is time for another version of Blogswara! Yes, it is Blogswara’s Sixth album!! We have posted the song teasers in our website, so hop over there to listen to the song previews.
We have 14 songs this year and in four languages – Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil & Telugu (introducing Telugu for the first time in Blogswara) many new talented people being introduced through Blogswara..
So watch out for 1st of March for the grand release of Blogswara Version 6. And do spread the word around!
Visit http://www.blogswara.in & follow us on Twitter @Blogswara
Those of you who frequent to this blog have heard the song “Iniyethra Naal” in this blog before. To those who are new here, I composed this song for a short film directed by a friend. You can read more about the song by clicking this link.
The short film, titled “Aa Kathukal Parayaathirunnathu“, was previewed on February 12th at St Thomas College, Thrissur, in the presence of national award winning director Priyanandanan. You can see the song video below, which will hit the Malayalam TV channels hopefully soon. You can also download the MP3 file of this song by clicking here.
Credits:
Lyrics: Ratheesh
Music: Joseph Thomas (Jo)
Singer: Divya S Menon
Orchestration: Rajith George
Cinematography & Direction: Pavithran
Short film: Aa Kathukal Parayaathirunnuathu
