Music aficionado Mahesh Venkateswaran runs the popular Carnatic YouTube channel MadRasana. The channel, which was started three years ago, features unplugged versions of Carnatic compositions performed by young artistes. When the pandemic struck, Venkateswaran was more ready than anyone else, having already established a foothold in the online space. He knew that these artistes were not afraid of new formats and explorations.
“I enjoy listening to young artistes and am amazed to see how they can push their boundaries when they get the space and opportunity,” he says. Last month, MadRasana’s online instrumental concert featured violinist Charumathi Raghuraman, mridangam player Anantha R Krishnan and vainika Ramana Balachandran. Snippets of the music were shared on various online platforms and the show was a runaway hit. Over 3,000 people viewed the concert—a significant number for an online paid show.
Venkateswaran is aware that in the last few months, several Carnatic musicians have started making a conscious effort to raise their online presence. For example, Chennai-based Raghuraman was not much of an Instagram user. She is now pushing herself to upload relevant posts on social media. “I get a lot of feedback online from my rasikas. I try to respond to most of them and value the love that comes my way,” says the 34-year-old musician.
During the rains in Chennai last year, her video rendering of monsoon ragas won more than one lakh views on her handle @charumathiraghuraman. Another Chennai musician, the 38-year-old Krishnan keeps his Insta handle @Misterdangam active by posting musical challenges. He also shares the performances of fellow artistes. Then there is 20-year-old Balachandran who on @ramana_ramachandran interacts with fans regularly and shares snippets of divine chants. The versatile musician experiments with veena, kunnakol (a vocal performance of percussion syllables) and mridangam.
The conventional rigours of Carnatic musical grammar are conservative and well-established. One requires single-minded devotion to the art. Hence, most artistes shied away from technology for a long time. A few years back, JB Sruthi Sagar had deactivated his social media accounts to avoid distractions. When the pandemic struck and concert venues began to dry up, he decided to upload his performances online. “Even now, it’s my wife who handles my social media account. I have not yet let social media interfere in my art and don’t use it for any other purpose than uploading my work,” explains the 33-year old Carnatic flautist.
Most artistes rue that social media is a tricky game since consistency matters. “The sad part of SM is that it rewards consistency and quantity more than quality. So we try to also pick artistes who need more projection amidst the clutter,” says Venkateswaran.
However, many musicians find the crossover hard to navigate. Take, for instance, Carnatic vocalist JB Keerthana Bharadwaj who began posting her performance videos after the first lockdown in 2020. Two years later, the 30-year-old is still uncomfortable with creating content. Her husband would shoot videos of her practice sessions daily to share on her Instagram handle, which also has pasurams and compositions of Thanjavur Shankar Iyer.
Such hesitation towards social media is caused by the lack of a live audience. The feeling of a spotlit stage on which an artist holds their audience spellbound is a mutual engagement that cannot be duplicated. A virtual auditorium without the reverberation of applause is not the same thing as having a performance before an audience. Balachandran misses the transfer of energy that happens in a performance space. It transcends the applause from the listeners.
“The listener influences the artiste, which is missing in a virtual concert. However, initiatives like MadRasana and The IndianOil Now Hear Us do make online concerts a wonderful alternative as they maintain good production values and a positive atmosphere during the recording,” says Balachandran, from Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu.
The traditionalist in Krishnan knows that being tech-savvy matters but prefers conventional concerts. “Social media is not a compulsion for me. I know my circle there. My primary focus will remain on my art. Sometimes, the social media game is a distraction,” he admits.
Venkateshwaran feels that younger artistes attract younger audiences. The musicians are hence shedding their inhibitions. “The work of percussion artistes is reaching new geographies. From the comments on our videos on konnakol, the Kanjira Quartet and the mridangam duet between Abhishek Raghuram and Anantha Krishnan (which has around 90,000 views), it is clear that people are relating to our art from across the world.” The pandemic called the time, but it is the artist who still has the melody.