Carnatic Collection indexed for better browse and search.

[ranjanimalavi]

I posted this sangeethapriya, I am copying it here also.

I tried to index my carnatic collection from various sources, I have accumulated
for almost 20 years.
Always found it difficult to find what I need.
This is still an ongoing work, which has already taken years,
as I was not able to spend large amount of time.
I will spend more time adding things if others find it useful.

I converted all the songs to mp3, split them, renamed them, added lyrics source,
images, etc so I can generate an index which I can use it to browse.
Search is one feature I can only add with server side support.

I have benefited from Sangeethapriya a lot.
This will be my small contribution.
I can donate the disk to sangeethapriya, which has the collection and the index.
I don't know the logistics to host it.
Its easy to remove the songs, or artists from the collection.
Copyright issue can be easily take care of.

I have uploaded the Interface to the Index to of my Carnatic Collection:

https://sites.google.com/site/ramanarunachalamhome/
Look for Carnatic Collection

Or directly click on:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43406542/Music/ ... natic.html

Note that there are no songs on the site.

Also please excuse me for any errors, as they are due to my negligence or
ignorance.

Hope it will be helpful to others.

Raman

[thanjavooran]

Shri Raman Avl,
Excellent venture.
With Best wishes
Thanjavooran 14 02 2012

[varsha]

wonderful work .
great use of technology . can understand the pain that goes into such an exercise . your offer to sangeethapriya is such a heart warming gesture . may God bless you .

[varsha]

Do you take disciples and teach them how to do it for their own collections

[rajeshnat]

This is just extraordinary work that you have done, how much of hardwork you must have put to achieve this? Count me along with varsha , just in case if u are interested in teaching us how to create these kind of indexes for each of our personal collection.

[ranjanimalavi]

It doesn't take me any time to add new files, but it took long time to change the existing ones.

My data is around 280 GB( I cannot listen to it in my life time), 4000 lyrics, 2900 concerts, 24000 songs.
and it takes only 2/3 minutes to generate this.

I renamed all files using this convention : (<Number><a-z>-<Type>-<Song>-<Raga>-<Composer>-<Artist>.mp3)
In the above Number, Song, Raga, COmposer are a must.

01-Shodasa Ganapati-Sri Mahaganapatiravatumam-Gowla-MD.mp3
01-Varnam-Viriboni-Bhairavi-PA.mp3
06a-Munnu Ravana-Thodi-T.mp3

Let me go into some details, if you are interested.
If you have the file names in this format then I can give my scripts (written in python) which can generate this information.
The UI can be changed easily as it is in HTML5/CSS3.

Raman

[rajumds]

Wonderful. I have got my concerts named almost in the same way. If possible can you share the script. I will send a e mail thro the forum.

[kalyani_ragam]

ranjanimalavi

Can you explain in a layman's language. Will the script rename a file name that already exist in a folder? Or is it for indexing purpose ?

[ShrutiLaya]

Shri Raman,

A great effort, congratulations!

A couple of suggestions, some easy and some hard

- Have a search function that can search through lyrics. This should be a kind of "fuzzy search" to allow alternative spellings of transliterated words. There are several uses for this eg. find all songs referring to a particular diety/place/ragam/object; find beginning of the song if you remember only a bit from the middle etc.,

- Invite user interaction eg., corrections, lyrics etc., can be entered by users. With luck, this could evolve and grow over time, to become the carnatic equivalent of the Wikipedia.

- Allow users to upload their own collections (I mean just indices, not songs) and mark them public or private; If private, this will allow each user to "personalize" their index to include references to their own hard drive; If public, this will enrich the database for everyone. Users can also share their index with "friends". Path to the evolution of a Carnatic Facebook!

- Allow users to create playlists of available links, maybe share/mail them.


A good place to host this would be Sangeethapriya as you pointed out, or even this very forum rasikas.org; however, if you need web space, I'll gladly offer shrutilaya.org

- Sreenadh

[Sundara Rajan]

It is indeed a labor of love of carnatic music ! About twenty years ago, when I had only about five hundred cassets and a few CDs of carnatic music, I cataloged the collection in excel format on my laptop for easy location of any song by any artist and stored it in a disket. As my collection grew and exceded 1,500 cassets and hundrds of CDs, it became too much to keep up with the task and I gave up! At the age of seventy in 2003, I moved to Florida and during the relocation I lost the disket and several cassets that I had lent to friends. I wish I could do a cataloge of the type above, but I don't think I could, with my limited knowledge of computer usage. I don't know if any one could use the catalog cited above to include one's own collection and use it. Nobody else in my immediate family here is interested in carnatic music and for the few years left I can get by using the age old method of "menory" to locate the songs by any artist desired. Best of luck for the youngsters who are interested in carnatic music.

[vasanthakokilam]

Raman, Excellent work. Congratulations. Great conceptualization and design!

[tkb]

superb! i will be happy if i can learn too!