I want to read a nice story : Ok, read on...
There was a newspaper article on it way back ten years ago : https://www.hindustantimes.com/music/ch ... TyEpN.html - It is due to the proactive efforts of an eager rasika and some other contributors, who went to the extent of spending a significant amount of money from their pockets as well that it exists at all.
And then 5 years ago, they added a videos segment as well : https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ ... 864017.ece
The Academy even has a section on it's own website : https://musicacademymadras.in/explore/m ... l-archives
The question is how to listen to this?
Ans : Very very easy. The hardest part is simply getting your body over to the Academy.
The TAG archives is located in a small room on the side of Gaudiya Math Road next to the two wheeler parking. It's the first thing on the right when you enter the Academy from the Vehicle In Gate (the Out Gate is on the Main Road). The Ambience is quiet and peaceful - it's a small world of its own. Small Pictures of all the Sangeetha Kalanidhis, Lifetime Achievement Winners and others are on the walls, and there are a few more pictures up including a big chart of Thyagaraja's Sishya Parampara.
The TAG Archives are open all day from Tuesday to Saturday. Earlier it used to be open all week, but there weren't any takers. Even today at the most 25 people are using it in the peak of the season, many of them musicians and students.
During the Music Season, it's free for all. At other times of the year, you can subscribe annually for Rs. 600 or use it for a whole day at Rs. 25 (Chennites just get that subscription). Listening is unlimited. Well worth it. Right now it's free - all you need to do is write your name in the register. Today I saw a music student use it to do some research on kritis of some composers.
The manager Mr. Anand is very friendly and he'll tell you how to use the software. The software is also simple to use, it's more kiosk like (courtesy Giri, who came up with the idea of kiosk based listening) and needs a mouse to use, but looks great and the audio quality on the headphones is also very good. One can search by concert, by artist, by composer and by raga. Song search isn't perfect because of multiple possible spellings for the same word in English (and there's no keyboard, so that's not my preference anyway). The music player controls are also easy to use. Information of most songs is available, but many private collections come from unknown sources.
There are over 12000 hours of recordings already, with audio to digital conversion efforts going on to convert many old spools from the Music Academy's past archives. All concerts of the Academy in recent days are also recorded and kept up here.
To avoid disturbance, they request you to attend phone calls / messages outside.
Q : How do I contribute my collections?
A : Most of the collections are individual contributions. Individuals who have tapes for conversion etc. or who want to contribute can approach the staff - however, it might be that most of our collections are already up there. Commercial albums are dealt with separately and they have those as well. If you want to contribute, they ask you how much of your collections are private. The Academy would also do well to collect from Sangeethapriya and Youtube (private collections) - but as I write this, I am wary that one fine day google might suddenly decide to shut those channels down without thinking about the loss. Rasikas are requested to learn how to download the original video from Youtube using addons, for the music's sake.
Q : Any gripes?
A : Not enough publicity. So far the Academy hasn't released their collections commercially or even for paid download on any online site (Sa Re Ga Ma is offering individual tracks for Rs. 5 and Rs. 10 for HD). Also right now there is no way to subscribe from home and listen over the internet, or from abroad, although I have been told that ideas are in progress and we can give feedback, which lot of people do. Nothing about using the archives itself.
Q : My experience?
A : Amazing. The collections are huge, far more than I ever imagined. Really sublime music everywhere. Among the things I heard was an MS concert from the 50s (There must be a special category of nagaswaram called the MS nayanam for that tODi), the RTP of Abhishek Raghuram that brought the roof down in 2013, many artistes whose names I'm hearing for the first time, a thillAna in udaya ravichandrika, etc. Very good audio quality. One could stay there the whole day. It's quiet and peaceful inside that room, almost meditative like a library.
Music students would be the best beneficiaries from the archives. There is so much there that I wouldn't be able to explore it all in my lifetime.