A hard hitting article by a fellow forumite on how "we" are making CM unsustainable.
http://www.thehindu.com/arts/music/article2704664.ece
Do we undervalue talent
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Nick H
- Posts: 9473
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03
Re: Do we undervalue talent
I'm surprised that this article did not a get a thread until now.
The author may be pleased to know that it was partly this article which decided me to make a contribution to one sabha who's concerts I attend the whole year, and which remain free even during the season. It reminded me that it is time to give back.
I think that some of the comments are very true, and that others are off the mark. I an absolutely in favour of artists making a good living, and consider out Carnatic artists to be woefully underpaid.
As the economy hardens and costs increase, how long will our music come to us by courtesy of the sponsors? Are the days of free concerts over?
The author may be pleased to know that it was partly this article which decided me to make a contribution to one sabha who's concerts I attend the whole year, and which remain free even during the season. It reminded me that it is time to give back.
I think that some of the comments are very true, and that others are off the mark. I an absolutely in favour of artists making a good living, and consider out Carnatic artists to be woefully underpaid.
As the economy hardens and costs increase, how long will our music come to us by courtesy of the sponsors? Are the days of free concerts over?
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varsha
- Posts: 1978
- Joined: 24 Aug 2011, 15:06
Re: Do we undervalue talent
It reminded me that it is time to give back.
that was the point of the article . it takes reminding. and it may get too late .
that was the point of the article . it takes reminding. and it may get too late .
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anandasangeetham
- Posts: 177
- Joined: 06 Feb 2008, 16:24
Re: Do we undervalue talent
A totally different perspective....some loud thoughts..so please excuse if this is not appealing to some forumites...
Art (fine) and commerce dont go together....commerce and commodity go together..hence if fine arts has to have a commercial angle to it then it needs to be commoditised or looked upon as a commodity. if then it will be seen in a different light and appropriate commercial tools applied and market forces acted on....
even in cinema which is itself an art medium a fine differentiation is made for commercial cinema and art cinema..the former draws crowd and has a box office return on investment where as the latter suffers all the financial humiliation and is at best a solace for the artists that they have acted ina "good film" ......
rarey artistic film make a financial impact...and same is the case in carnatic music... with due regards ...Aruna Sairam, K J Jesudoss, (late) Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan have/had a much larger crowd than V V Subramanian, Vijay Siva.....
If carnatic music is viewed on a commercial angle then the pricing of the "product"(includes the musician, type of music, etc), target audience(sabha, marriage concert, art festival, hotel or other gathering etc), market (season or non season, metro, temple city, etc) has to be decided....once the pricing is done it is left to the organisers to see how their "investment" is returned through sale of tickets and this again has be priced keeping in mind the above and also the "profile" of the audience......
Most of us(sorry to be generalising) would want value for money even be it music...less than 1% of any population has a "impulse purchase" attitude. those with such a attitude will just get what they want irrespective of the price...sadly ? the other 99% looks for value for money...for them...getting / enjoying the product is important but more important is the price (not to confuse to affordability)...hence for example if there are two concerts nearby one selling at 500 and another at 100 ...i feel that the 100 rupee concert will have more takers....
and marlet forces will ultimately decide what value each "product" has and what price to pay for.....and each "product" will also have a certain "shelf life" beyond which it may not be able to garner the same price or sales volume....
If this calls for a debate or discussion I am game...but if this utterly rubbish please ignore.....
Art (fine) and commerce dont go together....commerce and commodity go together..hence if fine arts has to have a commercial angle to it then it needs to be commoditised or looked upon as a commodity. if then it will be seen in a different light and appropriate commercial tools applied and market forces acted on....
even in cinema which is itself an art medium a fine differentiation is made for commercial cinema and art cinema..the former draws crowd and has a box office return on investment where as the latter suffers all the financial humiliation and is at best a solace for the artists that they have acted ina "good film" ......
rarey artistic film make a financial impact...and same is the case in carnatic music... with due regards ...Aruna Sairam, K J Jesudoss, (late) Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan have/had a much larger crowd than V V Subramanian, Vijay Siva.....
If carnatic music is viewed on a commercial angle then the pricing of the "product"(includes the musician, type of music, etc), target audience(sabha, marriage concert, art festival, hotel or other gathering etc), market (season or non season, metro, temple city, etc) has to be decided....once the pricing is done it is left to the organisers to see how their "investment" is returned through sale of tickets and this again has be priced keeping in mind the above and also the "profile" of the audience......
Most of us(sorry to be generalising) would want value for money even be it music...less than 1% of any population has a "impulse purchase" attitude. those with such a attitude will just get what they want irrespective of the price...sadly ? the other 99% looks for value for money...for them...getting / enjoying the product is important but more important is the price (not to confuse to affordability)...hence for example if there are two concerts nearby one selling at 500 and another at 100 ...i feel that the 100 rupee concert will have more takers....
and marlet forces will ultimately decide what value each "product" has and what price to pay for.....and each "product" will also have a certain "shelf life" beyond which it may not be able to garner the same price or sales volume....
If this calls for a debate or discussion I am game...but if this utterly rubbish please ignore.....
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rajumds
- Posts: 715
- Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 11:16
Re: Do we undervalue talent
Agreed it is time to give back. And no amount of money can truly reflect the value of music we enjoy.
But I disagree with the tenor of the article that the industry (I use the word industry deliberately, since money or lack of it is the focus of the article) is suffering only because rasikas prefer free concerts and enjoy music on clandestine recordings.
In any industry what a professional gets paid is largely dependent on the size of the industry. An average guy writing mundane dot net code may get paid more than a brilliant scientist doing research in nuclear physics. What Suresh Rainas and Virat Kholis have earned in their short carrier till now may be much more than what legends like Kapil Dev and Gavaskar had earned in their entire career. It all depends on the size of the market and the revenue the industry can generate. If the artists want financial prosperity they have to make the industry bigger.
You can't fight technology , you have to use it to your advantage. Talking of cricket again, When TV coverage spread fast, it threatened the cricket boards by eating into their main source of revenue (gate collections). Today the main revenue of the cricket boards is from TV rights. What have the stake holders in music industry done in the last 20 years to increase the reach. The coverage CM gets in radio and TV is abysmally low.
We may pride ourselves by calling the music season as one of its kind in the world and reel out stats about the number concerts in 30 days time and so on. But a look at the sponsors will show you that the major advertisers - the soft drink giants, FMCG companies, auto majors - are just not there. While the Chennai open tennis tournament has got a 1 Cr grant and Chennai film festival has got 25 lac grant from the TN govt, what has the music season got? This in spite of the Chief Minister being a ardent rasika.
The reason is ,there is no brand value in the chennai music festival. What Chennai Sangamam could do in creating a brand and visibility in just 2 years , our music festival could not do in 80 years. Atleast a common inauguration, and an integrated approach instead of the competitive approach could do wonders. But will our sabhas come around and do it. Of course they can't even keep their hall to some basic standard - Rickety chairs, squeaking audio, stinking toilets, sub standard over priced food, ...
In what was once the hot bed of CM, the Thajvaur belt, CM is in a very sorry state. But for the nadaswara vidwans - who are shunned by the Chennai sabhas - it would be dead by now. What have the stake holders done to propagate music in these areas, bring in youngsters to the concert hall. Absolutely nothing.
So while it is right to expect the rasikas to pay back, the music industry has to give back something to music and raise the size and coverage. You can't make money by scarcity and higher prices.
Time to reflect and decide.
But I disagree with the tenor of the article that the industry (I use the word industry deliberately, since money or lack of it is the focus of the article) is suffering only because rasikas prefer free concerts and enjoy music on clandestine recordings.
In any industry what a professional gets paid is largely dependent on the size of the industry. An average guy writing mundane dot net code may get paid more than a brilliant scientist doing research in nuclear physics. What Suresh Rainas and Virat Kholis have earned in their short carrier till now may be much more than what legends like Kapil Dev and Gavaskar had earned in their entire career. It all depends on the size of the market and the revenue the industry can generate. If the artists want financial prosperity they have to make the industry bigger.
You can't fight technology , you have to use it to your advantage. Talking of cricket again, When TV coverage spread fast, it threatened the cricket boards by eating into their main source of revenue (gate collections). Today the main revenue of the cricket boards is from TV rights. What have the stake holders in music industry done in the last 20 years to increase the reach. The coverage CM gets in radio and TV is abysmally low.
We may pride ourselves by calling the music season as one of its kind in the world and reel out stats about the number concerts in 30 days time and so on. But a look at the sponsors will show you that the major advertisers - the soft drink giants, FMCG companies, auto majors - are just not there. While the Chennai open tennis tournament has got a 1 Cr grant and Chennai film festival has got 25 lac grant from the TN govt, what has the music season got? This in spite of the Chief Minister being a ardent rasika.
The reason is ,there is no brand value in the chennai music festival. What Chennai Sangamam could do in creating a brand and visibility in just 2 years , our music festival could not do in 80 years. Atleast a common inauguration, and an integrated approach instead of the competitive approach could do wonders. But will our sabhas come around and do it. Of course they can't even keep their hall to some basic standard - Rickety chairs, squeaking audio, stinking toilets, sub standard over priced food, ...
In what was once the hot bed of CM, the Thajvaur belt, CM is in a very sorry state. But for the nadaswara vidwans - who are shunned by the Chennai sabhas - it would be dead by now. What have the stake holders done to propagate music in these areas, bring in youngsters to the concert hall. Absolutely nothing.
So while it is right to expect the rasikas to pay back, the music industry has to give back something to music and raise the size and coverage. You can't make money by scarcity and higher prices.
Time to reflect and decide.
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varsha
- Posts: 1978
- Joined: 24 Aug 2011, 15:06
Re: Do we undervalue talent
Developing a poor opinion of folks who come to spend the evening , (and sit and move around at will ) is the first step in remedial action .
The artist community has lost the plot for quite some time now , in reaching out to the really sincere listeners .
Make tickets mandatory and I bet NO ONE WILL COME . At least in chennai.
Folks will go looking for a different venue , and if all loopholes are plugged they will start walking to marina beach without batting an eyelid .
I walked out of one recently . My sensibilites insulted by a " find the theme of the concert as we go along " announcement by the artist of the evening .
bhairavi varna , vasantha bhairavi ( A FINE ONE TOO ) , anandabhairavi ....and all hell broke loose . thathas paatis mamas mamis running helter skelter to collect slips of paper to write on and hand over . dropping pens in the darkness , stumbling over nike shoes of volunteers . Every one was whispering Bhairavi Bhairavi . My God !!!
In one of the most emotive scenes in the movie Becket , the King , in a drunken stupor, mourns the loss of his friendship with his Archbishop.He looks around his new companions - all thick necked - who lie in a drunken stupor by his side. And asks them : Dont you ever think , my friends . And they all reply .
Naw Sire . We have better things to do .
And Peter O Toole writhes in more pain .
Myn opinion is that
Much of the problem lies in people attending , with nothing better to do . For the evening .
I once held on dearly to my Rs 10 ticket for a MLV performance , four decades ago . In a remote part of this country which does exist in the map for todays artists . I would lovingly watch it all day , from four weeks before the scheduled day .
We have lost as much as we have gained by these technological advances . But not for the reasons mentioned by the author . He is simply saying Ouch because it probably hurts .
The artist community has lost the plot for quite some time now , in reaching out to the really sincere listeners .
Make tickets mandatory and I bet NO ONE WILL COME . At least in chennai.
Folks will go looking for a different venue , and if all loopholes are plugged they will start walking to marina beach without batting an eyelid .
I walked out of one recently . My sensibilites insulted by a " find the theme of the concert as we go along " announcement by the artist of the evening .
bhairavi varna , vasantha bhairavi ( A FINE ONE TOO ) , anandabhairavi ....and all hell broke loose . thathas paatis mamas mamis running helter skelter to collect slips of paper to write on and hand over . dropping pens in the darkness , stumbling over nike shoes of volunteers . Every one was whispering Bhairavi Bhairavi . My God !!!
In one of the most emotive scenes in the movie Becket , the King , in a drunken stupor, mourns the loss of his friendship with his Archbishop.He looks around his new companions - all thick necked - who lie in a drunken stupor by his side. And asks them : Dont you ever think , my friends . And they all reply .
Naw Sire . We have better things to do .
And Peter O Toole writhes in more pain .
Myn opinion is that
Much of the problem lies in people attending , with nothing better to do . For the evening .
I once held on dearly to my Rs 10 ticket for a MLV performance , four decades ago . In a remote part of this country which does exist in the map for todays artists . I would lovingly watch it all day , from four weeks before the scheduled day .
We have lost as much as we have gained by these technological advances . But not for the reasons mentioned by the author . He is simply saying Ouch because it probably hurts .