February 23_RJ&AM
Today is the 100th (yes!!) Edition of MusicWithCoffee and we, the MWC group feels that this is a good opportunity to look back at the journey. Discussions on music and sharing songs is how it all started when we were all warming to each other.
The first post was on 18th November by Alladi Mahadevan and the second post was by Akila Natarajan. AM did the majority of the posts for the first few days. Then Ramana Ramanan Jagannathan came in and posted on a couple of days. Two posts on the same day got Krithika Viswanath as the third member.
The modus operandi of the group in expanding has been simple. Anyone who showed interest in the posts or shared a post on music (like how it happened with Divyaa Nedungadi and Sripriya Vijayaraghavan was asked if they would like to contribute. It is our luck that none of the people we approached turned down our request to join the group.
Deepa Kulkarni's first post was on December 3rd and Divya's was on December 10th. Sripriya's first post was on 12th of December and Aarthi's on 17th December. Around December 20th, the hashtags MusicWithCoffee and Editon# were formalized.
Aditi Muralidhar, Gayathri Sankaran, Sai Deepa Nedungadi, Haripriya Sambasivan, Ramashree Alladi joined the team subsequently and have all contributed to the MWC Posts. Our newest member, Sindu Gopaal is awaiting her turn.
Then we decided to introduce concept of a Guest Edition. The auspicious day of Feb14 was chosen for this maiden attempt and who better thanGuru Thamaraiselvan, the master of words and louuve! wink emoticon
As a social experiment, we're glad that this group has come a long way and is more or less self sustaining. This is because the posts started through coordination between people who didn't know each other, but only through this group.
Today as the team hits an important milestone, We, The Group that has been United By Music, take this opportunity to thank all of you who have encouraged the posts with your Likes, comments and the folks who have been reading silently and listening to the songs. It is also heartening to know that there have been a few cases where people have come back to us, asking for specific posts.
Songs are just songs and music is just music unless we bring in ourindividual experiences into listening and our personal experience is what makes a few songs more interesting, unique and hence more important than others. The write ups that have accompanied the songs have invariably reflected these experiences, bringing in some nostalgia (Ramashree's post on Godavari or SriPriya's post on Tirupati) or a character (Benny Goodman) or bringing forth the story behind a song ( Bobby McFerrin's 'Don't Worry, Be Happy")
Also, the posts have been an enriching experience personally for the team as each team member has learnt a lot from the research for the songs to be posted and listening to various songs on youtube. And the fun of awaiting the posts every day, reading the write up and listening to the songs have more been like an icing on the cake. A mix of people ensured that the coverage was Heterogenous and the genres covered include carnation music, pop music, rock music, western classical, Hindustani, Traditional Folk Music, African Music, Music from Ted and of course film music.
Music has no language barriers said Wordsworth when he wrote about the Solitary Reaper. Whatever be the human emotions, language is just a carrier to convey the emotions.
Today's song from the movie Mozhi (Language).
Elango Kumaravel who played the famous Ravishastri role in Abhiyum Nanum was with a small group of people a few years back.
He had worked closely with the Mozhi team and was involved in their movie. He explained the movie as a life changer for him. His belief on music emerges from voice and instruments had taken a different turn during this movie. The effect that was required was bringing from the heart of a challenged individual on her realisation of music.
When the team thought of interacting with challenged individuals it sounded a bit odd on how they would speak about music. Finally decided to take it forward and they were in for a pleasant surprise. They saw challenged individuals who played drums & hummed tunes (to perfection). The effect it had on the movie is not trying to make a challenged understand music. Music exists in the heart, right from the womb of the mother.
Music lives everywhere and most importantly, in every soul.
