Reporting the Season on FB; a rasika shares his experience

Chennai-based music rasika V. Rajagopalan who actively uses social media during the December Season, shares his experiences in this note -

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‘Govindanadi, Mukundanadi, move over Kolaveri di’ – thus began my modest journey of concert snippets on Facebook during Season 2011. I had attended a concert by Sanjay Subrahmanyan on December 19. 

I was swept off by that spellbinding concert –  that night I jotted my feelings of that recital on Facebook.

I had only a few friends on Facebook back then. But encouraged by the responses from them, I started writing notes from the concert halls. A lengthy post on the concert by Abhishek Raghuram at The Music Academy that Season got me several new friends and a few not-so-friendly rebukes! I recall with fondness the exchanges some of us had with T M Krishna  on FB on his Academy concert – he was very active on Facebook back then!

During Season 2013 I became very active on Facebook and started writing a series of concert notes under the title (didn’t know of hashtags back then!) ‘Season Snippet’. 

Thanks to the power of smartphone, I started posting live feeds of concerts during Season 2014. Akin to a ball-by-ball running commentary on radio of cricket matches, some of us on Facebook would post details of every raga alapana, the kriti, where the singer chooses to perform neraval and swaras and so on. This would open a concert at once to rasikas at other venues, other cities in India and abroad.

A key 'season' event is historian V. Sriram lectures. The live feeds of these lectures on Facebook got a big following.

On a similar note, I have also been posting live feeds of his Heritage Walks over the last three years – quite a few friends in other cities follow this keenly and chat with me in private, seeking more info.

Season 2015 has been a joy ride. I started using the hashtag #SeasonSnippet on my concert posts. This year saw the birth of several WhatsApp groups – primarily rasikas of certain musicians – with hyper-active conversation threads on every concert the group members attend.

Social Media has helped us the rasikas come closer. And connect like never before.