My first experience with technology and carnatic music came in 1995 when I was exposed to the internet and the usenet newsgroup rec.music.indian.classical. When I came back to India after that 1995 tour of Australia and North america,, the first thing I did was insist on getting a computer and paying 15000/- Rs to get a TCP/IP account with VSNL which was the only Internet Service Provider then. In fact I still remember setting up my own homepage on Geocities sometime in 1996 and then later continuing it on Tripod in 1997.

Here is a snapshot from the Tripod homepage from Dec 1998 –

http://web.archive.org/web/19981202013247/http://members.tripod.com/~sanjaysub/

Some of the things I started back then have of course been duplicated by many much later. My motivation to start Sangeetham.com was also because there was a dominance of Hindustani music based discussion on the usenet newsgroup and I wanted a separate bulletin board for carnatic music exclusively.

Here is a snapshot from January 1999 of Sangeetham.com –

http://web.archive.org/web/19990125103013/http://www.sangeetham.com/

The concept took root and more players have entered the space and have continued quite successfully.

Later with the advent of mp3 and compressed audio I set up an account on mp3.com to actually produce and sell digital downloadable music online. Following this I have had a great time launching and doing a podcast “The Sanjay Subrahmanyan Show.” One reason I could do all this then was that I had a lot of time and the process of assembling and putting it all together was so much fun for me personally.

I still remember spending a whole night setting up a new bulletin board on Sangeetham with a free service called UBB.

Here is a snapshot from Mar 2000 of that first UBB Sangeetham talk –

http://web.archive.org/web/20000305084658/http://www.sangeetham.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi

Anyway it was a year back when I actually sat down and thought that we really need to move ahead and keep pace with technology. The iPad had been launched, Android was ready to take on the world and apps were going to explode on the scene. I had already experienced apps on my iphone and was quite keen to come up with a Sanjay Subrahmanyan app.

Here is an excerpt for a note I wrote to myself as early as 5th May 2010 –

Permanent

Basic details –
Short bio, pictures, sample tracks

Web links –
Blog, Podcast, Facebook, Twitter. Youtube videos etc

 Albums data

 Downloadable
 Updates to online content
Changing dowloadable sample tracks
Latest releases on charsur
Music season – schedule
Big tours like US schedule

I even sent this to some who were beginning development of apps to explore the possibility. Then about 4/5 months back I got a call from an old friend Yessel who was bringing an app developer interested in doing something with me. He brought Girish of Clairvoyant Technologies and we started talking about getting the whole thing together. More in the next post.


Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *