During the COVID-19 pandemic many of us have picked up new hobbies or learnt new skills. Some have enrolled for language lessons, while others are exploring their passion for music, and learning to play new music instruments. However, if you are someone who doesn’t quite want to put in that much effort into learning music, but wants to enrich his understanding of classical musical forms, we recommend you try out the social media venture — Minna Minni.
Minna Minni is a classical music platform launched recently by Anugrah Lakshmanan, a Carnatic musician. It is available on social media sites like Instagram, Facebook and video sharing site like Youtube, and encourages a deeper understanding of Carnatic music, by contextualizing renditions with history and trivia, and providing unique prespectives to various compositions.
The platform aims to bring different musicians, dancers and other artists online and present classical compositions with touches of mythology, storytellings and history. In an interview with News18.com, Anugrah said that there is a notion that Carnatic music will only work for the audiences if you make a fusion out of it, whereas traditional music can be relatively boring and therefore may not engage listeners easily. Through Minna Minni, he wants to change this notion.
“We wanted to bring traditional compositions, and present it in a unique way to make it more interesting,” he said. He noted that their platform would provide the context behind the music for those who have not heard it before, like who has composed the music and where it was composed, and so on. “This will help guide the listener to become more informed about the music form.”
“Carnatic music is a very subjective artform and different people perceive it differently. We want to show these different perspectives of people to our listeners as well,” Anugrah said. Their posts are visually captivating and narrate the music through storytelling.
The idea of creating an online space for Carnatic music came to Anugrah during the COVID-19 lockdown when going to concerts suddenly stopped. He and his friends started this venture to fill the void that the absence of real concerts left in cultural space, and have tried to present Carnatic music in a new and refreshing way to listeners online, through Minna Minni.
They plan to release a new episode each Friday. “We want to bring different views, artists, languages including different dancers to visually represent the artform. We are bringing all kinds of artists, and involving some youngsters who can bring their own talent to the music,” he said.
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