Musical Nirvana

About

       About
       The Birth
       Site Contents
       Frequently Asked Questions
       Credits
       Legal Stuff
       Privacy Policy
       Contact

About MusicalNirvana

Musical Nirvana aspires to be the most comprehensive site about Indian classical music, both North Indian (Hindustani) and south Indian (Carnatic). Light classical in the form of Ghazals are also covered. Musical Nirvana is meant for everyone who is interested in Indian classical music and as far as possible, profiles, reviews and descriptions are written at a simple, non-technical level.

So what does Nirvana mean anyway ?

Nirvana n. (sanskrit) :
    1. enlightenment, tranquillity and peace, ultimate reality, salvation, liberation
    2. transcendent state of freedom
    3. a state in which all living things are free from pain and sorrow
    4. real and unchanging essence

The Birth

This site was born in 2000, mainly to address a couple of problems. Whenever I wanted to buy an Indian Classical CD, I used to search for reviews and recommendations on the web. I would rarely find reviews. So I had to buy and test out myself, as to how good the music and the recordings are. Indian classical music being improvisation based, many a time the same artist can be extremely good on one cd and just average on the other. Also the recording and mastering quality varies widely. Secondly, when I search on the net for information on Indian music or artists, invariably half the sites are broken, either because of disuse on free webhosts or the student has moved out of the university which hosted the site. I already had a small home page with my list of recommended CDs for all my online audiophile friends. I decided to turn that into a bigger site which would have a large discography, review CDs and rate them. Also I started compiling general music and artist information off the web. I thought it was a good idea to combine discography and artist profiles. So, Musical Nirvana was born.

Now, it is much broader in scope than just that. You can add your reviews (and see others reviews) of CDs. I hope to build a large collection of reviews for everyone's benefit. Also, I'm trying to make it a complete information site, about theory and history of ICM, music personalities, instruments and everything else connected with ICM. The ICM Portal classifies all ICM sites which have information that this site does not.

Also I wanted to make a site that does not have ugly banners with crawling ads. So, the site will remain banner-free and not-for-profit, inspite of numerous offers I continue to receive.

Site Contents

Basics

Read about 3,500 years of historical development of all genres of Indian classical music - from origin during the Vedic period to modern day. Learn about the basics of ICM - Swara, Scales, Raaga, Time & Rhythm, Taala, Compositions and structure of concerts. Reference the list of Hindustani and Carnatic raagas with their characteristics. Refer to the classical Glossary or Urdu Dictionary.

Artists

Discover everything you wanted to know about your favourite artists, with music clips, profiles, discography, articles, reviews, images and important links.

CDs

A large searcheable database of 1000s of CDs including title, artists, contents, labels, reviews and ratings. Read others opinions and also share your opinion about any album. Search by artists, labels, ratings or Raaga ! Top online stores to buy CDs are indepently reviewed.

Composers

Learn all about great Carnatic and Hindustani composers - their profiles, articles on them and their most important compositions. Also all about Urdu poets and their most famous ghazals.

Instruments

Learn about the instruments used in Carnatic and Hindustani classical music and their most famous exponents.

Reviews

New content is fequently added to the site - including specials and full length CD reviews. So, check back often.

Credits

I have taken most of the material on this web site from various web sites and liner notes on the CDs I have. Where ever possible I have noted the source of information. I'm thankful to the creators of all these web sites. I'm also thankful to some of my friends for gathering information on many artists. Mr Muralidhar has kindly let us use some of the photos. Information on ragas is taken from the liner notes of the excellent The Raga Guide cd set and from toronto gharana site. I have taken the list of ghazals penned by various poets mostly from UrduPoetry . Discography is compiled from the catalogs of two well known CD online retailers, Khazana and Shrimati's.