Communicating, Learning, Social Change through Music

Communicating through music How do musicians convey their thoughts in their own inimitable manner? With the sounds of the violin, mridangam, nadhaswaram and thavil, five musicians express the reflection of the human spirit on various themes from gender roles, pandemic blues to caste oppression in a lovely musical Rise. The production was commissioned by the cultural organization Dhvani.

Learning through music The power of lyrics in a song can be transcendental for the listener as I've discussed in this article for The Hindu. Just as song lyrics impact listeners with their relevance in daily lives, a new musical genre introduced in simple words can make a huge difference to students which I learnt from my presentation on carnatic music at Northeastern.

Social Change through music In his poem Ekla Cholo Re the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore exhorts us to continue in our journey even if the path is lonely. Music can be an agent of change in social and cultural evolution and TM Krishna's The Edict Project, a musical interpretation of the ancient Mauryan emperor Ashoka's edicts on justice, equality and governance recalls what Tagore had spoken about a century earlier.