Business is music here
SUGANTHY KRISHNAMACHARI
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These are places the learned and the learners flock to.
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Photo: K.V. Srinivasan
GREAT ARRAY: At Saptaswara Musicals.
There is the sound of music all around you as you enter. A youngster is strumming the guitar tentatively. Another is gently tapping on a mridangam. A middle-aged gentleman is plucking at the strings of a tambura.
Welcome to Saptaswara Musicals, shop that sells musical instruments. Started in 1979 in just 200 square feet of space, the business has grown and the shop now has a variety of instruments displayed on 3,000 square feet.
There are veenas from Thanjavur, cups used for jalatarangam, nagaswarams, morsings from Dindigul and Rajapalayam, mridangams for which the wood is procured from Panrutti, pianos, keyboards with a pitch bender for Carnatic music, and many other instruments.
Why did Mr. Lal, proprietor, choose this business? "My love for music," he says, a passion that his son Nikhil has inherited. Nikhil gives keyboard and guitar demos to potential customers. They have detachable veenas, which are popular with those living abroad. Geetha Bennett buys veenas here for her students, and in fact the first detachable veena was sold to her. Professionals from the IT sector and students of IIT are regular customers. Branches in other cities and online transactions are on the anvil. The shop undertakes repair of instruments bought from them.
Favourite haunt
This is a shop where you could bump into Eero Hameenniemi, Finnish composer and founder of the NADA ensemble, which together with Karaikkudi Mani's Srutilaya produced enjoyable fusion music.
Or you would probably see Ludwig Pesch, flautist, author of the book "Raga Dhana," and co-founder of Sampradaya. Or you might see Harold Powers, musicologist, who was lucky to make his debut at the Tiruvaiyaru Tyagaraja Aradhana in 1955.
All of these people visit the Karnatic Music Book Center, Royapettah, when they are in Chennai.
This bookshop was started in 1978 by T.S.Krishnamurthy, with his brother Balasubramaniam joining in later.
There are two knowledgeable assistants to help those visiting the shop. One of them is M.B. Sreemannarayanan, who has a post graduate degree in music. The other is Lalitha Devi, a disciple of veena exponent Vidya Shankar.
The shop has a website and membership to their mailing list is free. They plan to start a newsletter.
The shop has ambitious plans. One of them is to complete the Carnatic music dictionary of Prof. Sambamurthy, with the help of music scholars. They plan to bring out books on Tamil padams, and anthologies of Marimutha Pillai and Muthutandavar. Music magazines such as Sruti and Samudra, and dance journals such as Pulse, a quarterly published in London, are available here.
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