Bengaluru is the hub of music in India. It has the maximum number of shows due to lower entertainment tax compared to other metros, at least till recently and has been called the Pub City in the past. Reading from the net on blogs and speaking people who are involved with the whole scene, I came to build a mind map of all the in information that I collected. I spoke to students in NID from Bengaluru. They all had exposure to Music and it was something that they had interest in. They told me about how the city has a mixed up culture Satchith Paulose a student of NID, also a musician showed me the scenario through the eyes of a struggling band. He told me that the music is not an open thing for anyone to come and experience. It is restricted to the select few pubs which have the permission. This strains the kind of crowd that gets exposure to what is happening. He hates it that original music is not given credit and that bands are expected to play covers to make a mark. Most bands do not go beyond college level and very few good bands still exist. They are just the lucky ones. Publicity of gigs happens through word of mouth. Every band has its fan following and its only those handful that turn up for that particular gig. It becomes a closed circuit. Bands are into neck and neck unhealthy competition. There has to be some way where the scene is turned into something positive. Band Whores as he calls them are the common musicians who play for more than their own band. So the competition takes another route. There are a lot of people passionate about music but then it dies out because of the way our society sees music as a hobby and refuse to take it seriously. It’s the perception of the society. The fact remains that the more popular bands (by chance) keep getting more popular and by no means it means that they are growing. They are still under a lot of pressure from all sides. Aditya Narayan and Hari Prasad, as fans and listeners of Music they had a different and a positive view of the Music in Bengaluru. Aditya told me that the city has changed a lot since what it used to be.
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It has grown to an extent that it has lost its Laid-Back feature. A little history input by Hari- Bengaluru was meant to be a holiday destination when Chennai (then Madras) was used as an important place to do business in the south. Apart from that the adjectives that were associated with Bengaluru were: pubescent, low contrast income bracket-wise. According to him improving public transport and promoting it is a solution to curb the 11pm-deadline in Bengaluru which is the major reason for the dampened music scene. The word about the gigs get around by word-of-mouth and facebook updates. There are a few websites but there is no such website that keeps abreast with all the information. The news about the bigger gigs are covered in papers. He said that there are very few patrons of Classical music. They are restricted to pockets of the city. The Old City seems to have more presence of the classical music with places like Ravindra Kala Kshetra, Town Hall and Chowdiah Memorial Hall hosting eminent artists. The viewers have a very wide age-range but are limited to the niche audience. Its the papers and sites like http://eventsbengaluru. com, the newspapers, Twitter and through media in various coffee outlets through which word is passed around. I met Roberto Narain from Bengaluru today. As a musician who stayed for most part of his life in Bengaluru he had a lot to tell me. Been there, Done that. almost the first line he said. First he burst my little bubble of how the music culture in Bengaluru is now. As most of the artists, he did talk about the better times that have passed.