photo by: boboguitar
Music is one magical healing to everyone in stress, in pain, in confinement and in anxiety. Ask anyone about his hobby and you will get to hear music included in it, in one or the other way. Music is one art which is a respectful and is loved by all. The music could be of many types but the soul of the music is –the Classical Music. Based on this is an interesting community on the social networking site Orkut.com. The community has membership of above 16000 and the name obviously is Classical Music. It’s rigidly about western classical music and ranges from medieval to modern form of the same.
Frank Moore is the honorable present owner of the community who got the ownership in August 2006. Eric Chang founded and created the community on January 28th 2004, but out of his busy schedule could not really maintain it properly causing the community to become a victim of SPAM and absenteeism. Attrition of members was increasing and Frank and another member Dr. Pilha along with some other members were trying hard to keep the community active at that point of time. The community is one of the oldest at Orkut and Frank is continuously working towards making it more active, though it has a fine group of active members who are also highly clued-up. I am here not giving more details about Frank because our readers are already aware of this gentlemen as he is interviewed by zazo also.
The community talks about the Classical Music in Western Tradition. Technically western classical music has mainly the periods of Baroque, Classic, and Romantic movements but Frank has widened the definition for the community to include Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern work also, which follows a serious composition. The demography of community says, the majority of members are Brazilian and Indian. However it also has some active members from Estonia, Paraguay, Pakistan, China, Iran, Italy etc.
It’s so pleasant to see people from different part of the world participate so actively for something which is not even a part of their culture and tradition. It speaks about itself that how enriching is the western classical music, that people who have their own rich and extensive cultural and traditional classical music, like India are so full of zip on the community. “Brazilians also seem more attuned to Classical Music, and especially Opera, than do most people I meet in the US.” adds Frank to the context.
Its evident that, no matter what is the present face of music all over the world, there still exist a big and large segment of people who are hard core classical music lovers and do not really appreciate the add ups to the originality. It seems as if young generation is heading towards such a field of music which has lesser dignity, richness and quality. One of the reasons for this could be the non inclusion of music as a part of educational curriculum for the younger generation. But Frank hopes that there will always be a segment of society which will either be, as he was, raised with Classical Music, or are adventurous enough to discover it on their own as they mature. In respect of this topic there are some discussions also held on the community. The thread title for which is ‘Is classical music dying?’ and another interesting thread for the new comers on classical Music is, ‘(Recommended Work) Classical Music for Newcomers.’ Members get all the news and help related to the classical music, be it buying of a violin or a help someone needs to find a song urgently. There are special threads, where members can submit their own compositions and could get a review about it from the others. If a member wants to prepare for any competition, all others willingly support him and help him in his preparations. In one word it is one of the best virtual places for music passionate to actively participate and learn and educate themselves.
A very interesting thread among all the others which I found very appealing and most popular among the community members was ‘The classical music quiz’. You can find really challenging questions here and is the only game thread which is considered, other than this there could be no game thread as the community follows its guidelines rigidly. Frank attributes the success of the community to its highly dedicated team of moderators, Dr.Pilha, Eric, and Apollo. Apart from good work of moderators, Frank also says,” We try to not be stuffy, and welcome everyone, no matter how familiar, or not, they may be with Classical Music. We do, however, restrict what content is permissible. “. I believe that is one important reason for this community to be so resourceful and unique from all others of its kind.
When asked about his favorite classical music artist, Frank says,
“Ah! A loaded question. Difficult to give just one name, as they are highly specialized, and just as with asking me to name my favorite composition, it often depends on my mood. But just to pick a few particular instruments:
Piano: Artur Rubinstein; Claudio Arrau
Violin: Yitzhak Perlman; Anna Sophie Mutter
Cello: Mistislav Rostropovich; Yo-Yo Ma
Well, at this point one thing I want to mention which will say all about what I consider this community is, “Thank You Frank!” thank you so much for providing the music lovers like me, such a wonderful platform and a clean virtual place where being a music passionate I got to learn so many things, and I know all my readers will definitely benefit themselves from such a great community.
{ 1 comment }
Good community. moreover a nice article