Mavrix: Music + Data
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Search On MySwar
It may not be apparent to the average user (and it should not be), but the search function on MySwar is quite forgiving. It isn’t fuzzy search, but it does consider the possibility that the same Hindi word may be spelt differently by different users. This is important given that the transliteration of Hindi words into…
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International Payment Options Now Available For MySwar Subscription
Last year, we launched paid subscriptions for MySwar. Many users have enrolled to enjoy the website without ads and to explore Hindi film music more deeply, with features like Advanced Search, Text Search, Tag Search, and Filters. So far, only Indian payment options have been available for MySwar subscriptions. However, we have now activated international…
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Nostalgiaana Radio (R4) Online Shows – Part 2
[This is the second part of a series of posts about Nostalgiaana, a radio-styled show of retro Hindi film songs. Part 1.] A unique set of curated songs wowed listeners on last week’s shows. Focus continued to be on the three decades – 1950s, 1960s and 1970s – representing the *Golden Era* period of Hindi…
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Nostalgiaana Radio (R4) Online Shows – Part 1
[This is the first part of a series of posts about Nostalgiaana, a radio-styled show of retro Hindi film songs. Part 2.] Team Nostalgiaana has rekindled the Radio Nostalgia of Retro Hindi film songs through specially curated online shows, served to nearly 200 dedicated members. These shows, conducted via Zoom, now running FOR CLOSE TO…
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MySwar Gets A New Look
It has been nearly 15 years since we launched MySwar (on January 10, 2012). During this period, we have used our limited resources to build and enrich our database and roll out new features. Work on MySwar’s user experience was limited and restricted to essential updates. That has now changed – we just deployed a…
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Manna Dey – The Playback Singer Who Was Too (Classically) Good For Bollywood
Manna Dey was born Prabodh Chandra Dey on May 1 1919, in Calcutta. Growing up, he was mentored by his uncle K.C. Dey, a popular singer and composer. He also owed his solid grounding in Hindustani music to Ustad Dabir Khan. When K.C. Dey left for Bombay, young Manna accompanied him. His first break as…
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Long Career Spans In Hindi Film Music
By Vibhendu Tewari This post was triggered by discussions on the longevity of careers following Ilaiyaraaja’s recent completion of 50 years as a music composer. Career spans are vulnerable to the vagaries of time – death, illness, and changing public tastes cutting several careers short. Then, there are some late bloomers, who have shorter productive…
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How Can I Contribute To MySwar?
Every once in a while, people ask us, “How can I contribute to MySwar?” and we offer piecemeal answers each time. Of late, we have been asked this question a lot, and it makes sense for us to give a holistic answer. In most cases, the people who ask this question have already contributed or…
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MySwar Performance Issues – The Dark Side of The AI Boom
Frequent users of MySwar would have noticed a significant slowdown of MySwar as well as some erratic behaviour over the last few weeks. At the outset, let me apologize for these issues. In this blog post, I’ll talk about the root cause of the issues we’re facing and what we have been doing to address…
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Hindi Film Music Artists Known By Their Screen Names
Some music artists have never used their real names for their work in Hindi films. They adopted screen names early on in their careers and stuck with them all through. As a result, most of us know them only by their screen names. Artists adopted screen names for various reasons. Some did it to make…
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