Mavrix

Tag: music

  • Tag Search – Hindi Film Songs Based On Raaga

    In the last post, I talked about a new feature on MySwar to search for Hindi film songs featuring specified musical instruments. In this post, I talk about looking for songs based on the usage of raagas. I have only superficial knowledge of Indian classical music and raagas. I did, however, have an inkling that very…

  • Tag Search – Hindi Film Songs Based On Musical Instruments

    We added two parameters in the Tag Search feature of MySwar – Raaga and Instruments. I’ll talk more about Raaga in another post. In this post, I’ll focus on the ability to look for songs based on the musical instruments used in them. The Instrument Tag Search allows users to search for songs containing a…

  • Hindi Film Songs Based On Lyrical Theme

    We added a new Tag Search feature on MySwar a few weeks ago. We have now introduced a new search attribute in it. You can now look for songs based on their lyrical theme. MySwar currently classifies each song under one of the following themes: Baby Shower, Birthday, Brother-Sister, Brothers, Celebration, Character, Children, Christmas, Dance,…

  • Tag Search Improvements

    We made a couple of improvements to Tag Search: Go to MySwar, login and try out Tag Search if you haven’t already.

  • Tag Search on MySwar – New Feature

    MySwar stores many musical attributes of every song in its database. These attributes were documented painstakingly by listening to each song. Most of these attributes or tags have not been visible to MySwar users thus far. That has changed now.  The new Tag Search feature allows users to search songs based on their musical attributes.…

  • Hindi Cinema Bridges The North-South Divide

    [This is an excerpt from the e-book BollySwar: 1951 – 1960. It may not be reproduced elsewhere.] Cinema helped bridge the divide between the North and the South through a combination of dubbed films, remakes and inspired songs. By and large, Hindi films portrayed South Indian characters as stereotypical “Madrasis” with outlandish accents but they…

  • New Feature to Extract MySwar Data

    A significant number of MySwar users are not just music lovers but also data/analytical geeks. While they enjoy MySwar for the level of detail it provides and the many ways in which it allows them to explore Hindi film music, many have expressed an interest in extracting information from our database so that they can…

  • Text Search Feature – Now On MySwar

    Films, songs and artists are the most important elements in the MySwar database and so these are the elements that drive the existing search functionality on MySwar. This search feature, along with the powerful Advanced Search and Browse features, serves the needs of most users on MySwar. However, other data elements on MySwar have remained relatively inaccessible to users. Among…

  • Madan Mohan’s Story In 5 Songs

    You may think it odd, but when I think of Madan Mohan, I can’t help but think about the parallels between his career and R.D. Burman’s. Both Madan Mohan and R.D. Burman had to work hard to grow out of their fathers’ shadows. R.D. Burman’s lineage is well known. What isn’t known well is the…

  • Music Directors Who Sang For Other Music Directors

    This post documents the work of music directors who have sung Hindi film songs for other music directors. I’ve limited the scope of this exercise by considering only those music directors who meet the following criteria: As a result, I’m not including artists like Shankar Mahadevan, Hemant Kumar and Vishal Dadlani who are music directors…