What Ganesh Kumaresh can learn from Snarky Puppy

The grammy nominated Snarky Puppy recently caught my eye. When it comes to music, I learned classical violin for some years, but I admittedly feel that I cannot notice technical aspects the same way I do with classical dance...or dance in general. It's easier for me to marvel at a musician's emotional content because I'm not dismayed by their technical (or lack thereof) prowess.

However, even I noticed the incredible, incredible Lalah Hathaway when she sang this song and had to share:

The best is watching the incredulous reactions of the bandmates as they play with Lalah. At about 6 minutes this video becomes not just an incredible example of jazz but a feat of the human body as she sings chords with her voice. The best is watching the drummer literally fall off his chair around 6:20.



My only connection to Indian classical music here is that I feel the same way about the music that the incredible violin duo Ganesh Kumaresh creates as I do about this video. Those two are doing just groundbreaking stuff and the output is music that makes your heart race. So why do the videos on YouTube of Ganesh Kumaresh only have a few thousand hits?

So I did some research - and I couldn't find them on Facebook, or with any proper videos on YouTube and I am incredibly disappointed. To me, artists like Ganesh Kumaresh have mega starpower - talent that is taking music to new places. And clearly, they are successful artists who should be able to afford some level of outside help to manage them. Yet, their lack of use of not just social media but marketing/branding/etc is not just sad to me because they could be utilizing their raw materials better - but just the simple act of creating HD video for YouTube or maybe even trying something a bit different like those music videos I shared last would do wonders for the Indian classical arts scene as a whole. Ignoring the resources we have to do more, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, don't just help upcoming artists break into the scene.

Utilizing those resources properly - putting in the time and effort to make these things a proper part of your marketing platform, allows us (the Indian arts scene as a whole) to be more present to larger crowds of people. And when you have a talent like these two - to not take advantage of this is almost criminal to the arts scene overall.

Take a look below: