www.hamaracd.com -- Music at your fingertips

Aarati Krishnan

HAVE you ever shelled out a fancy price for a CD just because you like a couple of songs in it?

Or rummaged through scores of pre-recorded cassettes and CDs without finding that one Mohammed Rafi song you like? Or listened to a sound track from an old tamil movie which you die to own, but could not track down in any music shop? If you are a music lover who has had the above experiences, then Hamaracd.com could just be the answer to your prayer.

HMV, trademark of the Gramaphone Company of India, is a familiar name to music lovers in India because of its rich repertoire of film music. HMV has now made its music archives available on the Net. Hamaracd.com, owned by the Gramaphone Company of India, offers the novel concept of a customised CD.

CDs tailormade to your taste

The site allows you to pick the songs you would like to own from the collection online, and have them recorded in a single CD. It also allows you to listen to the selected songs online (through Realplayer or other music software) to help you decide. The greatest advantage of hamaracd is its flexibility. For instance, in a single CD, you can combine a couple of Hindi and Tamil film numbers, a thillana from Nithyashree, a flute performance by Hariprasad Chaurasia and a bhajan by M. S. Subbulakshmi!

The company charges Rs 375 per customised CD and you pay through credit card online or through a cheque mailed to the company's address. The company offers to ship the CD to you free of charge, anywhere within India. Usually, each pre-recorded CD costs between Rs 250 and Rs 275. However, considering that investing in hamaracd allows you to pick and choose just the songs of your choice (without forcing you to buy music you do not have a taste for), the premium may be worth it.

Apart from the songs which go into the CD, you can also pick the sequence in which you would like the songs recorded and design the CD cover (you have a choice of designs from the design library on the site) and title. This makes customised CD a good gift.

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What is available

Unlike other music sites such as the rediff music shop or the Gramaphone Company's other site, Saregama.com, which feature music from different labels and recording companies, this site offers only songs to which HMV owns the reproduction rights. This limits the range of songs and the type of music available on the site.

While old Hindi film buffs may find that the site is a veritable treasure trove of rare melodies from Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhonsle and the like, connoisseurs of classical Carnatic and Hindustani music may not find the range available on this site comprehensive enough.

A search on site for songs by the famous carnatic classical singer, Maharajapuram Santhanam, for instance, yielded just 15 songs. The site does not feature western music, either classical or pop. Music from other regional language films (Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati) is also conspicuous by its absence. Similarly, as a number of the film songs in the 1990s have been produced by labels other than HMV, many of the newer Tamil and Hindi films do not feature.

Using the site

Though the site features over 12,000 songs, selecting the right song from the site could be difficult unless you are very specific in your requirements. The Home page lists five categories you can choose from -- Hindi films, Tamil films, Ghazals, Carnatic-Classical and Hindustani-Classical. But clicking on one of these, leads you to a sketchy description of the fare on offer in that module. If you expect a comprehensive listing of all the songs available here, classified by singer, song or film, you are likely to be disappointed. A better way to get to the song listings is through the search module on site.

Zooming in on your songs

The site offers two search facilities -- a Quick search that allows you to zoom in on a specified song or an Advanced search which allows you to browse through listings in order to make your selection. After deciding on which kind of music you prefer, the Quick Search allows you to find songs based on any two of five search criteria -- singer, film, film artiste, music director or title.

Therefore, you can use quick search to find all the songs sung by Kishore Kumar in a movie, say, Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi. Or you can use the quick search to find a specific song by typing in its first line. Since the search engine is based on phonetics and is programmed to ferret out similar sounding words, the search usually yields satisfactory results even if you have misspelt a word or two in the song title.

But if you have not made up your mind on the singer, music director, film artiste and so on, you need to route your query through the Advanced search. The Advanced search module is differently structured for different categories. The Advanced search module on film music allows users to choose songs based on lyricist, theme (romantic, philosophical, etc.) and mood (happy, sad etc.), apart from the above criteria. You can use this facility to list all sad songs sung by Mohammed Rafi or all the romantic songs composed by A. R. Rehman, and so on. The advanced search on classical music includes criteria such as vocal/ instrumental, the raga, composer, language, Deity, and composition type.

Ordering

After choosing songs for a duration of 60 minutes, you add them to your CD and fill in the order form. The site allows you to pay through credit card, or cheque. Hamaracd.com promises to ship the CDs within seven days in the case of credit card payment. If payment is through local cheque mailed to the company, shipping is promised within seven business days after the cheque is cleared. Hamaracd.com does not offer a cash on delivery option, which is usual with other online music stores. Payment in all cases is required in advance.

Special features

The site offers few special features too. The Kutcheri Wizard, allows a novice to create a Carnatic Kutcheri on a CD from the tracks available online. The Kutcheri Wizard suggests the sequence of songs in a typical Carnatic music recital (Varnam, followed by a Ganesh Krithi, Krithi, Thukkada, Thillana and finally, Thirupugazh) and throws up suitable songs in each stage, so that you can formulate a kutcheri CD with the songs chosen. The site also offers a few standard combinations of songs to suit different occasions. `I Miss You' songs, Birthday songs, Children's songs and Classical songs from Hindi films are some of the packages on offer. However, the list of such special categories is very limited and can do with some enlargement.

The missing element

What the site lacks is a comprehensive catalogue of all the songs available in each category, at one place. Though the search facility is quite efficient, a user on his first visit to the site would probably like to be led immediately to a list of songs available in each category (say, Hindi films, Tamil films, Carnatic music, Hindustani music and Ghazals). The lists can probably be made available singer-wise in each of the above categories.

Once a user gets to the lists, he can be allowed to use the search facility to filter these lists based on other search criteria such as film, director or artiste. Each of the sections (on Hindi Films, Tamil Films and so on) could also do with better structure. Right now, the information on offer is each of the sections is piecemeal. For instance, a user who follows the Tamil films link from the home page is led to a page featuring information and links to music by maestros such as M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar, Vishwanathan and Ramamurthy, Ilayaraja and A. R. Rehman. But a visitor looking for anything else has to get back to the search facility.

The site could definitely do with a larger repertoire of classical music, regional film music and inclusion of categories such as Indi-pop. Saregama.com, the site on which HMV sells pre-recorded CDs and cassettes is better structured and features music from non-HMV labels as well.