Web portal ‘MoUSICI’ launched for quality music content

Karachi

Team MoUSICI launched a web portal at the Arts Council on Friday with the aim of reviving the music industry by creating an eco-system for the creation of new and quality music content.

The web portal is the brainchild of a noted music personality and director of programmes/administration of the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa), Karachi, Arshad Mahmud. His son Hassan Mahmud and Talha Ghafoor, an IT professional, are also part of the team.

Later, talking to The News, he said he was of the strong opinion that there was no dearth of musical talent in Pakistan; all that was needed was to give patronage to the youth who had a passion for music.

Recalling his own entry into the world of music, he said that when he and his contemporaries started off, there was “mentorism”. People who were giants in the field like Nisar Bazmi took personal interest in young people and mentored them, and that helped the young people brush up and groom their talent—something which was glaringly lacking now. 

Mahmud said those were the days when television and radio recruited young talent and groomed them, even tough, by modern standards, the remuneration was very measly. But, he said, that was a time when things were dirt cheap as compared with today. He said that of his very modest earnings, he could afford to buy a car. 

He said that an ex-showroom motorbike cost just Rs1,800 in those days. “The masters of yore told us the tricks of the trade. Now, unfortunately, mentoring is not there anymore,” he lamented.

“Our website will provide the teeming local talent with a platform to showcase their talent,” he said.

Asked about the content of the matter to be presented on the website, the Napa programmes director said that it would, first and foremost, present purely indigenous compositions and indigenous music because “we have to tell the world what a lot of local talent we have”. 

In reply to a supplementary question about the telecasting of international music like classical western music, given the tremendous talent there is in the city as regards western classical music, he said that too would be given coverage because “we feel that music has no boundaries and that the world must be fully aware of our tremendous talent but first and foremost, it would be Pakistani indigenous music and compositions”.

He fully agreed with this correspondent that there were a large number of young people in town who excelled in the rendition of Mozart’s piano sonatas and Chopin’s nocturnes and Mazurkas, and said that these people too would be afforded exposure.