Musical instruments hit high note amid pandemic | Economic Times

Nine months ago, Nitu Gautam, an orthodontist based in Bhubaneswar, picked up the ukulele to calm her flaming nerves in the middle of a raging pandemic. A few weeks into her lessons, she could play Johnny Cash’s “You’re my sunshine”. “I chose the ukulele because I wanted to learn an easy musical instrument. It turned out to be life-changing,” she says.Gautam is not alone. Last year, when Indians hunkered down at home during the lockdown, some bought ukuleles to bring a few strains of music into their secluded lives. According to industry sources, the sales of ukes outdid acoustic guitars and keyboards to become arguably the most popular musical instrument in the country. “We were selling over 600 ukuleles and 400 guitars every day on our platform,” says Siddharth Jhunjhunwala, CEO of Kadence, a leading western musical instruments brand.The four-stringed ukulele is easy to learn, say beginners like Gautam. The more adventurous among them even venture to declare that it takes just 10 minutes to pick up the ukulele’s basics, 10–12 hours to get the chords right and 30-minutes-aday practice for six months to master it. Ukulele, which is at the heart of Hawaiian music and is believed to have been brought to the island by Portuguese immigrants in the 19th century, has provided the sound track of locked down lives in the year of the pandemic. It is not just the ukes. 81727247 While some bought guitars and keyboards to cultivate a new hobby, several others — who had learnt playing instruments years ago, but had given up practising due to paucity of time — went back to playing their old notes on newly acquired musical instruments. The age of work-from-home — which continues for a large section of people in the organised sector — has boosted the sales of musical instruments across the country. “This year was our best in terms of sales. We will end this year booking a turnover of Rs 75 crore as against Rs 30 crore last fiscal,” says Jhunjhunwala. “The entire pie of those wanting to learn music has grown over the past one year. Demand for guitars, ukes and other western instruments is still high. Our annual sales are just 10% less than the record numbers we posted in the early quarters of this fiscal,” he adds.However, there is a catch. The demand surge is only visible for retailers of western musical instruments. Manufacturers and dealers of classical Indian musical instruments have been severely impacted due to Covid restrictions. The shutdown of schools and colleges, music festivals, entertainment events, concerts and recording studios has halved the sales of those who retail Indian classical musical instruments. Barring the sitar, which is made in fewer numbers and is mostly exported, all categories of Indian musical instruments shrank this year, say retailers. 81727266“Retailers who had ecommerce channels did well. Most Indian classical instrument manufacturers do not have an online presence — and so they lost out on a big opportunity,” says Ashutosh Pande, founder of Bajaao.com, a prominent retailer that logged great sales.“Another reason for Indian instruments not doing well is the fact that there wasn’t much online teaching happening in this segment through the year. Barring online vocal music classes, teachers of classical Indian instruments — some of whom are elderly — did not switch over to online classes when lockdown restrictions were imposed. Many of them could not see how they could teach a complex instrument online,” adds Pande.The musical instruments’ manufacturing and retailing industry in India — worth over Rs 1,000 crore currently — is dependent on learners, hobbyists and professional musicians. Most dilettantes settle for low-priced instruments. “India is strong in vocal music training, but lags woefully behind when it comes to learning musical instruments. The good news is that this trend is slowly changing. People are now starting to learn various musical instruments,” says Joseph Gomes, a director at Furtados Music, one of the largest retailers of musical instruments in India. 81727269 “This year was challenging but we booked good sales in some categories such as guitars and ukuleles. There’s demand for keyboards as well. The trend of imparting music lessons online has helped us significantly,” he adds.But online lessons were mostly available for students learning Indian vocal music or western musical instruments. Providers of online music education saw their student roster grow long. Furtados School of Music (FSM), founded by Tanuja Gomes and Dharini Upadhayay, has enrolled more than 10,000 new students across all age-groups for online music lessons in the past year. FSM, which operates seven teaching centres and has partnered with over 150 private schools, has 1.5 lakh students on its rolls. “When the lockdown was imposed, several schools discontinued their music lessons; just about 50 schools continued with their programmes in the online mode,” says Upadhayay. “Luckily for us, we were ready with our online teaching aids and content. We had tried launching online lessons a couple of years ago, but had faced stiff resistance then.”Gomes says Covid hastened the process of digital learning. “We don’t see a lot of resistance to online music lessons now. Also, these are more convenient for students as they can cut down on the travel time,” she says. “Going ahead, we will see the emergence of a hybrid model where students will learn music both online and on-campus.”East vs WestWhile the future looks bright for western musical instruments, prominent dealers of Indian musical instruments have started hitting modern distribution channels to lift their sales. Indian instruments are mostly handmade (and made-to-order in many cases), bulky and fragile. This makes shipping of these instruments extremely difficult. 81727300 Take the case of a medium-quality sitar, which could cost Rs 25,000-30,000; now to transport a sitar made in Kolkata to Mumbai, one has to spend Rs 6,000-8,000. If the sitar has to be sent to the US, the shipping charges could be as high as Rs 35,000. “This is why tourism is critical for the music industry,” says Ashish Diwane, a partner at Mumbai-based Haribhau Vishwanath Musical Industries, which specialises in Indian classical instruments.“A good part of our sales happen when foreign tourists or NRIs visit our shop, buy an instrument and take it back with them. We have not had any tourists over the past one year; tourist purchases between November and March account for nearly 40% of our sales. That has not happened this year,” says Diwane.The manufacturing cycle of handmade Indian musical instruments is long, going up to 60 days. The making of traditional instruments like the veena, ghatam, santoor, sarod, sarangi, tanpura and the mridangam is restricted to certain hubs in the country. Stringed instruments such as the sitar, sarod, santoor and the tanpura are made in places like Banaras, Chandigarh and the suburbs of Kolkata and Delhi. Brass bands made in Meerut and violins made in Kolkata and Rampur in Uttar Pradesh are widely acclaimed while Maharashtra is famous for its tabla and harmonium and Tamil Nadu for the veena, mridangam, ghatam, nadaswaram and the thavil. The lockdown has paused the music here.“Also, it’s not easy to teach the veena or the mridangam online; so classes are not happening anymore. Our business is severely impacted as there are no music fests or concerts now. Our clients are mostly professional musicians,” says R Venkatesan of Thanjavur-based Venkateswara Musicals, which specialises in creating the veena. It takes roughly a month for Venkatesan to make a veena from jack wood— and his buyers mostly hail from Kerala, Karnataka and other parts of Tamil Nadu. Well-made veenas have good resale value — a deciding factor for many buyers. According to Venkatesan, a good veena bought for Rs 2,000 in 1980 can now fetch over Rs 1,00,000. This past year has been bad for him: he has sold just two new veenas compared with 8-10 in the previous years. “We are surviving by repairing old instruments,” he says.Haridas Vhatkar, one of India’s best tabla makers, echoes Venkatesan. “Our clients are mostly artists. Our sales are down this year because concerts are not happening,” says Vhatkar, whose workshop is in Mahim, Mumbai. 81727304 It takes 15-20 days for Vhatkar and his two sons to make the tabla — a pair of singleheaded drums. Hard wood, leather straps and copper casing (for the baya drum) — sourced from western India — go into the making of a Vhatkar tabla. The straps used on the drums are made of buffalo leather while the “head” of the drum is made with goat skin. “We export, too, but this year, the market has been really bad for us. Our sales will go up only when professional musicians start getting work; exports will go up only when tourism resumes,” says Vhatkar.Ajay RikhiRam, proprietor of New Delhi-based Rikhi Ram Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company, says it is difficult to survive if you sell only classical Indian instruments. “From a business point of view, you need to sell both Indian and western instruments. You will also need physical and digital presence to get more customers,” he says. Physical stores are still not getting many walkins, he says, but people taking up music as a hobby during Covid has helped him immensely. “We did a lot of repairs and reconditioning of old instruments in the unlock phase. Then people wanted to buy new instruments, which helped our sales. We are still at 60-65% of pre-Covid levels. We are recovering gradually,” he adds. One Indian instrument that has withstood the Covid impact is the sitar, the sales of which are fairly stable. It takes about two months to make one sitar — and most manufacturers do just 8 to 10 every year. A good number of these are also shipped to overseas buyers.“There’s demand because accomplished musicians, rather than hobbyists, buy the sitar,” says Ratan Sen, proprietor of Hemen & Co, a Kolkata-based classical instrument manufacturer. “We have managed to ship a few sitars to our overseas customers this year,” he adds. Sitar sales have remained stable on account of a low base.Unlike the ukulele, a sitar can have up to 21 strings, and requires a lot of practice. Perhaps, it is this very effortlessness that is making the ukulele popular among young Indians in a confounding time.