Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, who took Indian classical music to the West , died in San Francisco on Friday, June 17th 2009.

Often described one of as the greatest, if not the greatest Indian instrumentalist in the world, the 87-year-old ustad had many firsts to his credit. The list includes introducing classical sarod music in film scores and the western countries. He taught thousands of students from the West and set up his first institute in Kolkata in the late 1950s. He founded the Ali Akabar Khan College in Switzerland and California.The list goes on and one. According to his son, Alam Khan, in his final moments, Baba called for a Harmonium to be brought from the other room. In the circle of close friends, students and family, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan Sahab started to sing Raag Durga.Shortly after Baba left us..

Born on April 14, 1922 at Shivpur in then undivided Bengal, Ali Akbar Khan was the only son of Ustad Alauddin Khan, one of India’s greatest musicians and teachers. He grew up in the princely state of Maihar under the watchful eyes of his father, a strict disciplinarian, Baba Alauddin Khan Sahab. He had to start riyaaz at dawn and practise for several hours till he was allowed to eat.

You can now bowse mehfiltube Indian classical music video content, by choosing the appropriate raag according to the time in you location.While it is far from optimized (tagging) it will definitely put out more content soon. I have to optimize the tags. I will do that as soon as I find some more time.Meanwhile feel free to add tags yourself, but make sure you add the right ones. Some raags have been given a number code, because the names of raags where to similar.Enjoy great Hindustani classical music at mehfiltube.





Btw, this doesn't work from within myspace because they disabled all script access.

We will make additional pages where we index all artists by name in alphbetical order, next we will list all postings by raag/thaat/taal/song name, and so on. In this way it will be more convenient to browse through the whole content at a glance. While this is a lot of work, we are also looking for volunteers/mods to help in the process. If you have some in depht knowledge of the raags and thaats and you're able to recognize all the raags used in film songs, ghazal and qawwali, it is very usefull. Contact "mehfiltube'at'gmail.com" if you are willing.

Since most search engines, including google.com, stopped ranking sites by using the meta tags you provided on your website, a lot of your search engine rankings depend upon how many other websites link back to your homepage. While these services are now being sold by professional link dealers, mehfiltube offers this service for free.If you have a video on mehfiltube, posted by you yourself or someone else, and it doesn't link back to your homepage, profile, or website, please notify us by sending us the appropiate link to the following email address to: "mehfiltube'at'gmail.com" and  please include the link to your video on mehfiltube.We will then add a "live clickable link" and we can also include some of your bio data if you provide them.This will boost your SEO (search ranking in the search engines such as google).Likewise it would make us proud and shiny, if you could link back to mehfiltube from your homepage or your " Indian classical music ressources page".In this way all of us will get more visitors.

You can watch in large by going to Mehfil Tube, underneath the old on demand player I have added a link to my other blog on blogger, to which myspace doesn't allow me to link (strange) as they also do not allow any links except to Fox News.
There you can watch it in fullscreen. Sorry for making it difficult but this isn't my doing.

 MEHFIL TV
Use this player if you got bandwidth problems with the new live stream player

Mehfil Tube has generated well over a million clicks during the last 4 years, this is a lot for an ICM site.Your music video can be on Mehfil TV too, though I recommend that you wait until the live stream version is out - It's only days away now, in fact, I already got it up and running just not embedded here yet.I think I won't update the old beta with any new videos. Anyway, you can still contact me with your ideas.Also if you feel something is not fitting, out of place or disturbing, please tell me.Your record ads can also be run, but let me introduce that at a later point.Given the nature of the world wide web, give something away for free first before you try to commercialize on it.Times have changed, even the big record companies are slowly understanding it now.Your clip will be in mono, with a pixeled resolution, so if anyone really likes your music, they will still purchase your records.About your music video: lenghth doesn't really matter, unless its too short.It should be at least 3 min and it should have a beginning and a proper ending.Though basicly, one could make a video very simple with a slide show .wmv creater like photo story 3 from microsoft, this is often not really satisfactory for the viewers, so if you do it as a slide show, please include some real moving video sequences as well (not just moving within a photo).Best would be a good recording of a program with 2 or more video cameras, sitting on a nice stage, well lit, and having caps with your name and raag at the beginning of the clip, at the end you may add credentials as well.
Software recommended:
Sony Vegas (cut and edit your videos - add effects like fade from scene to scene....etc) Shareware

Adobe After Effects (you can use it to make stunning text effects on video) Shareware

Virtual Dub (Take out the audio of any video and add another) Freeware

Adobe Audition (remix your audio files without much learning) Shareware

Super Video Joiner (Join videos of total different frame and bitrate and different formats into one new clip) Shareware

Photostory 3  (create videos from your photos, move, zoom, etc.)Freeware

All of these can be used as a trial for free and they're fully functional, some are even freeware.
There is lots of other software, but these, apart from Adobe After Effects, are all very easy to use.Note: Sony Vegas also has the fuction of adding moving flash text effects over video, so Adobe After Effects isn't really necessary if you already got Sony Vegas. A lot can also be done with windows movie maker, but I don't reommend it, if you want your clip to look professional.
One word on the genre and styles, we are a classical channel, in the future there will be less Filmi, less Qawwali less Ghazal, more Drupadh and more Khyal. I don't want this to be a Fusion channel, though we will make Fusion show, its not the Mehfil TV main focus.
We are also not a beginners amateur music channel, so submit only what is done in a professional style, be it Ghazal, Qawwali, Dhrupad or Khyal, it should be rendered nicely.Remember that this channel is also watched by many other musicans!Do not flood me with submissions - I will only play max. three videos of any submitted artist for the start. Later, let's see. At this point, all is totaly free of charge, but I cannot promise you anything in return as well, only that your music video will be  seen by a  by a huge crowd and it might boost up your CD sales. Naturally, those who submit their videos first, will be seen repeatedly again and again in a most hypnotic manner, as we got more content, things will be more balanced, but hey, you want to know how many people watched the video of Ustad Salamat Ali Khan on Mehfiltube? More then 10.000 views, and it was only vup and  running since July 2008.You decide if you want to be that person or not.If you are very shy, better wait until there is more content.Meanwhile I will update the all new Mehfil TV with the old playlist, so we got some content to start with.The new Mehfil TV stream, will also have a 'grab embed code' function, so everyone who likes it can embedd it on their blogs or websites, with the differenceof being a real 24/7 live streaming channel, you will, however, not be able to jump clips and watch those at the end first......its going to be marvellous!

Pm me if you got questions

This site has a range from being serious to semi-serious, incl. light serious, at times reaching plain sillyness......enjoy!