When the great Indian musician Tansen was asked why his Guru sage Swami Haridas was a more proficient musician than himself, he famously answered; ‘ I sing at the court of great Kings, but my Guru sings in solitude to the Greatest King of All.’ This story is often told to illustrate the importance of introspection, finding a certain zone or connection within oneself from which music can flow. I have been thinking about this remark a lot in the last few months.
The last concert I performed was on my birthday, the 10th of March, in a crowded temple in Amritsar for a Holi-themed classical music festival. The temple hall was filled with an engaged and enthusiastic audience. With my first note ‘wah’ sounded from one of the famous Wadali brothers from the front row. It was a wonderful evening. Little did I realise that this would be the last applause and interaction with an audience I received for a long time. We are a family of musicians and we breathe through music. My husband is sitar maestro Shubhendra Rao, a direct disciple of Ravi Shankar who grew up playing sitar in a family of musicians. I grew up in the Netherlands in a family immersed in music as well. I started the cello when I was 7 and during my studies at the conservatory, changed direction to Indian Classical music on the cello. Our son Ishaan has imbibed both musical cultures since day 1 of his life. He would feel restless when we would not travel for some time even as a 3 year-old and would ask when we’d go on an airplane again! He is 15 years old now and growing as a pianist. Our home is always filled with music. But an artist needs an audience as well. Unfortunately the ways to describe a good audience in normal times sounds like a potential Coronavirus hotspot: ‘a packed audience’, ‘people sitting in the aisles’ ‘the auditorium was filled to the brim’. Not possible right now. All concerts are cancelled for the foreseeable and perhaps not-so-foreseeable future. So, like everyone else, we too are at home. Practice is always wonderful and our way to strengthen ourselves. All three of us start our day practicing for at least 3 hours, Ishaan usually longer. After a good practice, we are ready for everything else. The crushing reality of the outside world can enter our home through the filter of our computer screen.
Apart from performing, Shubhendra and I run a music education curriculum to connect children with Indian classical music in a fun and meaningful way. Sangeet4All. When we are not practicing music or performing, we work on this. We are passionate about bringing music, especially Indian classical music, to children so they can benefit from having music in their lives the way we and Ishaan did. The feedback has been very rewarding. The responses I receive from parents and children makes all the hard work worth it!
Sangeet4All started with 15 girls in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Delhi in 2014. The Sangeet4All program runs in 18 schools in the NCR, Gujarat and Punjab to the great satisfaction of parents, teachers and schools alike apart from the many outreach programs we conduct.
After I returned from my concert in Amritsar and realised that the virus could change the way we teach music for some time, I created online lesson plans for all the schools and now the Sangeet4All team can teach an entire music program online! Sure, the online medium has its own drawbacks--- you cannot sing at the same time at different locations because of the slight delay on any platform, but listening skills, musical mindfulness, concept building and musical storytelling are super effective. At this time we have to look at the positives and CAN’S rather than the negatives and CANNOT’S. It takes all our effort to take schools with us, since it is new to them too and they rather focus on maths, science and English---the ‘real’ subjects, over some frivolous music activities. I feel this is a huge mistake. It is music, that gives children not only peace of mind, but gives a window to all learning.
Unfortunately arts education is often misunderstood and neglected as a subject. It is laudable that music is supposed to finally be a part of the curriculum in schools in India, but unfortunately most schools have no idea of what to do in terms of curriculum planning. Music teachers come from traditional music families without any idea of the subject music education or are otherwise trained as performing musicians. There are perfectly planned music programs available in India: the Irish national curriculum, Royal school of music London, The Finnish curriculum, that schools turn to in their attempts to correct this, but in these imported programs there is no connection with India or Indian music. I met someone who was selling the Kodaly method to schools with songs from North America. In my understanding, Kodaly was keen on children learning music that is culturally appropriate for them and high quality classical music to immerse themselves in. In Sangeet4All we try to honour this beautiful principle. When we translate the Kodaly approach to the Indian scenario, we get nursery rhymes in Hindi, or other Indian languages since there are over 27 official languages in India, Indian folk music. And we get Indian classical music, a music tradition that can pride itself on a 3000 year old musical treasure trove. Indian music, North Indian and South Indian classical music is the music from the ancient temples, the Mughal courts and Sufi saints. It is the classical music of the concert stage in India. That is where we wanted to make a change: to provide children with music education that is culturally relevant, well planned and is fun for children AND teachers.
I have divided the program in 6 units, each with their own children’s’ book, lesson plans and teacher training. The units are: Dhwani, which means sound and opens children up to the wonders of sound around them and within them. Vadya, which means musical instrument. It is the story of Tara the Sitar who lives with her family of string instruments in Vadya. We are currently creating the soundtrack, stage producton and animated film for Vadya. In Raga and Tala two children travel to the land of the ragas and meet the personifications of these Ragas. In Desi the same children travel around India and connect with the rich tradition of folk music in India. Duniya means world and is the next unit. This book is about world music from an Indian music perspective. The reader travels around the world with Surya, Urvashi and Azim. They meet Gerald Wirth, current director of the Viennese boys’ choir, Bassidi Kone, master Balafone and Dejembe player from Mali, Gao Hong, Pi’pa player from China and Freddie Bryant, guitarist and composer from Manhattan. But: in the book they meet these great artists as children in the process discovering their music and the musician within them. The last unit is Shastra. Shastra means revealed knowledge or science. The book is about Indian music history from the Vedas until music from the Indian film industry and the many styles and genres that are in use today. We also developed special versions, methods and notations for the Indian straight flute, Bansi, the ukulele and developed a new instrument: the Swartarang. Apart from this young learners program, we work with music teachers to set up their choirs and orchestras. Please write to us if you are interested to involve your students in a (digital) exchange program. We also help senior students and volunteers set up their own community choirs with ‘Sa Re Gayein ‘ (which means ‘let’s sing together, but also involves the names of the first three note names of Indian music, Sa, Re , Ga). We had volunteers from the UK, Australia and the US to work with various NGO’s here in India as well working on instrumental music and orchestras. To learn from experts across the globe has always provided us with invaluable insights to grow our program.
In my research I settled on seven pillars on which we base our content, lesson planning and assessment model. These are Voice training, Rhythm development, Concept building, Listening Skills, Musical literacy, Musical behaviour and Instrument playing. Each of these are worthy of deep research and reflection. In our Voice training, we use as vocal warm-ups Indian techniques of chanting, yogic breathing combined with ragas and songs from India. We follow a bilingual approach, as many schools in India do: Hindi and English. It is a continuing job to ensure that more and more children have access to their musical cultural heritage and to convince policy makers to do it in a structured, well-planned manner. Especially now.
So there we are. It is March 2020. No concerts. Schools closed. Something else needed to happen! We needed to rethink our lives, press some reboot buttons and take the leap of faith that all will be well again in some time. We firmly believe in the principle ‘so you sow so shall you reap’ and decided to help others who were in far, far more difficult circumstances than we are. We decided to organize a benefit concert for health workers and migrant workers. Thanks to the support of all the artists that performed, we were able to raise a good amount of money for them. Apart from that, we engage with many other wonderful inititiatives that artists and organizations take to help the world around us. It is heart warming to see this and we participate almost daily in these efforts that unite our communities.
With our Sangeet4All Facebook page, we have organized an online music competition for children and over 60 children have already posted their talent. There are some brilliant young singers and some budding musicians who display a lot of enthusiasm, but most of all: they all love music. It is wonderful to see them enjoy their music. These children embody the thought that Shubhendra and I always kept as our leading theme: music is the birthright of every child.
In the same spirit, we now conduct online music summer camps and online music school. It is a modest, small start with 15 children divided in different groups. But music cannot stop. We are also looking forward to be with our students again. Until that day, we have to make the best of what is possible. The good news is that the online medium does open up all geographic boundaries. I am very happy to announce that we are starting Sangeet4All in the US, Europe and Australia this summer as well. We have seen that many children, parents and teachers around the world are looking for quality resources about different musical cultures and that Indian music in terms of rhythm, voice culture and musical mindfulness has a lot to offer to everyone. Our wonderful team is ready to ensure a wonderful summer for all the children that sign up and share the screen to learn about the musical adventures in the Land of the Ragas of Surya, Azim and Urvashi, the main characters of the books. When that musical imagination takes flight, we go back to a simpler reality of childlike innocence. This kind of peace is something we all can use.
So, I have learned many lessons and continue to learn from these challenging times. An artist without audience is forced to introspect to find that audience within oneself.
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