Pedagogical techniques in Carnatic Music

Sometime around the end of last year, I decided to learn Carnatic Music. I was OK with the first few classes but things began to go out of hand from then. I was in the same class as one other person who was also a beginner. Having listened to a lot of music, my learning progressed very rapidly and at a pace the other person could not keep up with. As a result, I found myself getting bored while my teacher was trying to correct the other person. Since I had to go to India in February, I decided to abandon the idea and discontinued the classes.
On introspection, I found that there was a more fundamental problem that was causing me to get bored. My primary motivation in wanting to learn was because of the fact that I love singing a lot of songs, tanams, raga alapanas, etc. (I'm not as bad as I make out myself to be, in other posts). I can sing quite a few songs completely with sangathis, along with the artist and some by myself. Given a cue, I can sketch some ragas decently. Tanams are a pet favorite and I use them to learn different patterns in a raga.

I found it boring to sing the varisais since I had nothing to compare them to or nothing else to relate them to. If, instead, I had been taught, say Ninnu kori varnam in Mohanam, I'd have probably perfected it by now. How? Because I had at least 20 versions of Ninnu kori to listen to and learn from, apart from the fact that I loved singing it. Also, I could not extract the musical content from the varisais. I think that the varisais are a great way for a kid to learn Carnatic Music but I'm wondering if it'd work for someone like me. I'm at a stage where I, probably, cannot blindly do something because it's been done that way for centuries.

Children, when they begin to talk, learn to say words that come to them easily. By the age of 2, they are able to converse easily. They are usually taught the alphabet at the age of 3 so that they can relate them to the words they know. e.g. M,U,M,M,Y is mummy which they already know. If this order were to be reversed, my guess is that children would find it difficult to learn to talk. I should probably read more on this though.

I'm trying to apply the same logic to teaching Carnatic Music. Why do we start with sarali varisais? Why not a krithi? Why not teach the basics through the krithi or krithis? Could this be a reason why a lot of kids completely abandon CM once they enter their teenage or become adults? Are there any teachers who teach this way? How have they fared in this attempt?

Going home for vacation!!

Finally, the week has arrived!! I'm not mentioning the date here as my Dad and brother do not know the date yet. But I'll just say that I'm going to be in India next week.

It's been 3 long years away from family, friends and country. It's been so long that I've forgotten what being with family is like. I've a long list of things to do but being with my family takes priority. I foresee a hectic trip with quite a bit of travel and food and not a lot of sleep.

India, here I come!!

Song sequences…

I went to the theater after a long time to watch a movie today. The movie was Guru, directed by Mani Ratnam and starring Abhishek Bachchan. The movie itself was very great but I've a terrible problem with songs in a movie. Usually, when I watch desi movies at home, which itself is a rare occasion, I tend to skip all the songs immaterial of whether the song is good or bad. I miss having that option at the cinema and start fidgeting as soon as some stupid song starts. There should be Yes/No buttons on each seat. As soon as a song starts, the song vote button gets activated. Each person gets to vote on whether the song should continue or not within the first 10 seconds. Based on the majority, the operator decides whether to skip the song or let it continue. It might not solve my problem and maybe I'd still have to put up with the songs but at least I'd have the satisfaction of knowing that there are other people who are interested in watching the song. At the very least, it'd filter out bad songs and songs that are out of place. Hmm, no wonder my friends don't want me in a movie theater.

We speak the bad of the English

I was chit-chatting with a lady in a gas station on my way to LA and was generally enquiring about the city. While I was leaving, she said "Nothing don't close in LA".

I also happened to come across a comment while reading an article about an Indian guy who has come up with a scheme for storing 450 GB of data on a sheet of paper.

"He can store so much information, because he leaves out all the important words and grammatical conventions of standard english, like so many other Indians."

Here is the link to the article - http://itsoup.blogspot.com/2006/11/scam-of-indian-student-developing.html

Go figure!!

Here I go again !!

Over the past six months, I have developed an annoying habit. It has everything to do with this blogging fad. Anyone and everyone is blogging these days never mind the content. There are some days when I get fascinated by a blog and develop an urge to blog myself. I immediately go to the blog site, register a fancy name and start blogging. That's it and then I forget all about it. I figure I have done this six to eight times now. That's so Sripathi!! :-D. Hope I can maintain this blog on a regular basis.

Though it's nice to blog your thoughts and experiences, it's a time-consuming process. It requires a lot of effort and I feel that I could be doing something more useful. But I have come to recognize that it might be of some help. For one thing, if I get angry at someone, I could rant here rather than shouting at them. Of course, I should refrain from publishing those blogs. Could be an useful stress reliever. :-)

Right now, I'm at Herbert Hoover Theatre, San Jose CA. I volunteer for South India Fine Arts, a non-profit organization that organizes Carnatic concerts here in the Bay Area. We are currently conducting a two-day music festival comprising of Bay Area artists and a few artists from India. I'm a Carnatic Music fanatic and one of the first things I did after coming to the Bay Area was lookup the organizations that arrange concerts here. I wanted to volunteer for such organizations because of two reasons. One is that these organizations are badly in need of volunteers and two is that I wanted to make up for not being able to perform. SIFA is one of the primary organizations which does that and by happenstance (lack of volunteers) I was elected as one of the committee members.

I have come into contact with a lot of wonderful people during the past few months. Their dedication to Carnatic Music is unbelievable. Some of these people are well above 70 and their enthusiasm and energy at this age puts me to shame. I had the opportunity to deliver a Vote of Thanks at the end of a concert and some people thought I did a good job so I have been made the Official Thanker :-). Though I'm enjoying doing it I have also become wary of overdoing it and becoming cliched. But I thoroughly enjoy all concerts and always have good words to say about the performers. Perhaps that is an important reason why I don't write down my speeches. I have come a really long way from the nervous 14-year old kid that backed out of a school drama at the last minute.

Now that I started writing this, I can't stop. I hope this becomes addictive enough that I'll keep doing it. I'm a very inconsistent person and subject myself to my numerous whims and fancies. Not harmful ones though. I just want to do a lot of things in life and feel bad that there is so less time. I do become obsessed with some things from time to time and tend to habitualize them. Carnatic Music was one such obsession. Programming was another. My latest obsession is Fitness.

I was tired of being overweight and complaining about it. Though I did work out once in a while and play some sport once a week I was compensating by overeating. Also eating the wrong kind of food. I'll describe the whole process in another blog but I have managed to lose around 8 pounds. My goal is to lose another 10 pounds in the next 4 months and then control it from there. I do weigh a healthy 153 pounds right now but I figure I'll get down to 145. I'm well on my way to achieving that goal. Weight loss is not such a difficult thing after all. You just need to become addicted to it. My other obsession with running is also helping me in this process I guess.

All rants come to an end and so does this one. This post has mostly been unorganized but I'm hoping to capitalize on this start and make it more interesting and informative. Stay with me on this one :-).

-Shri