T&L Music and Language - Here, There... Where?

Upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber...

The contexts in which private music classes for beginners are held and a school classroom are surprisingly similar in certain ways.

Anyone who has studied in an Indian school is familiar with how classrooms look and classes function. With no change over 60 years that I remember. (That dates me, eh?) About 40 students at least squashed into a room meant for half that number. Desks in straight rows, facing up front. The aisles too narrow for an average teacher to walk to the back of the class. Or for students from Row 3 to approach the teacher. So any movement is confined to the teacher oscillating in the narrow strip of space between the board and Row 1. So students through the day see a succession of teachers and the uninformative backs of their classmates' heads. The room is bare with no charts or posters on the walls.

More progressive schools may have round tables with chairs in the kindergarten and perhaps even in Grades 1 and 2. But by upper elementary the teacher is expected to be the focus of all students’ attention and we are back to serried states of desks and chairs. Some teachers may put up student work on the walls but most have artistic work done by teachers. Still, some colour in the room to feed the aesthetics of students.

What do music classes look like? In my salad days, the music teacher came home. The classes were one-on-one and were held in a secluded room just off the main part of the house. Both teacher and student sat on the floor with the harmonium between them. I remember my first teacher Soundaram mami easily able to lean over to keep rhythm on my thigh quite forcefully. No frills, at least no more than the room always did. My grandmother always kept an ear open to the doings in the class though she did not sit in on the class.

Much has changed since then. No more individual classes. By and large, they are small group classes of 3 to 10. Students assemble in the teacher’s house. It is usually crowded with little wiggle room. Students usually still sit on the floor. 
The teacher may or may not, depending their age and physical limberness. There is still not much to indicate that this a room devoted to music. Maybe a thamboora in a corner. No bookshelves with music books or pictures of musicians and composers. Parents who hang around waiting to collect their child are discouraged from sitting in on the class but urged to socialise in another room.  

So two or three times a week students essentially go after 6 hours in a regimented, unaesthetic environment of their classroom to another closed, confined room for 30 to 45 minutes, which may be more homely. Getting to look more and more a regular classroom, isn't it?

Music teachers moan that fewer young people are interested in classical music, that they have neither the patience nor the time to invest in learning it. Well, if it is an extension of school, why would students be enthused about it?

Private music teachers are also heard to chastise children with, ‘Would you behave like this in school?’

No, probably not.

But why would you want children to relate back to school, where they have just spent 6 hours, and are longing for something different? And being one of 40 in a larger group of 2000 to 5000 is not what a child would want to repeat through the evenings or weekends.

So how can music classes look and feel differently from school? More like music and less like English or Hindi? Remember that music classes are not school classes, I guess. Music is primarily an aesthetic experience. Cater to it. Allow students to express themselves freely.

Dress! In a music class, we can see children dressed in anything from shorts to flowing skirts to pavadais. It adds colour and vibrance to the room, and it will change the mood of the child. A far cry from the constricting and unimaginative uniforms prescribed by most schools. If anything, discourage children from wearing their school uniforms to music class. A young friend recounts a tale of an established and very well-respected teacher who threw him out of her class because he showed up in shorts. I understand the respect for tradition but can we focus on the joy that music should bring?

Brighten up the room with pictures of musicians and composers, easily available in calendars and flyers, and on the web.

Encourage students to socialize before and after class. Forming friendships will keep children attending music classes long after the pull of the art has faded away.

Schools are institutions with a specific role in the larger society. Private music classes do not have to seek to replicate that purpose or process to justify their existence. Children need different learning contexts, not the same ones twice over…. Hmm, need to explore this more in another post.

Image: https://musicacademymadras.in/academics/part-time-classes/

T&L Music and Language - Music, Language and Me

Meri aukat kya hai? What is my arugadai? How am I qualified to write about teaching and learning, both music and language? A fair question.

The latter is easy to establish. I have taught English and education  for over 40 years in four countries across three continents. I have published and edited about 85 books, chapters and articles, made 120 presentations, and conducted over 50 workshops for teachers. Most recently, I edited an English language textbook series, and co-authored 20 of the 32 books, published by Indiannica Learning. Google me if you want to test the veracity of my claims. Go on, feed my ego😑

My musical experience is both by heritage and as a student. I grew up in a family of dyed-in-the-wool Carnatic musicians. I grew up waking to and going to sleep with music, and dissections and analyses of music and concerts in the inbetween hours. 

My grandfather T.V. Rajagopal was a scholar of music and served as a Secretary of the prestigious Madras Music Academy and its music college for decades. My grandmother Rukmini Rajagopal and various aunts and cousins in the immediate and extended families were, and are, well-respected performers as well as A grade AIR artistes. Both my grandmother and my mother Indira Ramanathan taught music formally for 35 years of their lives. In fact, my grandmother was awarded the prestigious Sangeeta Kala Acharya award by the aforementioned prestigious Madras Music Academy. No, I am not mocking the MMA (well, may be just a tiny bit) but more seeking to establish the distinction of my musical heritage. I am not claiming any special cachet for this heritage but the cultural capital it bestows on me is considerable and I am merely acknowledging the reality of it. And the impact of cultural capital is incontrovertible as much as it is unrecognized.

As for my personal experience with music, like most South Indian brahmins girls, I had music classes ‘inflicted’ on me from the age of 4 or 5. I formally studied music under four different teachers in the early years. In my adulthood I saw the value of music and studied a few years with my grandmother and two years with the illustrious M.L.Vasanthakumari. I am a regular attendee of the music season in Chennai,  and have been  for 40 years, since I was a child, with a hiatus of about 20 years.

Music is in my blood. I love it. I am an enthusiast. I respond to it viscerally. I choose different kinds to mediate and influence my moods.

But I am not in any way, shape or form an expert, not even close. I cannot and will not identify ragas or match composers and compositions. I am flummoxed by complicated calculations and rhythms of talas. I refuse to dissect and analyse concerts. I have perfected the art of forgetting the contents of a concert the minute I walk out of the auditorium.

So for my comments and descriptions of music pedagogy I will rely on my own expertise of the art and science of teaching and learning. I will also call upon my extensive and continuing conversations and dialogues with teachers and students of Carnatic music.

If you feel I am overstepping my bounds, feel free to point it as gently or forcefully as you like . I promise not to block you - unless you overstep bounds of decency!

Oh, and the three links (hold down the text in green):
- A speech by my grandfather
- A viruttam by my grandmother
- A blog about my grandmother by her student, Sanjay Subrahmanyan

Teaching and Learning (T&L): The Arts and the Languages

In April of this year, CBSE, the most influential examination board in India, released a handbook in support of its effort to promote Arts Integrated Learning. An approach after my own heart, it has been in the forefront of my mind.
 One of the underlying requirements  for Arts Integrated Learning to succeed is team work. Subject teachers and Arts teachers (to distinguish between the two, not that the Arts are not subjects, too) will have to communicate with each other. As of now, though they may be on the rolls of the same schools,  these two categories of teachers inhabit two different universes. While Arts teachers may have some experience of how Subject teachers acquired their content knowledge, most Subject teacher have never learnt the Arts formally and may be unaware of the context, condition, content and pedagogical implications of an Arts education. If they don't know where each of them is coming from,  how can they build trust or respect? Understanding how the Arts are learnt by Arts teachers will expand the horizons of pedagogical practices in schools.
This gap in information needs to be filled. To do this, effectively,  as a teacher Educator I need to understand the learning experience of Arts teachers better.
I'm beginning with music.
Why music?
Music is said to be a language that cuts across languages. Sounds like a conundrum but I am sure all of you know what that means. That music is expressive, communicates thoughts and emotions. It is an art, like language, highly personal, and elicits subjective responses. Its grammar 😱 is very complicated which takes years to master. People use musical language with varying levels of expertise in it. And yet it draws people together and builds communities of performers, audiences and administrators.
Also, ‘tis the season of good cheer. And lots and lots of music. It is December and the music season is on in Chennai. For four weeks about 50 sabhas organize about 1500 concerts by over 600 musicians and dancers. So I will be immersed in all things music. South Indian classical Carnatic music. I will listen, listen again and listen some more. I will also haunt the canteens and gorge food that makes my NRI friends sigh nostalgically.
And as I sit in the hall with waves of music washing over me, I think. I think about who the musicians are, where they learn and who from and  their musical lineage. I wonder about how the teachers teach, the context in which they teach, the content, the pedagogy. How is music actually taught? What is the most common pedagogy of music? How does it differ between teaching novices and more advanced students? How much and in what ways do music teachers consider the psychological and developmental profiles of their students? And I think about what this means for education in schools as we know it.
Thinking about all this leads me naturally to write about it. Not with the rigor and social science-y writing I am accustomed to.  But to resurrect my moribund blog. Blog a series of short articles on different articles every three or four days.
The scope of the series will focus on South Indian Carnatic music and novice learners. The topics will range from the contexts of private music class, content, description of learners and pedagogical approaches. Each post will also compare teaching and learning music to English in schools.
Feel free to point out misconceptions, highlight concepts and ideas I have glossed over and add your perspectives and experiences. And feel free to share on social media and with friends. I look forward to moments of clarification and instances of deep learning from this process.