Every song...a winner!

This is the motto of the concert that takes place in three days and serves as a closing ceremony of the past two months.
Everyone is very much looking forward to it since that is most probably the only opportunity for the kids to play in public.
The way to get there was and still is full of adventures and activities.

While working on exam pieces we started to look for appropriate music for the concert. Simi says that people are not really exposed to western classical music so pop like ABBA and Beatles would make them happy...I asked past WAMers (and myself) whether this is the kind of music on which we should spend weeks and lots of energy. No one seemed to have problem with it so I assume this question arose only to protect the sort of musical hierarchy that was built by my personal taste. It is true that exam repertoire consists pieces in similar style.

Although I brought scores with me it proved to be an arduous work to find or in some cases to make suitable arrangements. Beatles songs will be played in duet form during the first half of the concert and the second half will be filled mainly with ABBA. For the later there will be solo singers and choir with choreography, accompanied by piano solo or duo, synthesizer and guitar. We started with some vocal training and turned out that there are talented singers so they will sing parts too. Actually the children enjoyed very much the versatile work especially when they had the freedom to create their own choreography. Advanced pianists will play improvised accompaniment (chords given) so they started to listen to each other more and communicate in different ways.

With beginners we listened to the well known 'Do-Re-Mi' from the Sound of music and learnt the whole scene and it is going to be performed before the ABBA songs saying: "when you know the notes to sing you can sing most anything"...
We had group sessions with rhythm and solfa exercises following the Kodály method so we discovered how to sing a song with solfa. We notated it, played it on the piano and made up some simple left hand accompaniment. It was amazing to see how easily kids adopted the new system.
There has been a few sessions on music history where we explored some orchestral pieces. This was to support the aural tests so we notated themes then we played their piano transcription which was meant to help sight reading.
Luckily we had small groups of 8-10 people allowing enough space and time to involve everyone equally.

It has been a very intense period and the concert is still ahead of us.

In the next blog you can read about - the concert
                                      - the musical luggage
                                      - what music means to these children

Anikó
                        

Grape Juice

Yep, it’s my new favourite drink. Abraham took me to a juice shop last weekend and now I’m hooked. Whenever I return, the staff become very excitable and begin shouting the Malayalam equivalent of ‘graaaape juice!’, followed by numerous handshakes and pats on the back. Never before has rehydration felt quite so rewarding.

So, blog no. 3, eh? How time flies…

The workshops last Saturday went very well and got a great response from the kids. The first was on piano performance and ‘how to approach a piece of music’. I came up with a 10-step formula to follow when learning a new piece of music, arranged in order of what to look at first:

1. Title
2. Composer
3. Tempo Indication & Metronome Marking
4. Playing Technique
5. Scales
6. Fingering
7. Rhythm
8. Tone Quality
9. Dynamics
10. Phrasing & Articulation

Surprisingly, no-one was able to tell me that the first thing to look at should be the title. I explained that not knowing the title is like eating something from an unmarked can - you’ve got no clue to as what’s inside! It’s been put there for a reason and can often provide vital clues regarding the character of the music. In relation to fingering, it seems that I put too much emphasis on the importance of finding one most comfortable for the performer than on achieving a balance between that and the most appropriate fingering for maintaining phrase structure, articulation and tone quality. As a result, my efforts to suggest more suitable fingering in subsequent lessons have been struck down with the response – ‘but this is the most comfortable fingering for me!’ Damn my wise words.

After a brief talk on ABRSM examinations, I gave the students a basic introduction to jazz, as many of them were completely unfamiliar with the concept. Aided by numerous listening examples, I took them through a history of early jazz styles, which included African-American work songs, ragtime, blues, Dixieland, swing and bebop. Due to the time restraints, I decided to stop around 1950, as it can be said that this is where jazz ceased its journey along a one-track route and began to progress in a variety different directions. I likened jazz history to the structure of a huge tree, with the trunk being representative of its early beginnings, and a firm foundation from which subsequent developments (the branches) have grown.

During the workshop, we managed to collaboratively write a blues tune – I gave the students a basic form to work from and asked for lyrics reflecting the typical themes of loss and depression. Here are the results:

I’m breaking up with my friend ‘cos I don’t like them.
I’m breaking up with my friend ‘cos I don’t like them.
Here at CDMS, life’s hard, but we try our best.

Exams are fast approaching and I don’t want to fail.
Exams are fast approaching and I don’t want to fail.
Here at CDMS, life’s hard, but we try our best.

I didn’t get no money, so I got nothing to spend.
I didn’t get no money, so I got nothing to spend.
Here at CDMS, life’s hard, but we try our best.

On a final CDMS-related note, I have decided to stop beginning every lesson with a request for the student to remind me of their name. It’s getting a bit ridiculous now and some of them are probably worried about my state of health…

The week after the workshops was mostly spent back at the College, where I helped Abraham with some final preparations for the new BMus course that opens there on 1st September. The syllabus is still not complete and the instruments are yet to arrive, but I have complete faith in him and am sure it will all come together (cross fingers). On Tuesday, we met Binoy Chacko, Dr. Kunjamon Chacko’s brother, and one of the most famous singers in India. He took us to meet a potential tutor for the audio programming course at a recording studio in town, which was particularly interesting, as I discovered that the whole place was sound-proofed with coir (a fibre extracted from the husk of a coconut)! Binoy has recently recorded the whole bible as an audiobook for the first time in Malayalam, and even provided the voice of Jesus in the 1973 Malayalam film, Jesus. Phwoar.

Me and the Chacko brothers

To conclude the trip to Kottayam, I volunteered to lead a workshop for the kids at the Children’s Village, situated just down the road from the seminary. The project is funded by the Prison Fellowship India and gives children victimized by crime the opportunity to go to school and grow up in a safe environment with the provision of all basic living essentials. My friend, Azo, joined me for the workshop, which turned into a 3-hour session of songs and games for the 150 kids that live there. At the end of the morning, my Australian friends from Alleppey came to visit and were given a warm welcome by the children, who sung them a couple of songs that they had learnt. This was followed by lunch, which featured a delicacy of North-East India - buffalo intestine. It was prepared by the students from Nagaland and was accompanied by some sort of pork stew. Delicious, but spicy enough to make a grown man cry (or at the very least, get a runny nose).

Workshop at the Children's Village

To my delight, I discovered that the dental clinics in Kottayam (and possibly most of India) have fantastic names like ‘Tooth Place’ and ‘Tooth Affaire’. I particularly enjoy the latter, what with its ingenious and probably unintentional French twist.

An additional, non-essential and somewhat amusing observation: there is a student at the seminary who goes by the name of ‘Rex Jelly’. I am yet to meet this character, so now have yet another reason to return to India...

Can't wait!

Alex

p.s. I got my fortune told by a parrot yesterday. Apparently, I will live to the ripe old age of 91, have 3 children and lead a life of prosperity and wealth. I even managed to haggle the price of my future down to 40 rupees (about 50p)! Bargain.

Festivals and fun times

    Well it’s been festival season here in Mumbai. Over the last two weeks my school has celebrated Krishna Janmashtami (Lord Krishna’s Birthday), Indian Independence day, Rakhi (where a sister tied a thread to her brothers wrist), and yesterday the crazy Gokulashtmi festival, where groups of men and boys gather in the streets and form incredible human towers.  All this excitement has meant that my teaching has become a little interrupted as half day and full day holidays have been granted. However I have witnessed some amazing sights and to see the children rehearse and perform patriotic songs for Independence Day was great.

Warm-up at the teachers workshop

     I have, however had the chance to lead a teachers workshop. This was a riot, with the teachers at Avalon singing and dancing with masses of enthusiasm and quite a bit of skill! We did a few warm-up songs before I set them the challenge of composing their own educational songs using well known tunes (actions obligatory). The resulting performances were fantastic, and hopefully some of the ideas they came up with will be used in the classroom.  On Friday we have another session planned for the kindergarten faculty, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what mad songs and actions they come up with. 

A serious new educational song

      

Muktangan

      Last Wednesday we went back to Muktangan to do a second day of music workshops. Whilst we mainly had new groups, the last two sessions were with children we had met two weeks before. To our amazement and delight they had memorized perfectly the songs we had taught them! We took this as a sign to give them some more challenging material and after 45 mins we had them singing a round in 4 parts which was just brilliant! We were joined by the school's keyboard teacher who played along, providing a great support to the voices.  Ronald took his viola as well so the kids were treated to a multi-instrumental accompaniment! Tomorrow (Wednesday 23^rd) will be our third and final full day at Muktangan and will include a session with the holistic education team which will be good. On Saturday I will be going back to lead workshops for the teachers. 

Jamming with Ayush

    Speaking of viola playing, Ronald is now playing with Ayush and I, and we have a very exciting gig coming up at the Blue Frog on Thursday. The show is in support of Dharavi Rocks (organized by the Acorn Foundation), an initiative which brings together local musicians and children from the slums to create music from makeshift percussion instruments. We went along a few weeks ago to one of the workshops and were very impressed with the percussion band, they have amazing energy and play together with intuition and great skill.

   Thursdays  event promises to be pretty special, with famous Mumbai bands performing alongside the children, and we are well chuffed to be involved. Check out the link here http://www.bluefrog.co.in/events/dharavi-rocks-artists-cause-agnee-unplugged-suneeta-rao-ayush-shrestha-bombay-bassment-adrian

    So, as the last week in Mumbai approaches I find I’m busier than ever, with rehearsals, workshops and concerts galore!Hannah x

Dhun dehra dhun dehra dhun dhun derha dhun...

Have just returned form a trip out of Delhi to Mussoori in the foothills of the Himalayas and Dehradhun: home of the prestigious Doon School where myself and the other WAM Delhiites have been teaching for the last couple of days.  The trip to Mussoori was blighted on my part by a nasty fever I had picked up on the Friday night and our 9 hour cab journey early on the Sunday morning was hard-going at times; an un-remitting stream of Bollywood's finest on the stereo from 5am helped to ease the pain. 

 We were all excited about the prospect of traveling up into the mountains but had somewhat underestimated the Delhi exodus that we were joining in celebration of a long bank holiday weekend marking India's Independence day. Mussoori was complete honking, fuming gridlock and not much fun especially when combined with non-stop torrential rainfall and some suspect hotel bedding. However, we made the most of our brief holiday and the views were certainly spectacular!

Our trip came into its own on Tuesday morning as we were driven down to the aforementioned Doon school. Here we were introduced to Priya Chaturvedi the school's warm and welcoming Director of Music. The hospitality we immediately received helped to settle our sleep-deprived minds and we were soon happily teaching some of the students. Priya was kind enough to let us take a restorative nap in her house (on campus) and the rest of the afternoon was dedicated to practise for an evening recital which we were to give on the school's grand piano, (prior to 2007 - last tuned in 1916 - it had 'character'). The concert was attended by the entire music department as well as many others and seemed to be a great success with much positive feedback from the kids.

Yesterday we got stuck into teaching and I was able to give a 2 hour masterclass to a group of Grade 4 students on the grand which was a wonderful experience.

In the evening, one of the school's previous students, Pulkit Sharma, an extremely able Indian musician and former school music captain, took us out to see Deradhun and introduced us to the Beatles song of the same name, written along with the songs from the White Album during their stay there in 1968:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa9gOAIHU1U

Despite the horrendously delayed return train journey and 330am wake up call this morning, my short trip to the Doon school stands as one of the high points of my stay in India. This is surely thanks to the enthusiastic students, wonderful campus,  fascinating history and  generous hospitality of the school, not forgetting the consistently hilarious company of  my 3 travelling companions.

...dehra dhun dhun dehra dhun dehra derha dhun derha dhun dhun...

Gabriel

13th

Dear All,

Let me show you some lovely pictures. This is Noel and Joel in 2006 when Esme and Duncan visited Cochin. (www.wamfoundation.org.uk left, bottom of page)

...and the boys today. 

Nice to see their endurance and their enthusiasm.

There are about 60 students at the Amadeus Academy of Music and Fine Arts. There are children and adults from initial - grade 8 level and a few who are preparing for ATCL recital. They are like a big family as Simi describes it. Simi and Anthony compose the staff. Kids come on weekdays after school (3pm-8/9pm) and Saturday all day for aural and theory practice. In the mornings eager mums visit the school because they want to learn music either for their own good and amusement or because they would like to help their children and play duets with them. This is touching in the sense that music making appears to be much more than a subject. The school has good reputation. Countless calls from parents enquiring whether they could join. 'It is hard to say no but I prefer quality over quantity.' says Simi.
I soon realised what they are working for and found it easy to identify myself with their philosophy.
What can be done in two months?
The plan was to spend 2-3 weeks working on exam pieces, since most of the children will take an exam (Trinity Guildhall) in November, then we would start the preparation for the concert that takes place at the end of August. 

The exam pieces have been well prepared regarding correct interpretation of notes and rhythm so we could work on technical stability which was one of the main requests. We started with good posture meaning feet flat on the floor or on wooden blocks for little ones and stool adjusted to their height. This might seem banal though major technical problems can be solved only by taking care of this so I really hope the school will soon buy some piano stools and blocks. 
The next point was, as many of you mentioned in earlier blogs, how to accommodate arm weight and the whole body while playing. The causes or roots of the dis-ease are : 1) that many kids have only electric keyboard or synthesiser at home that simply don't respond to subtle changes of touch, weight, attack or the respond is different from what the acoustic piano gives. I can't do much about this 2) but the other one, and this is where the whole story gets interesting! One can be physically at ease only when the mind is at ease. If one knows what he is doing because he understands music, the meaning of the piece somehow the path opens up. The whole misery of technique, attack, weight, fingering disappers. I do say they are important but I tried to get there from a different angle. So we started to play imagination games. I asked them to make up a short story that we turned into music. E.g. 'the train' - trio for beginners: terzo is the train engine, secondo is the horn, primo is a passenger who sings a song. Terzo alternates two notes, minim C, D. Secondo plays two crotchets (C-E thirds) together with terzo's C. Primo 'sings' a tune using C,D,E,F,G in any order. We imagined the train going full speed and full of passengers ( fast attack and forte ) then a silent train during the night ( piano ) a train going up and down the hill ( crescendo-decrescendo ) bouncy train (staccato) tired train (legato)  added more notes according to the story. Quite a silly game but kids enjoyed it so much! And me too...They were freed from the prison of notation and loved interacting.
Students at intermediate level made up more complicated stories including primary chords, whole tone or chromatic scales, onomatopoeia like glissando, tremolo, cluster always carrying some meaning, expression.
After that we returned to pieces and tried to figure out what the story could be. What is beyond notes?

We are experimenting with a new practice chart that involves etudes, finger exercises not only scales, plus a bit of improvisation along with the pieces. Simi has the idea of creating a syllabus for the school that we are hoping to complete by the end of the month. Luckily there are so many tutor books and music scores thanks to Nadia Lasserson who sent a luggage full of treasure. Many others provided by past WAM-ers and Alex, who visited us a few weeks ago. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Alex!
I must pause for a minute and tell you a funny story. When I arrived Simi was complaining that kids don't know how to play 'Happy Birthday' and it is a shame that whenever one has birthday they can't jam. So Alex and me taught the tune at least 60 times :-) so from now on...

Antony and Simi are doing a great job with the kids. They provide everything. Not only knowledge  but something which can't be described by words. The kids know a lot, they are very receptive and well-mannered so it is a pleasure to be with them.
I am sure that our morning yoga/meditation also helps to build a good team :-)

In the next 'chapter' I tell you about     - our adventurous expedition of 'The sound of music'
                                                        - the mystery of solfa and modes
                                                        - the ABBA and Beatles craziness


Aniko

                     

Month 1 at Mehli Mehta

I finally have a few moments to sit and write a few thoughts about the past 1.5 months.  It’s been a whirlwind, but I’ve been very much enjoying the teaching.  Charis here, at the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation, the third WAMer in Mumbai. 

Mehli Mehta is a music school in the heart of the city, offering piano and string tuitions to both kids and adults. It all began 16 years ago, in honor of conductor and violinist, Mehli Mehta.  They had a desire to promote western classical music, and so it all began...  The foundation has been growing rapidly.  There are now  21 teachers, 564 students and over 1400 students on the waitlist!!!  Apart from private lessons, they also offer something called ‘Discover Music.’  As the name suggests, this is a group class which introduces music to children as young as 2 yrs old!  Other activities include choir (which i’ll talk more about in my next blog).

Hanging out with 2 of the teachers

I’ll perhaps just blog about July in this post and fill you in about August a bit later.  During the weekdays, I have been mainly teaching privately.  In the mornings, I taught a variety of adult students, ranging from 16-70, who were all mainly of the intermediate level, with a couple advanced students.  Most of them had two lessons a week.  These morning lessons have been some of my favorite as the students have been very receptive and responding quickly.  The use of arm weight has been a common focus in lessons as many students tend to solely focus on finger action, rather than the use of the arm and or the whole body.

Delicious Parsi meal at the Foundation

One highlight for me has been teaching this one student who could play music like Bach Prelude in C (Book 1), but had nearly no knowledge of theory (not even being able to identify/write basic crochet beats or rest!)  Needless to say, i was a bit shocked!  But in this past month, we mainly worked on theory together, and by the end of it, she was transposing and analyzing, and composing different harmonies (even using Augmented 6 chords!).  

After lunch, from about 2-8, I move onto younger students, of whom are mostly beginners.  Most of the kids have been very well behaved, with of course a few who struggle to sit still, but have been nonetheless, very enjoyable to teach.  The main things I have been working on with almost all the children have been note recognition (or sight reading).  Most of the kids here can play tunes, but have a lot of trouble in reading music.  Many of them have relied on phrases, such as ‘F-A-C-E’ or ‘All Cows Eat Grass’ to identify notes.  As a result, it takes them a very long time to read a new piece of music.  So flash cards and note-finding games have been readily implemented in the lessons.  Another repeated topic has been the use of the body/hand, which is perhaps an universal problem, especially for beginners.  Kids prefer to swing their feet, rather than having them flat on the stool/ground; flat fingers; low wrist, etc.  These common issues led me to lead several workshops.

Jam'n with the kids

All workshops happened over the weekend.  Over the course of the month, I had 10 workshops: 4 for teachers, 2 for adults and 4 for kids (two for 6-9, and two for 10-14).  With the teachers, we touched on the basics of posture, technique (rhythm, phrasing, scales), sight reading and musical form.  I will just highlight one workshop on sight reading.  Sight reading seems to be quite the abandoned field here, and it was great to see the teachers become excited about sight reading.  Some stayed for over half an hour at the end of the workshop to sight read duets with each other!  The two adult workshops were on the body and musical form.  And finally, with the kids, we again touched on the subject of posture and learning about different musical concepts (tempo, pitch, timbre, articulation and instrumentation) through Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals.’

 Apart from teaching and workshops, i assisted in a few Discover Music classes and in my ‘spare time’, I did my best in squeezing as many practice hours as i could for my July recital.  It was a bit stressful as it was difficult to find time to practice on top of the teaching and planning.  But the recital went very well and it was nice to see current WAMers, Ronald and Hannah and past WAMer Ryan!  Now i’m preparing for my next recital which will be in a couple weeks (eeks!).

One last thing, apart from piano work, i’ve been working with some of the violin teachers, observing violin lessons, and assisting in the violin ensemble class (it’s been 6 years since i seriously played the violin, so that’s been rather interesting).  It’s been good fun playing the good ol’ pachelbel canon and other folky tunes.

Mumbai by night

July has been busy but August has been even crazier.  I’ll post more soon.  Take care!

Ciao ciao,

Charis x

Under the Indian Sun :)

Based in Gurgaon in southern Delhi, along with fellow WAMer Alice, I’ve been assigned to help at the Performer’s Collective, run by the very welcoming and helpful Jack (who, despite his name, is Indian).  The staff at the Performer’s Collective have been extremely hospitable and friendly and made the transition from England to India for us as easy as possible.  

We were lucky enough to be given time to get to find our feet and get to grips with life here in India before starting our teaching. There were many things for us to have to adapt to – not least the sometimes non-existent water and electricity in our flat, the living room with not one stick of furniture, the ‘friendly’ resident geckoes, the downright ugly resident cockroaches and the initial lack of a cooker.  And despite taking great care with food hygiene, we’ve been ill on several occasions.  But balanced against the sheer vibrancy of Delhi, the friendliness of nearly everyone we’ve met, and the amazing experiences which seem to happen on a daily basis, I am so, so very lucky and happy to be here!

The Performer’s Collective has many contacts on the Delhi music scene, and Jack has ensured that we have been introduced to as much of this as possible.  We’ve met and exchanged ideas with some of the top guitarists in India and been taken to some of the big jazz clubs in Delhi. We’ve even had our photo in the ‘Times of India’.  However, our main focus at the Performer’s Collective is to teach on a, predominantly, one-on-one basis.  

Teaching these lessons and getting to know individual students has been an enlightening process.  People choose to have lessons for a variety of reasons and it’s been interesting to see how a different approach needs to be taken for each individual.  I have, for example, one student with mild learning disabilities who responds well to being given very direct instructions.  Mechanics of piano theory come more easily to her than the concept of musicality and thus she enjoys playing scales and finds it comical to be interrupted every time she plays an odd fingering or dud note.  In fact, the more defined the interruption, the funnier she finds it!  

 

The children are generally very responsive to what I’ve got to tell them and need a lot of basic technique advice – hand positioning / not jerking when putting the thumb under etc...  simple techniques which are generally learnt earlier on in Europe.  A lot of students have lessons with another teacher and then extra lessons with me so I spend a short time providing suggestions for their pieces (which often lack any sort of dynamics or individuality) and the majority of time on sight reading, aural exercises and rhythmic games in the hope that they might continue after I leave and so develop a stronger and more independent general musical awareness.  Most students insist that their sight reading skills are atrocious and they probably need to overcome a psychological barrier before they can improve.

I also try to stress the importance of maintaining a steady pulse and developing rhythmic comprehension as a lot of students prioritise working out the notes.  Thinking about fingerings, the key and thus the scalic progressions should combine with strength in terms of rhythmic interpretation to provide a successful strategy for sight reading.  However, one of my students summed up what seems to be a general feeling over here - when I asked what she would do in the exam in the minute she would be given before the sight reading test she replied: ‘I’ll get a pencil and write on all the note names’... I’ll be trying to do something about this!

We are now in touch with Music Basti, a local NGO which has 3 orphanages in Delhi for children from the streets.  It uses music and the arts as a basis for teaching and helping these children, who have often experienced substance and sexual abuse.  We are about to start regular workshops with the boys’ orphanage and have already begun at one of the girls’ orphanages. The girls here are very affectionate and appreciate new company and whilst they were timid at the beginning of the first workshop, a few silly games and tricks later and the chorus was a lot stronger.  Providing structure through repeating some of the songs and games and becoming a familiar face over the coming weeks will hopefully give them even more confidence to join in.  We were informed that, for some of the children, even sitting down and listening was an achievement and I hope that with some gentle encouragement we will bring some of the shyer ones out of themselves and give them something meaningful to enjoy through the medium of song.  Music is a great way to express oneself and just teaching a few songs and games could really help these kids who don’t have much else to distract them from the harsh realities of life.  

Local schools have also shown interest in us and we’ve been invited to run some workshops for groups of 10 year olds – where we will be wired up so that we can teach big groups of between 90 and 180 students! I am currently spending quite a bit of time planning the content of these workshops, and though at the moment it sounds nerve-wracking, I’m hopeful that it will turn out to be great fun too! 

Last week I went with WAMers Alice and Gabriel to meet Parimal, who studied Sitar under Ravi Shankar for 40 years.  Unfortunately, Delhi belly had struck again, and I spent a lot of the journey throwing up.  However, Parimal looked after us very well and we jammed Indian styyyle.  It was great!                                                                               

Akshardam temple - biggest Hindu temple in the world

We have also been able to do a bit of sight-seeing, including a trip to the beautiful Taj Mahal and a wonderful weekend in Jaipur, where we travelled to a hilltop fort by elephant and had the most fantastic views of the surrounding countryside.  Travel here is different– we went by overnight bus, which we had been assured was an air-conditioned double-

decker, but it turned out that we were on the top deck which was in fact a glorified luggage rack!  But a surprisingly comfortable luggage rack ....

Back to work now, apart from one short tourist trip, we have a workshop planned for nearly every remaining day of our stay..... 

Jenny

xxx

Probably the most boring blog you will ever read. We will try to make the next one "fun".

We finally have regular internet access... let the blogging commence:

This is Viktor and Grace, based in Kolkata.

Our schedule

We have a busy schedule, working six days a week at three schools in Calcutta and Salt Lake – Calcutta School of Music, Dolna Day School and C4 School of Music. Grace works mostly at CSM, with one day at C4 and some morning and evening classes at Dolna. She helps with singing, recorder, violin, drums and piano. Viktor is primarily involved in piano and music theory, mostly at CSM and C4, with some sessions at Dolna.

Our Free Fridays© are usually spent finding shopping centres and markets, and for Grace, being distracted by sparkly things and spending too much money on clothes. (- That’s really true! says Viktor.)

Impressions about students and teaching

We have had a very warm welcome in Kolkata, and are being extremely well looked after by all the teaching staff. We have lovely, safe accommodation in Dolna School, with food provided for us every day. If we have any need for medication or doctor’s appointments, we get all the support we need.

Our pupils are enthusiastic and respectful – they are attentive and eager to make the most of every lesson. Ages and standards are hugely varied, and although some of the younger ones don’t have much of a practice timetable (!), many of the older pupils practice every day.

The kids are very affectionate, and we have been given drawings and sweets on many occasions!

How to practice:  

The students need an increased awareness of different practice techniques, e.g. hands separately, varied articulation (staccato, legato) and rhythms (dotted, triplets), slow practice, and practising select passages rather than playing through the whole piece.

Breakdown of rhythms:

The rhythmic relation of one note to another, the function of a dotted note and the ‘pulse’ of the music are some aspects of rhythm which can be problematic – i.e., the maths behind the music.

A metronome beating the smallest rhythmic value of the piece usually helps with the subdivision of note values. We are hoping to take a session for younger children to help with both the understanding of note values and a more general concept of ‘pulse’.

Playing from memory:

It is fashionable to play piano music from memory very quickly, even in the early stages of learning a piece. This can result in mistakes being ‘learnt’ into the music (of which they are unaware), and a lack of ability to read music fluently (due to lack of reading the written score while playing).

Pedalling and hand position:

We’ve noticed in students that the pedal is often lifted too late or too early, affecting clarity and continuity in the music. We are aiming to make students more aware of the effect on the actual sound produced through different pedalling techniques.

As with any young students, there are many dipping wrists and flat fingers...

Musical genres and styles:

Lack of generic distinction is particularly evident in Baroque music, where appropriate articulation is often missing or understated. This is partly because the student may not have broken the music down into phrases, sub-phrases, etc.

We are planning several workshops in which we will help the students to aurally distinguish the features of different genres, and to reflect this in their playing. (Hopefully, by using syllabus repertoire, we can incorporate some practice techniques which will be immediately useful to them!).

Violin:

A brief note on violin technique from Grace – the most common left-hand technique here is to hold the neck of the violin in the curve between the thumb and first finger (i.e., the thumb is right round the side of the neck rather than underneath it). I am not used to this technique, and feel it is quite restrictive – it effectively shortens your fingers (!) and can make fourth-finger tuning and shifting more difficult. I’ve brought this up with the teachers, and it seems that the only widely available violin tutor book recommends this position. I have suggested a more flexible hand position for beginners, but many of the students have been practising this hold for several years and I don’t feel I should meddle with it...

One other small point is that some violin students hold the bow very high up on the wood which lessens their control over it and can cause excessive tilting. I’ve suggested that more of the grip should be focused on the base of the bow - but as with left-hand position, I feel that in only two months I should probably just make suggestions rather than try to enforce new techniques...

We realise that this is a very heavy blog and heartily apologise. We promise our next entry will be less poncy and boring.

On a less serious note, recent highlights include:

·         Viktor being tagged in photo on Facebook as an Indian girl (- It’s because of his beautiful swooshy hair, says Grace).

·         Grace getting biting ants in her knickers.

·         Drinking Chai for two rupees at the street corner.

Viktor and Grace

xx

Who knows what a 'Pirate' is....?

Hi Hannah here….so, here’s an update on how everything is going in Mumbai…

     In my last blog I was saying (complaining) that I haven’t been given a timetable. Well now I have been given a full timetable which includes 2 full days of keyboard teaching, 1 day of classroom music with Grades 1 and 2 and 2 days of kindergarten so it's all go.

    The keyboard classes are pretty challenging as we have lots of children crammed into a small room with dodgy electrics and a building site outside the (open) window, but I am working in tandem with the current keyboard teacher and getting the chance to share ideas with him which is good.  My main focus is to improve their posture as many of them are playing well and musically but with terrible technique, using only their first finger in some cases. Last week I gave them all a drilling on hand position and this week they have practiced and improved loads which is really rewarding. I wish my students in London would work that hard! The school has also asked me to write a keyboard syllabus which I am working hard on;  it’s good to know that I will be providing a tangible resource which can be used in the future.

     The Grade 1’s and 2’s are doing food as a topic so I have been teaching fun action songs about ‘cauliflowers fluffy’ and so on. They also, unfortunately, LOVE the ‘Pirate song’ which I stupidly taught them in the first class, and now have to sing every lesson. The fact that they all seem to think pirates drive airplanes (my English accent can be quite confusing) doesn’t seem to matter. Kindergarten are coming along brilliantly, the kids now know exactly what I want them do without me even having to ask them! Their topic this month is farming and food which is loads of fun, and they are now picking up new songs much quicker than they were a month ago – very satisfying. It’s nice that they are getting into a routine and are now used to me, walking into a classroom so cries of ‘Good Moooooorning Hannah Auntie’ is a very nice thing.

  Next week I am also going to run a few workshops for the school teachers and even have plans for a staff choir! It’s nice that the teachers are so enthusiastic and receptive to music, it’s just a shame that they don’t have a permanent music teacher all year.

    As well as working at our schools, Ronald and I have been running workshops for a fantastic charitable organization called Muktangen. This organization, run by a couple called Sunil and Liz Mehta,  provides education for the disadvantaged children of central Mumbai through a network of eight schools in various locations around the area of Parel. As well as providing education for children, they also help women from the local community to train as teachers and support them through professional development projects.  They have a great choir which was chosen to perform at the prestigious National Center for Performance Arts,  a music journey which was filmed for a Channel 4 documentary entitled ’From Slums to Stage’. Check them out at www.muktanganedu.org.

Muktangen workshop

Our day of music workshops was really fun and included cowboy warm-ups, a cool Algerian song, the Pirate Song and clapping games. In the break Ronald also used the opportunity to inform the children where exactly Scotland is (of course they had never heard of it and will probably never hear of it ever again) and that Scotland was ‘best’! As if. The kids were an absolute delight to teach, well behaved, enthusiastic and very good singers. After eight 45 min workshops we were exhausted but very happy with how the day had gone. We will be doing another two full days there before we leave which is great.

"Scotland best!"

     Our folk jam with Aditya, the local violin teacher, is still going strong  and I am still playing with Ayush, the Nepalese singer/songwriter dude. He has invited Ronald and I to participate in some music workshops he runs called ‘Dharavi Rocks’, which  involves children from Dharavi, the slum made famous by the film Slumdog Millionaire. These children, who work as rag pickers on the city dumps, bring bottles and tubs that they have found during their day to the workshops and Ayush leads them in a makeshift percussion band! We will be going along on Wednesday with our instruments ready to jam along. They are having a big fundraising concert on the 25^th, something we can hopefully contribute to.

Folk music with Aditya

So, all in all lots of good musical things happening!

Delhi Times

 Delhi has certainly lived up to its reputation as an exciting and busy city, and we have found plenty of opportunities to become involved with music through our teaching and through the friends we have made at the school - the Performers Collective in Gurgaon.

 

The students I am teaching are all enthusiastic and hardworking, although they are often very busy with school work which, unfortunately, takes priority over practice. I am teaching a range of abilities from beginners to post-grade 8, and have quickly discovered the advantages of planning lessons well in advance! New admissions are steadily being added to our timetable, and we plan to hold a performance workshop towards the end of our stay in order to showcase the work we have done with the students.

 

I have two students preparing for exams in November, a Grade 5 ABRSM candidate and a Grade 2 TrinityGuildhall candidate. Both have worked with me to improve their sightreading (which is a common theme running throughout all of my students) as their teachers tend to focus on the preparation of pieces and scales, leaving the sightreading and ear tests to the pupil to take care of. Technique and finger strength is also something which I have begun to address, particularly with those students who have moved onto learning the piano from the keyboard. The keyboard is a very popular instrument to learn in India, and is more readily available (and cheaper I suppose) for students to obtain, but the current syllabus doesn't teach left-hand stamina at all, and general posture is something which has to be re-learnt when shifting to the piano. Fortunately, everyone is very quick on the uptake here, and the improvements in  one-lesson can be very inspiring. Often, the students just need an idea to help them interpret the music so that it isn't merely a blur of black dots on a white page, but instead becomes a melody with interesting harmony that can be interpreted in several different ways.

 

I have been working with the main piano teacher in the school to develop her own repertoire and to introduce her to different ideas with regard to teaching a sense of musicality alongside technique. She has been very eager to take on several suggestions, but is currently run off her feet with teaching six days a week. A second piano teacher is due to arrive in September which should relieve her workload. The 40-minute time slots per lesson pass very quickly, and when students are late it can be difficult to cover much with them - especially when they haven't managed any practice that week due to academic pressures.  

 

Aside from our teaching, Jenny and I have begun to work with an NGO based in Delhi called Music Basti, for whom we have perfomed a workshop at a girls' orphanage in Kashmere Gate. We hope to work in a boys' home near Qutab Minar, and will most likely begin our work there in the coming week. We have also had the opportunity to see several Indian bands perform locally, my favourite so far was Hari and Sukhmani with their fusion of traditional Punjab folk song with English lyrics and RnB beats. You can hear some of their stuff here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6cH8cJwXwA&feature=related

 

And finally, Jenny and I have also featured in the Delhi Times under the caption 'Music Mad'... how fitting!

 

Alice Beckwith

Eggs, Bread & Van Halen

Right, it’s blog time again.

This last week has been an interesting one; new people, new places and something that almost resembled a Western breakfast. Hurrah!

So, last Monday, at some obscure hour of the morning, I set off with Abraham on a 3-hour drive (thankfully, not on the motorbike) to a place called Kottayam. The town itself isn’t much to look at but just a few kilometers to the West there are idyllic backwaters surrounded by paddy fields and extensive rubber plantations. It’s pretty nice.

The purpose of our trip was to visit Abraham’s latest project, the newly established Asian Christian College of Music. It’s situated next door to the India Baptist Theological Seminary, which was set up back in 2000 by Dr. Kunjumon Chacko, a world-renowned preacher of Christian teachings. With some help from the Bluefield College in Virginia, USA, he has acquired the necessary funding to turn a presently vacant building into a training centre for aspiring Church musicians. Abraham has been employed as Chief Executive and needs me to help him construct a syllabus for the new BMus course, which will focus primarily on performance. It’s a work in progress but will hopefully be finished by the end of this month!

ACCM

I spent the rest of the week deliberating over the content of the syllabus, but also managed to find time to do some sightseeing. The trip to Alleppey (which Lonely Planet describes as ‘Venice-like’) was fairly uneventful but I will always have fond memories of travelling by boat through picturesque backwaters to a soundtrack of Van Halen and Bruno Mars (courtesy of Azo, my travelling companion that day). I also decided to take the bus to Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary, where I found plenty of sanctuary, but a distinct lack of bird. That said, it turned out to be a very pleasant walk.  

Oh, and the breakfast gets a paragraph for itself; eggs, bread and even some jam. Heaven.

On Saturday, it was back to the kids at CDMS and their fear of THE THING. The ‘thing’ I refer to is, in fact, sight-reading, which, for the majority of students, forms the most difficult part of their musical education at the school. Many of them see it as an impossible feat and fail to proceed beyond the first bar, so I am enforcing a strict daily practice routine that ends with (yep, you guessed it) a few minutes of sight-reading. Whether they do it, of course, is another matter, but I live in hope.

Next weekend, I will be giving a workshop on piano performance to all 90 of the exam students who may, or may not, fit into the same classroom. In addition, I’ll attempt to provide them with an introduction to jazz, as the majority of pupils (and indeed, most of the country) are unfamiliar with the concept. I also have plans to collectively write a blues tune, which cannot fail to be a success. No wrong notes in jazz, right?!

Slightly breathless at present due to the unfortunate discovery of a relatively large beetle patrolling the surface of the desk at which I am sat. Boots Insect Repellent does a great job of repelling ‘biting insects’, though the label fails to explain that in doing so, it will attract everything else.

I think it’s time to re-charge the ‘bat’.

The 'Bat'

Next update coming soon!

Alex