WAM India 2011

July: Teaching and the School Run

2011-09-11T20:57:00.000+01:00

Hey folks! Alice (E!) here, writing from Gurgaon (sprawling city/suburb of Delhi). I have been working at the Lorraine Music Academy (previously the Music Studio) teaching mostly one-to-one piano throughout my stay… apologies for not posting sooner! Since I have left this a tad late I shall post from my notes in July first of all and update the more recent developments shortly.

It took a little longer than expected to settle into a teaching ‘routine’ here, if such a fully-fledged notion has ever properly materialised. Things are simply not routine (!) and it has taken me a while to adjust to this. As far as routines go however, mine works out roughly like this…

3.30pm (give or take an hour) and my cab arrives to deliver me to the school, in reality the second floor of the director’s house and a back bedroom (with AC!) in which I am privileged to teach and bask in the cool. My pupils are from almost beginner level to grade 8, with the odd violin student thrown into the mix. I rarely discover exactly who I’ll be teaching until an hour or so before my departure, and if these students are actually the ones who show up all the better. In order to be prepared for every eventuality I find it’s best to travel heavy, ie. with a rucksack stuffed full of all the music books I can get my hands on safely stashed on my back.

Teaching

A large number of my expectations were confounded during the first full teaching week. I hadn’t realised, for example, that so many students would have made their way to the school, and in some cases to India, from such an array of backgrounds. Quite a few have begun to study here only recently, having arrived from a range of other countries (from America to Dubai!) or from other Delhi music schools. The reading of previous blogs prior to my arrival had perhaps led my expectations astray; many students have progressed since 2009, and a few more fairly advanced ones enrolled. I certainly had not expected to have a student turn up on my first week of teaching with a whole Haydn Sonata prepared (along with a bit of Schumann and a Bach Invention or two)– what a pleasant surprise!! Due to the somewhat scattered array of schooling backgrounds it is difficult to comment coherently on problems that might be common to the school or to music teaching methods in one particular area of the world. I will, however, do my best to expound upon all the teaching pleasures as well as moments of exasperation!

Firstly, let me surmise another surprise in the pragmatics of teaching in this school - the frequency and length of lessons! The more advanced pupils might come two or even three times a week for at least an hour (whilst occasionally attending lessons with another teacher also!) Although this bespeaks both enthusiasm and determination, I am not convinced that so many lessons is entirely beneficial, and perhaps explains an over-reliance on the teacher’s input for learning new repertoire. I also had an inkling of pressures coming from above, perhaps from parents or even teachers, to push some of these kids through as many exams as fast as possible. And yes, many are doing quite an amazing job of passing exams. However, if they aren’t quite ready in either their maturity or musicality, or in their capacity for independent learning, them I’m not sure of the wisdom in this. When I initially asked pupils why they were playing scales at such at heady pace, at the expense of all other considerations, they responded – “it’s required for the exam”.

So, what have been able to do to counteract these issues? I hope that I am gradually making some inroads in changing many of these students’ approaches and practise methods. Inevitably, I’m coming up against some frustration… perhaps this is the only route to change? Due to the frequency of lessons with some students I feel it’s difficult to prevent myself from turning into a belligerent piano teacher-dragon that constantly breathes a stream of words like ‘SLOW, LISTEN, INTEGRITY, LEGATO, BALANCE, NO ORNAMENTS YET!’ etc. down the pupils’ necks. And yet towards the end of this month I’ve begun to hear pupils playing slower scales/arpeggios with a firmer sound and truer legato, with better phrase shaping and sensitivity to tone/colour in their pieces. On the flipside, exasperation continues in those cases where I cannot for the life of me get students to play correct fingerings, and who seem capable of learning only by memory. Learning at speed (ie. rushing at the outset) and quickly relying on memory (which in turn allows looking down at the hands in a fixated manner), I have discovered, not only disallows an intuitive feel for the geography of the keyboard, but also encourages additional markings and fingerings to be overlooked in an instant! For example, I’m having trouble imprinting the importance of good fingerings in one student’s Chopin Mazurka (despite my many rants about the fingering helping the hand/arm move in a manner that helps to shape the phrase more expressively), who will persevere with his own haphazard memorised efforts even when they involve a complete disruption of the melodic line..! Sight-reading is problematic in this case also, and the link is, I think, self-evident. At least I have weaned him from his previous approach to learning new repertoire, which involved figuring out and then writing down every note of the piece!

On a more positive note the progress made with students working on repertoire learned prior to my arrival has been considerable, and I have been lucky enough to teach a few that are astonishingly sensitive to my input. One girl’s ‘Solfeggietto’ (C. P. E. Bach) transformed from a rather bland, if diligently learnt, procession of semiquavers, to something altogether magical and engaging. I tried to encourage an awareness of the changes in textures (for example from fluid continuous lines to broken, ‘conversational’, passages), the allowance of a little natural breathing space at the more dramatic moments where the semiquavers cease, and the practising, where possible, of running passages as progressions of chordal harmony (to enhance an understanding of the build and release of tension during transitions to foreign keys). And the rest – it seemed to happen on its own! Equally successful results were reaped from hours working on the aforementioned Haydn, whose first movement in particular morphed from a barrage of crashingly loud, fast and exciting noise to something a little more subtle and elegant (though equally lively!).

Unfortunately I have found little continuity so far with many of the younger/lower level students that I have been able to give lessons. Of the few that I have taught more regularly I have introduced a couple of duets to try and provide a bit of fun and variation to the learning process! I hope that a challenge and a more substantial task will prove invigorating, especially for a couple that are slightly older and whizzing their way through beginners’ or ‘initial level’ books.

School run

I thought I’d write a little on the fascinating cab journeys to school, which offer me daily half-hour glimpses into some of the most striking novelties of the foreign scenery. It has been here, in my blissfully air-conditioned bubble, that the starkly ‘cut-and-paste’ disarray of old and new worlds most fiercely competes for my attention. Makeshift bars, rising from beds of dirt and garbage and yet boasting plush and glitzy interiors, dominate one stretch of highway. Further on, the sudden interpolation of waste-lands, high-rises and self-enclosed oases for the better off set my head spinning. The cab drivers’ often ruthless approach to road bumps/gullies adds to a feeling of vaguely exalted confusion and nausea.

The highway itself is vast and oddly bare of orientating road-markings. Wide enough for three lanes and supporting all kinds of traffic population, the varied vehicles/bodies negotiate the space according to a mysterious logic. Rickshaws, jeeps, motorcycles, men trundling carts of mangoes, cows, pigs, buffaloes, and many more successfully navigate these swathes of dirtied blank concrete. The logic of road rules continues to evade me. Towering above advertisement billboards can be viewed tempting all with their promises of new city luxuries. Shiningly new buff bodies (‘Zeal’ - a gym) tantalise those who can afford it with a chance to tone softened buttocks. Below pass many of these self-same buttocks, in AC’d cabs like my own or seated on delicately framed rickshaws, powered by the most simultaneously skinny and muscled men I’ve ever encountered. It’s certainly one of the more interesting school runs I’ve had to endure…

Round-up; Workshops, Classes and all that jazz!

2011-09-03T23:51:00.001+01:00

Having arrived back from India, I'd hoped by now to have already done a quick run-through of a few things that had been on my mind over the last couple of weeks at Ghatkopar. My excuses for not having done so until now vary and range quite widely; ~~from the fact that monsters under my bed had abducted the muse-stone I place upon my forehead while semi-supine so as to permit a free train of thought~~ [not true] to the fact that my phone, upon which I'd been taking notes as I went along, managed to have itself pickpocketed at Kurla station (unfortunately true) about a week or so before leaving.

Now that my immediate reflections have somewhat frothed and spawned into some type of exotic life form, I thought it would be useful both for those generously supporting the good work of WAM and for those looking to participate in the WAM project next year to have yet another point of view of what was going on - particularly in Mumbai - this year.

It has struck me that it would be a good idea to explicitly outline a few examples of workshops that were run in Mumbai both by myself and Hannah, which I hope will give a clear picture of what the kids (and teachers) attending the workshops were letting themselves in for!

Example Workshop #1

As at St. Xavier's, 2-day (2x 2hr) workshop: c.100 participants aged 8-16

Day One

Warm-up	'Cowboy activity' Participants are introduced to a number of differing exclamations, with actions, led by one teacher. Once familiarised with the actions and calls, 4-6 participants picked to lead the call-response in front of the other students.
Warm-up	'Sani Bonani' Call and response type song with simple melody and rhythmic ostinato.
Lead-up	'Making Sounds' Introducing the idea of association of sounds and music, as well as musical gestures and extra-musical concepts. For example, Reich's 'Different Trains' and its vivid train-like string gesture.
Activity	'Making Sounds' Using the voice and parts of the body to make different sounds based on three main themes; forest, city and sea. Activity expanded by splitting into smaller groups and then having a 'performance' by each group of each of the soundscapes, followed by a larger performance using all participants.

Day Two

Warm-up	'Cowboy activity' Participants not requiring any prompts this time!
Activity	Singing Ala da' Lona: Algerian song, expanded in class by splitting into groups and having each group clapping a unique ostinato while singing.
Activity	Singing London's Burning. Traditional, learnt and sung in a two, three and (eventually!) four-part round.
Activity	Singing 'Babboon Song': Ideal for a class full of boys! Participants split into three groups where each learns a 4-bar phrase: 'The Baboon', 'The Vulture' and 'The Yak'. Each phrase interlocks melodically and rhythmically so is ideal for demonstrating ensemble singing.

Example Workshop #2

As in Muktangan schools 45 min, c. 30 participants aged 7-10

Warm-up	'Name game' Participants are asked to tap their knees and click their fingers, as tap-tap-click-click, saying their own name in turn during the clicks. Teachers invited to join in.
Warm-up	Glissandos Visualised by throwing a ball up and down.
Warm-up	Various call-response annoying squeaking animal noises (the kids seemed to like it)
Warm-up	'Cowboy activity' As above (see St. Xavier's)
Warm-up	'Sani Bonani' As above (see St. Xavier's)
Activity	Singing Younger groups: The Pirate Song & I Like the Flowers (for example) Middle groups: Ala da' Lona & I Like the Flowers Older groups: Ala da' Lona & (on one occasion) a song in Gaelic about porridge.

Viola/violin also brought in for some workshops, encouraging some discussion about instruments.

All in all, we had devised a good workshop template from the start, meaning that sections could be added and expanded or dropped and revised as depending on the size of the group and the age of the participants. It was especially helpful to have a secure blueprint when, having already delivered seven 45-minute workshops in a day in one case, the thought of getting through another workshop would have been a little disconcerting without such an aid.

So there we go. No magic, no voodoo, just a little planning, preparation and luck!

Day-to-day work at Ghatkopar was a little different in the last 2-3 weeks as my focus shifted towards leaving the school with something useful before making my way home, particularly in relation to their upcoming Junior and Senior Productions. For varying reasons it seemed to be quite difficult to get a grasp of just what it was exactly they wanted, largely compounded by the fact that the musical numbers to be included in the production seemed to change on a daily basis. An understanding of the fact that creating, for example, backing tracks (thank goodness I'd armed myself with my MIDI I/O and Logic before departing) would take time was not hugely apparent and so I felt a little guilty in the last couple of days at having to put my foot down and say that doing yet another new number would simply not be possible in the time remaining.

Every song...a winner!

2011-08-27T20:06:00.000+01:00

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

2011-08-25T13:59:00.004+01:00

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:

Title
Composer
Tempo Indication & Metronome Marking
Playing Technique
Scales
Fingering
Rhythm
Tone Quality
Dynamics
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

2011-08-23T06:13:00.002+01:00

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...

2011-08-18T19:22:00.002+01:00

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

2011-08-13T17:08:00.001+01:00

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

2011-08-11T15:37:00.001+01:00

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 :)

2011-08-11T07:26:00.000+01:00

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".

2011-08-09T20:04:00.000+01:00

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

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

2011-08-09T11:41:00.000+01:00

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

2011-08-09T09:36:00.000+01:00

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

2011-08-09T07:46:00.000+01:00

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

One Moose, Two Meese.

2011-07-26T16:28:00.002+01:00

Namaste!

Alex here. I’m a third year BMus student at the University of Edinburgh and am currently teaching at the CDMS music school in Trivandrum, Kerala (‘Coconut Land’).

Firstly, I would like to list some recent observations:

Indian traffic laws are yet to be established.
Eating with your hands is harder than it looks.
A ‘vada’ may look, and feel like, but is not a doughnut.
Everything takes at least 3 days to dry (including my guidebook).
Curry for breakfast is an acquired taste.
I saw an elephant outside the bank last Tuesday.

Now, back to teaching.

There is an army of students at CDMS – somewhere in the region of 1000. Most of them study Western Keyboard (the whole one-man-band thing with drums, bass, horn section and strings on one instrument) and about 150 study Classical Piano, with 90 entered for ABRSM exams in October. The school is open every day (!) and runs morning sessions, which are usually pretty quiet, and evening sessions for exam students after school. Most days, I arrive with my eyes full of dust at 3pm on the back of Abraham’s (one of the piano teachers) motorbike and offer one-to-one tuition for exam students until about 8pm.

It’s going well so far but I often forgot which students I’ve already seen so have, embarrassingly, managed to introduce myself to many of them at least twice. But I’m sure they don’t mind.

Now, the teachers at CDMS are facing a bit of a dilemma. Many of the students studying Classical Piano would far prefer to be learning the Keyboard, as for one, it’s seen as a pretty ‘cool’ instrument in India, and also puts at the performer's disposal a vast number of different instrument samples that can be played alongside pre-recorded accompaniments in a variety of styles. However, they end up studying Classical Piano because unlike the Keyboard, ABRSM offers an exam at the end of it, which gives successful candidates an additional qualification that could set them apart from other potential employees at a job interview. Understandable, but unfortunate.

The kids are a pleasure to teach and practice hard though for many, a new approach to practice may have to be adopted. One of the main problems that I have found is with fingering, as many of the kids are left to their own devices when learning a piece and proceed to invent a completely different fingering to the one written in their part. As a result, they are not in control of the dynamics, articulation or phrasing, which are key to achieving high marks in the exam. Another big problem is the fact that many of the kids cannot see past the notes on the page. To help them with this, I have come up with many (often absurd) examples of imagery and emotion to illustrate the music and open their minds to new ideas. It seems to be working and I now have my students living by the motto that ‘Every piece of music tells a story’. Well, it’s true.

I have also led a couple of aural workshops for the exam students (about 30-40 in each session) where we looked through the ABRSM tests before I gave everyone a chance to try them out individually. To break it up a bit, I incorporated lots of silly songs and games into the classes such as ‘Rhythm Detective’ (where the ‘Rhythm Detective’ has to identify the ‘Rhythm Criminal’ who is clapping and occasionally changing a rhythm that everyone else is copying) and ‘The Crazy Moose Song’ (they had no idea what a moose was so the whole thing was hilarious). I've got workshops on piano performance, jazz & blues and duets planned for next weekend, after which I will be going to the Asian Christian College of Music in Kottayam to give the teachers some advice on the BMus course that they will be running next year. I’ll let you know how it all goes!

The 'Crazy Moose'!

‘Praise him with a massive bass thumping at your chest’. Who knew that the Church held rock concerts? I certainly didn’t. This quote was taken from the opening slide of a PowerPoint presentation put together by the lovely people at Abraham’s Church. He provides all the music for the service using a Korg Pa50, and upon hearing a sample of his material, I decided to go along and see what it was all about. Turns out that every song is sung to the booming accompaniment of an 80’s synth-pop backing track, performed live by Abraham. I was blown away (although not literally, as the fan was broken).

Abraham getting his groove on in Church

My Indian cinema experience last Monday was an interesting one. I decided to see Harry Potter and found myself surrounded by a hoard of applauding lunatics that erupted whenever anything remotely positive happened to Team Potter. There were also occasional shouts of encouragement to urge on various characters during the on-screen battles and, of course, huge celebrations when the good guys won. And probably tears when they didn’t. All in all, very entertaining.

Also, the Pepsi here has recently been contaminated with some sort of disease, so I’ve been told not to drink it. On a more positive note, I have a rechargeable mosquito-hitting bat.

That’s all for now!

Alex

Music Mumbai

2011-07-26T09:51:00.000+01:00

Hello, Hannah here, writing from Avalon Heights School, Navi Mumbai.

Well I'm just beginning my 3rd week here and am beginning to really get a feel for how music education works in my school/ Mumbai in general. I've been given three mornings a week in kindergarten (3 and 4 year olds - so cute!) and two days a week with junior age children (ages 5 to 11), which involves classroom teaching in the mornings and helping out in the keyboard classes in the afternoons.I have also observed a few of the lessons given by the singing teacher which has been really interesting.

In kindergarten I am pretty much trying to get the kids to recognize musical ideas such as 'high' and 'low', loud and quiet, getting them to sing together (as opposed to randomly starting/stopping whenever they feel like it), call and response etc, clapping games. The class teachers requested I sing songs related to the present class topic (plants in lower kindergarten, health in upper), which has been great, the kids get a whole cross-curricular lesson! After only 2 weeks they are already showing real progress, they can recognize high and low notes, can sing as a response to my call, and have been having lots of fun learning dances as well. Another great thing is that the teachers are really supportive and interested, singing and dancing along with me and the kids, and generally being fantastic. We have an open day next Saturday where we will hopefully get to showcase some of the songs they have learned.

In the Juniors it's a slightly different ball game, and I feel I have yet to establish a proper routine. As yet I haven't been given a proper timetable, instead I'm used as a cover teacher, dropped into lessons at a moments notice to spend half an hour playing games and singing songs etc. Whilst this is fun I really would like to be given a routine, as I don't feel prepared for my lessons and am finding it hard to keep a track of where I have been and what I have done. Whilst the teachers are all very enthusiastic about my classes, and the kids are receptive, enthusiastic and very quick to catch on to musical ideas, I feel that I'm seen as a 'fun' teacher rather than as a person teaching a real subject.

This view seems to be prevalent across the city; an Indian friend who teaches music at another international school feels his subject is sidelined in favor of maths/ science etc, and that he is given less respect then teachers of these subjects. Whilst this happens in the UK as well, I am beginning to appreciate how much effort, training and funding goes into music education there. Where I work in London every borough has a music service which provides specialist music teachers to schools. These teachers are trained, supported, paid well (ish), have access to a wealth of resources. In schools the value of music is appreciated and teachers go out of their way to encourage and support musical activity (at least most of the time).

Here music teachers receive no training, are part of no overall body, do not have access to schemes of work or to sessions with other music teachers. Hence the teaching, or at least a lot of the keyboard/vocal teaching I have observed, is somewhat chaotic and often not suitable for the size of class or ability of the students. Students are singled out whilst the rest of the class chats, meaning that they never get a feel for communal music making, something which, in my opinion, is one of the joys of working in a large group.The teachers simply have not had the opportunities to learn good group songs or to teach music as a classroom subject as they themselves learned privately and only have that experience to go on. However, this approach does mean that individual children have little self-conciousness and are happy to sing alone in front of their friends and teacher, something which kids in London always find hard.

In spite of a lack of timetable I do feel like I can be useful whilst I am here. I am working with the keyboard teacher (who has to deal with up to 20 unruly kids who turn up with or without their instruments and with or without their books), and giving him ideas about teaching instrumental lessons to a large group, games to play etc. I am also going to run a music workshop for the school teachers; I will use the opportunity to preach the virtue of music education to the utmost of my abilities! The singing teacher and I also have some sessions in kindergarten together so we can swap ideas and songs.

In other news, Ronald and I did a couple of workshops in an orphanage at the weekend; 100 boys in a room makes for a fun if rowdy experience, especially if Ronald is dong baboon impressions for their amusement! I have found myself playing violin with a cool singer/songwriter dude from Nepal who has got us a gig at the Blue Frog which will be wicked. We also are planning a few workshops with Furtado's, a local music shop, and for the British Council. Ronald and I are also doing some string quartet (three violins and a viola, who needs cellos) playing with a violin teacher and his student at Garodia school which is really fun. We are just working on learning folk tunes by ear and playing along with some stuff they learned, it's less of a teaching thing and more just a playing thing which is so nice to do.

We also got to see Charis (the 3rd Mumbai WAMmer) give a piano recital at her school which was a real treat.
I'm trying to get involved in the Indian music scene here as much as possible, I'm looking for a teacher and will be attending as many concerts as I can. In general I am loving Mumbai; the trains and the rains are amazing, the food is fab, and even the grumpy potty-mouthed Scottish man who hangs around my apartment isn't too annoying.

Hope everyone else is having a great time too!

Hannah x

Pianos and Politics: End of Week Three

2011-07-21T16:20:00.000+01:00

Electric pianos? Who said they wouldn't go out of tune?

It seems every electrical device I've brought with me - laptop included - has decided to play up; typing this on a flashing neon screen is already beginning to give me a headache. The humidity ends up frying the brains out of all these devices, ending up giving them a life of their own. And the Clavinova last week? That was a joke. I was convinced Harry Partch had come round in the middle of the night and deemed the 12-tone scale, for the umpteenth time, redundant.

I feel like I've settled into the way of things at Garodia and in Mumbai quite satisfactorily. There was, unfortunately, the scare last Wednesday with the terrorist bombings - not an experience I'd like to repeat again. Possibly made a little more chilling by the thought that two of us - myself and Hannah - had been down and past St. Xavier's about three hours before the horror unfolded.

Hannah strikes gold:
Cadbury's saves the day.

The food situation seems to be a bit up and down these days, but on a plus side, I've (unbelievably) found a Costa Coffee. And internet. I think I'm already a Costa Convert and fortunately these folk seem to be a little unsure of what to do with my Costa Card. I got a free coffee yesterday, 20% off another day. Wicked.

Classes have been having academic exams over the past week or so and, unsurprisingly, any practice that the kids at the Music School should have been doing has gone by the wayside. On the other hand, it was obvious that some were quite relieved to come and simply have a piano lesson - a change from sitting in front of textbooks I'm sure. In general, however, the methods that the children have been following in learning piano are a little worrying. Very old-fashioned. Standing in front of a chalkboard and tapping this, that, the-next-thing. Repeat. And again. Can't imagine it's the best way to learn. Fortunately, a couple of things I've managed to timidly and diplomatically - a first for me - suggest, seem to have been taken on board, such as dispelling the notion of having all the keyboards beside each other; it's quite plain to see that the students were in no way encouraged to develop an ear - an ear which should be taught to constructively criticise and correct throughout the learning process. Simply impossible when you've got three kids in a row all playing Yankee Doodle (or a theme and variations thereof). In addition, that brings me to another of my niggles - none of the piano tuition at the Music School is truly one-to-one and is usually a class of 2-3 students at the same time, a concept which is quite foreign to me indeed (at least, for private instrumental tuition) - though I've no picture of the financial situation at the Music School to be able to comment on the viability of one-to-one tutorials.

At the primary school, Blaise and I have been giving each class a little exam, where each of them goes in front of the class in turns to sing a song which they've learned over the past term, as well as clap the rhythm of it, demonstrate it in sol-fa and 'conduct' it. It was quite good for me to be able to see what sort of standard each of the students was at - there's certainly a few number of students who can sing quite well, but a rather larger number who still struggled to put two consecutive notes one after the other. Partch, again, would have been delighted: room for improvement, I think. However, I was thrilled to see that each of the students tried as very best as they could - and that's the most important thing.

There's a concert coming up next term, where a series of fairytale animals meet another series of fairytale animals and sing some fairytale songs. So far we've got Mother Goose, Barney the Dinosaur and an as-of-yet-unidentified frog in the plot and so I'm understandably a little apprehensive as to how 'The Frog' and Mother Goose are going to be incorporated into Barney's "I'm a Dinosaur" song. (*edit: I've just read the "Barney & Friends" Wikipedia entry, which clearly demonstrates a link between Mother Goose and Barney, alongside the note that Barney "is ranked on TV Guide's List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time")

Open-Top Tours, but not as you know them:
Tree Surgeons take heed, this is the way to go.

Hannah and I attended a violin class last week which was particularly good. We'd sat in on a lesson with an older student, to see what else was going on and were warmly welcomed to stay. We eventually came back in the next lesson and spent a bit of time with both the teacher and his student, demonstrating and teaching them a couple of tunes by ear and playing along with them. Fortunately Hannah and I had the good sense to bring our violin/viola to India, though the humidity got the better of the instruments as well - but that's another story. Traditionally of course, in the tuition of Classical Indian music, you've a 'guru' and the student - and it's all by ear. It's therefore a shame for this same skill to not be used to its full potential in other musics, especially in the tuition of a string instrument, where the player has a much greater sense and physical connection to pitch than with, say, a piano. I'm no hardcore disciple of Suzuki/Kodály method - or any other 'by-ear' method - but it's unequivocally ideal to incorporate such skills in lessons as part of a balanced musical diet.

I've been doing a fair bit of exploration on the trains and on the buses. Though the trip to school is a little long, it also gets me out of Vashi and so when I fancy popping off somewhere at the end of classes it's quite quick to get into town/go north/whatever. At the end of last week, I headed up to Ville Parle, where I knew of an orphanage run by the Missionaries of Charity. They were very accommodating and - although they don't usually take any volunteers - agreed to have me come in on Sunday afternoon to do some music with the children. With all ages in the room, between 3-14, it was a little bit of a struggle to have them sitting down and so eventually had to give up on the notion of sitting down at all and just launch into a few songs with them. Some of the songs (thankfully, I'd brought a few) sank like lead balloons. But one in particular got them going so much that they sang it six times round (it's a 4-verse song…) before eventually cooling down after having exhausting themselves. I'm planning on heading up again next Sunday and so I'll hopefully find a few more crackin' good songs before then.

Blaise and I headed up to St. Francis's school/orphanage at the beginning of this week to have a chat with the Brothers about doing a small music project with themselves as well. Tomorrow (Friday), we'll be going up (myself, Hannah, Blaise) to Borivali for an evening session with the children there, followed by another session on Saturday morning - though as far as the practicalities of getting up there before 8am are concerned, I'm as of yet unsure as to how that'll work out!

In any case, it's about time I head back to my internet-less cavern and put together a few papers for tomorrow's kids - so long, folks!

[Barney voice]: And remember, I love you!

-- Ronald

Sight-reading 101

2011-07-18T17:59:00.000+01:00

Now seems like a good time to post my first blog, having just completed my second full week of teaching and settled down comfortably. I've been able to get to know the students a little better and get a handle on the challenges of teaching in India.

I arrived two weeks ago to be met at the airport and taken to my lodgings for the two months of my stay: the office of the Trinity representative in India, Anjli Mata. The area is refreshingly green and quiet with a local market and easy transport links. At first it was difficult to get to grips with the geography of the city, especially without a map, but I soon gathered that I was some way South of the city centre in the residential Chittaranjan Park. In the course of each week I travel to three different branches of the THEME music school; one nearby, one further to the South closer to the other Delhi WAM folk, and one in the East of the city. Having taken in some of the sights during my days off I'm now starting to develop a better impression of the city and its sprawling enormity!

On the Monday after my arrival I had my first day of teaching at the Southern branch of THEME. My job at THEME involves taking one on one piano lessons with students who have signed up, as well as three, weekly group sessions. Naturally I was a little nervous prior to my first session but appreciated being thrown straight into the mix with a lively group class. Once I got going I found the kids friendly and responsive. At first I was very much feeling my way and improvising my subject material, however, building on this I was able to conduct more carefully planned classes during the second week. To begin with I was sceptical of taking a 'group' piano class, but soon came to realise the benefits: students can learn from each other, gain regular performance experience - vital for steadying nerves, engage in debate and discussion on technical and musical matters and overcome challenges together. Sight-reading tuition proved especially suitable for this format...

Almost all of the students here take the TrinityGuildhall exams and I was very surprised to discover that until recently, sight-reading has been optional until the higher grades. Perhaps inevitably students tend to shy away from sight-reading in favour of the 'musical knowledge' and aural choices meaning that when they reach their grades six and above they are suddenly presented with challenging sight-reading that they have no way of tackling. This lack of experience in sight-reading proved to be endemic in the students here and so, starting with these group classes, I have been taking many of the students back to basics with the initial and grade one level tests. My ultimate aim is to build from this basic foundation over the two months, leaving them with a better grounding in the discipline and the ability to succeed at their respective levels. What I hope to get across is that as long as they have the technical facility required to the play the music, and most of them do, sight-reading is a mental process that can be learned and practised just like anything else, with tactics, tricks and appropriate exercises. My shortcomings as a sight reader have been a particularly useful source of inspiration and it’s amazing how much I've learned about my own approach during these first couple of weeks.

Each group class contains around five students and lasts for one hour. Unfortunately these are the kids’ only weekly piano lessons and as such I’m finding it hard to prioritise and cover everything – basic technique, aural, scales, grade pieces etc – in the allotted time. At one stage I hope to combine two of the classes allowing for a more in depth exploration of one of the areas mentioned above - will post on the results.

That’s all for today, will blog again soon on my experiences with the solo students!

Gabriel

Teaching and Training: End of Week One

2011-07-10T02:14:00.000+01:00

Choo choo training. Not training training.

Well hello there! I'm Ronald (seemingly often spelled Ronlad, Roland or 'Christiano' over here) - one of the WAMers sent out to Mumbai. I'm placed in Garodia School, in an area called Ghatkhopar. I've just finished my second year BMus at the University of Edinburgh and as a first trip to India (or indeed this far east in general), it's taken some getting used to.

Trains are a funny business over here. Having arrived Saturday afternoon at the apartment, rested and washed, Sunday's escapade on Mumbai's train network was nothing short of extraordinary. Gone are the nice little queues and people waiting patiently for the train to grind to a halt, in comes the mad stampede, pushing and shoving, faces shoved in others' armpits, asking in broken English "Where from, country?", hanging off the sides of carriages and generally being pushed around in what is a complete ruckus.

In any case, trains aren't why I'm here. Teaching. Teaching? WHoa now, hold on… rings a bell…

Plonked into the first day at Garodia (I'm told it's Gar-OOOOH-dia, not the other mispronunciations I've had going on) - and being crammed like a sardine into the back of a bus for 45 minutes so as to get there - it was quite a little shock to the system. Class teaching back home is, by comparison, like teaching the quietest souls in the world. These guys, on the other hand, were wild: savages. Cute - but savages nonetheless. Striking any sort of bargain, be it 'how long can you be quiet?' etc., was completely pointless.

Ryan and Aaron, the WAMers from last year, had put together a musical curriculum which the school was following with the intention of putting a formal, structured course tailored to the needs of (savage) kids in grades 1 to 4. Blaise, the permanent music teacher at the school, enthusiastically demonstrated how the curriculum was used in class, to great effect. His rapport with the students was at once wholly noticeable and his love for teaching demonstrable by the way he managed to coax every student into singing, clapping and cheering; learning, while having fun. It's up to me now to get a grasp of how to use this as best as possible in class and see how this could be expanded - beginning with the Grades 5 and above, who are a little on the older side to be taught from square one, by way of Kodály-esque 'nursery rhymes' (for want of a better way of explaining what they are) - can't imagine that'd be the most popular idea.

The set-up at Garodia is a little unconventional, in that the school is also involved in operating an after-school 'music school', running from approximately 15:30 to 19:00 every day (oh and that's another thing I've noticed - times here all use 24h format, but are written in 12h… very annoying). The music school is in fact split between two locations: one at the main building (here, on the map) and one over at Bandra (here). It's a little ride on the train and a couple of rickshaws away (don't even get me started on rickshaw drivers). Being involved though in both the class teaching and the after-school one-to-one sessions is something I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to do - as I certainly enjoy both.

From what I am able to discern, there's a great interest in music among some of the younger students at Garodia school. I do notice, however, a different temperament (boom, boom) among the music school students… I understand that extra-curricular activities such as music are pursued solely with the intention of putting it on school applications and so - inevitably - it brings a wholly different attitude to music and, more specifically, learning an instrument. In any case, I hope my initial impressions are misguided - but it's something I'll be keeping a close eye on.

-- Ronald

WAM 2011

2011-06-20T10:59:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the 2011 blog of the WAM Foundation! (Worldwide Appreciation of Music) http://www.wamfoundation.org.uk/

This summer 12 talented young musicians will travel to India to teach at schools in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Cochin and Trivandrum. They are:

Alexander Hill
Alice Beckwith
Alice Elms
Aniko Sovago
Charis Cheung
Emily Scaglioni
Gabriel Jones
Grace Newcombe
Hannah Marsden
Jenny Larsen
Ronald MacDonald
Viktor Sugeng

You will be able to read about their experiences here during July and August. Watch this space!