I must first clearly and absolutely state that everything here is based on my experience and my world view. I am totally open to being corrected on anything I say here. As I have said, many times, I started learning as an adult and I feel the trials and tribulations faced by adult learners are unique. So what does it take?
Ideally be born in a family steeped in music so that you are taken off for lessons when you are somewhere between four and seven years of age. Long before you know anything about music. The teacher sings something and you just repeat it so that you can be allowed to go out and play. My mami says that is the way it was with her. When she came from school, the Bhagavathar would already be sitting having his coffee waiting for her to change and come for her class. She says she used to be so irritated then. In retrospect, she understands what a boon that was.And classes were almost every day. So they sang the compositions again and again till she could sing it in her sleep. And on the days, you had to practice at home, you had a parent who knew enough to correct you, every time there was a false note. Even when I started learning, it used to be only twice a week. But I think for most students now it is once a week. So current and future generations of music students are not going to get that kind of privilege.
Learning as an adult is uphill. In our culture, we believe that no seeker should be turned away. So, you will have people say," What is there? For music, you can learn anytime." That cliche is not true. Would anybody try to be a ballet dancer in their 40s? So what makes anybody think they can be a serious classical singer that late in life. And the truth is that today there are more and more people going into various art forms at an advanced age. Rukmini Vijayakumar is having online Bharatnatyam classes for people of any age and with no training. I tried doing the araimandi which I did effortlessly when I was ten years old and thought my knees would give up.
The idea is not to discourage anybody. But hopefully give an insight into stuff which might work for you.
Firstly, find a teacher that works for you. I cannot even begin to explain how important this is. Let me explain the phrase " works for you" The best teacher might not be the one who has all these star students, performing all over the world. Assuming that he or she takes you in some group class perhaps.
The best teacher might not even be the one who sings so well that you yearn to sing like him or her. In some ways that is even counter-productive because when you are a beginner you will wonder why you are singing the same thing and yours sounds like shit and his or hers sounds divine. And you will not know how to correct. Maybe your voice is not capable of all the micro tones and " trying to sound like them" is inherently wrong. You have to just concentrate on trying to sing it correctly .
The best teacher is this one . You sit in front of them and you feel it is not impossible. There is a compassion and generosity which does not mean they do not correct your mistakes. They do. But they make you feel it is possible. And they have internalised the composition they are teaching you and can understand the limitations of different students and " how" to correct.I remember when I first started learning, when I was being corrected repeatedly I would often ask" What am I doing wrong?"Because I did not understand. Only a few people have been able to say what I was doing wrong. Also, when you are a beginner being told to sing with more bhava or from within etc will not help you. In fact it can be a slippery slope and you might lose out on authenticity.
A long long time back I was in a workshop . It was the first day of the workshop and we were being taught a Mukhari varnam of Vasudevacharya. I was clueless about both Mukhari and Vasudevacharya.At that point in time, I would learn a varnam over 4 classes. I remember going back after that class and in the car, I could sing most of that varnam. I was stupefied. I did not know that was possible. I still remember that varnam. And again when my sense of thalam was so terrible, I remember learning a song which had a nadai change in the middle. Almost the whole class groaned. And the teacher said " Nothing. No problem.Just repeat after me. And keep putting thalam. You will see that it will fall perfectly"
What I am trying to say is that there are people who are absolutely confident about what they are teaching and if the student does this, then that shall happen. See if you can find somebody like that.
Nowadays, many times, notations are handed out. Now this is a double edged sword.
There is a certain benefit in enunciating a line saying it loudly and writing it down. This act gets you in touch with the sahithya in a way that seeing it on the sheet does not. Especially when there are lines that start atheetha or run into multiple avartas. Say all the words loudly to yourself with emphasis on the pronunciation, and the breaks and write it. Understand what the words mean. Never mind if your teacher has given you a notation. When you go home say the words and write it. Do you remember when you were still in school and you used to study by writing the answers whether in maths or history or geography?Same principle.
The notation is very important. Do not get me wrong. Our generation is not repeating the song everyday like earlier generations. After you "learn" a song, you might not revisit it for six months or six years. And so when you go back to it, you need to be able to capture the flow , words etc in a jiffy. Also, one has limited time for music and you do not want to spend that time figuring out what word falls where.
A long long time back I learnt Himagiri Tanaye( Sudha Dhanyasi, Muthiah Bhagavathar). In the charanam, the vaggeyakara mudra Harikesha is split( with Hari in one avartanam and Kesha in the beginning of the next). I was happily singing Hari and Kesha separately till I heard Sowmya sing it six months later and I hit myself on the head multiple times. The point was the teacher did not correct me and I did not know any better. Could have been corrected easily by me.
Sing things slowly. Record yourself. You will see your mistake. Stick with this even when hearing your recording depresses you and you think, " Good God, is that how I sound?"
When you are learning a composition totally and absolutely desist the urge to go on Youtube and see how Sanjay or TMK or RaGa or any particular favourite of yours has sung. You are learning a version from a teacher. Trust that teacher. It does not matter if his or her version has more/less sangathis etc etc. Just learn that. Long after you have internalised that song, you can listen to others and you can then maybe incorporate some little thing. But that is later. Not when you are still learning.
Now just last week, I was in a class where a participant was singing the notes but when she sang the sahithya she was going wrong. This used to happen to me too( still does sometimes) And one way I found that worked for me was to sing the notes, then sing that in aakar and then sort of " cut paste" the sahithya on top.
Use the notation to learn the structure, eduppus, flow etc. After that try not to look at it. I have so many songs I have "learnt" with multiple sangathis with such small changes, that they do not at all sound different( at least in my voice). There has to be a flow in the sangathis. If you have to look at the notation and say " Oh, oh in next it is not NDP, but NMP, then it is not working for you. I have notations, which basically do not work for me in certain places. You need to be able to change this( with the help of your teacher). See I have a theory that a consummate singer can make any notation work. But the point is whether it is organic. Does this phrase automatically lead to this? Except in cases when you just have something startlingly different.. to enhance the dramatic.
My training, by and large, has been very very notation based. But in recent times, I have realised that the notation is like the architect's blueprint. While it is important it will not capture the majesty and grandeur of the final building... the tiles on the floors, the soft furnishings and all of the other interiors.
Now this is a new age problem I am facing. There is so much teaching available on the net. Great gurus, teaching rare compositions, and it is theoretically possible to learn a lot that way. Try not to be a glutton. Try not to fall on each of these and download thinking" I want to learn this. I want to learn that". My laptop has so many such compositions complete with notations that I have told myself I will learn one of these days. Let it go. One cannot learn every thing that is available. Choose what you want to learn and just perfect that. Do not keep flitting from one workshop to another like a honey bee. Not all of them can help you sing better, if you do not lock yourself in your room and work on that one krithi till you have discovered possibilities there nobody else ever has. You have to do the work. Nobody can do it for you.
Ultimately, you have to decide if you want to sing ten songs badly or one song well. Shunning the siren call of those wonderful other compositions and sticking with one composition day after day needs a lot of discipline. But do it. Sometimes, in very complex compositions you will hit a road block after a few days. So take a break and go on to something else for a few days. But come back to this and finish it.
This whole business of learning has gone through a total paradigm shift in recent times and especially in the last seventeen months. On one hand, a student today has access to the best of training irrespective of where they are living. On the other hand, if musical training continues to be online, there are things we have to be cognizant of. For example, when you are sitting in front of a teacher and your thalam is lagging, the teacher can catch you immediately. But in an online situation, when you are repeating a phrase, it is not that easy. Something is one after a beat, you have to be conscious. And remember the teacher is not seeing your hands. I still remember sitting and putting simple adi thalam and my teacher telling me to simply press down on each finger so I would not run. How will things like this happen? And do not even ask about swara singing. If you ask me where did you start" I will give the right answer, But did I really start there?" One cannot check these things as easily. Another small thing. I used to struggle a lot when eduppus were one or three off. Samam and half eduppus are comparitively easy. I remember Padmanaabha Paali( Hindolam) where the composition begins one after the beat. The teacher used to keep saying" No, that is two after. No that was samam". And I struggled and sometimes got it right by chance. Years later I figured out for myself, how to do this. You concentrate not on where you are starting but where you have to end.
And when is the learning of the composition completed? I used to ask my executives when a project was completed. And they used to say" when it is handed over to the client". And I would say " No". And they would say, " After we have billed for it" and i would say"No". And they would say " After we have received the cheque for it( this was before most payments were direct to bank)". And I would say No. And they would be like " What the hell.." And I would say when you deposit the cheque and it does not bounce and you get your credit it in your account.
In the same way, the composition has been " learned" only when you can just sit in front of your teacher and the composition flows out of you simply and effortlessly belying all the effort and struggle in learning it.
I shall now start applying some of the excellent advice that I have given in this post!!!
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