From gurukula to cyber vidyalaya

A FATHER walks into a musician's house with his daughter in tow. He reels out to the musician, a senior one, that here is his daughter who is endowed with a very good voice and can sing really well. Of course, she has had no proper training in Carnatic music. Her wedding has been fixed and is scheduled to take place within three weeks. She would be free for the next 15 days. The musician was requested to conduct a crash course for two weeks and with her voice and inclinations, the father indicated, she should have no difficulty in becoming a competent Carnatic vocalist at the end of the course. The musician, a conservative person with adherence to ethical values, categorically refused to undertake the assignment and tried to make the father understand that Carnatic music cannot be considered as such an easy, casual art which can be imbibed in days. Having a sweet voice capable of repeating light tunes alone is not the main qualification for learning classical Carnatic music. Even for a person endowed with a felicitous voice, years of disciplined intensive training is essential to reach the basic levels in the art. The body language of the father did not reveal a trace of conviction about this and he left disappointed.

There was yet another interesting incident. A highly revered senior vocal maestro was approached by a famous and popular artiste of the light music world with a request to train him in the finer aspects of Carnatic music. The great maestro, as luck would have it for the light music wizard, agreed to teach him. Being a busy person in his own field the aspiring student sent word through a messenger the next day to the great doyen whether the lessons could be taped and sent across to him instead of the student taking the trouble of attending classes under him. The great vidwan flatly refused to oblige saying that Carnatic music is not something to be treated so lightly and taught that way.

With all good intentions a young girl is taken to a guru of competence and the parent tells the guru that the child has undergone training in the fundamentals of Carnatic music for a few months under a junior artiste. She was being brought to this senior artiste for advanced training. The teacher readily agrees. The next question the parent poses the teacher ``Can she be made a concert artiste in six months?'' A serious student has to put in a year or more of training in the basics with necessary rigorous voice training (sadhakam) before even embarking on learning keerthanas. At least five years of concentrated training would be required before the voice becomes concert worthy. Perhaps, one with prodigious capabilities would achieve this level faster.

These are trends which are certainly setting in, in the field of Carnatic music which would send shockwaves in the minds of those who have undergone training under the gurukula system of learning music with long years of toil to reach the concert platform as a musician of recognition. All the last century greats in the field had their grooming under this institution.

From time immemorial, learning of the Vedas and music has been through the oral tradition, from the guru to the sishya. Under the direct tutelage in the olden days, boys at a tender age of seven or eight used to be taken to a highly learned Vedic scholar or a great music maestro and left under the teacher's care, as a resident in his household, to undergo intense training in the Vedas or music, as the case may be, for a number of years until satisfactory proficiency is attained by the young student. ``Gurukulavasam'' literally means stay in the guru's house. In this system the young students are almost identified as a member of the guru's family. They shared the chores of the household, took care of the Guru's needs, ran errands for him, act as his valet, etc. The teacher would impart knowledge whenever he pleased and whenever the teacher, especially the musician teacher, practised, the students got to listen to him, an opportunity they would have missed if they were not residents with the teacher. The students had to face certain difficulties in the process. The determination the students had for absorbing the knowledge from the guru used to be so intense that these troubles did not deter them. Constant interaction between the teacher and the taught was a major plus point of this system.

The system had drawbacks as well. Most often students had no regular coaching for days on end. Girls also could not get coached user this scheme.

With change in the social environment and acceleration in the pace of life gurukula system yielded place to institutions to handle the coaching of the Vedas and music. Teaching of Vedas shifted to Vedapatashalas. Music colleges took over the task of imparting music lessons. The faculty of the institutions were adorned by great scholars in the respective fields. Many musicians of recognition emanated from the music colleges, the Carnatic College of Music, Chennai, Sri Swati Thirunal Music Academy, Thiruvananthapuram, The Music College of Annamalai University, Chidambaram, have been some of the prominent institutions in the field. In addition to the institutional training, students went for more personalised coaching to great vidwans at their residence where they held classes. These students did not take up residency with the teacher but attended only classes with him. The practice of the teacher going over to the residence of the students also came into being. This transformation was jocularly referred to by a senior maestro as ``from gurukula to sishyakulapravesham''. These systems are still prevalent. Better regularity with more purposeful coaching is achieved under this system in contrast to the old gurukulam. Both boys and girls got equal opportunities in getting groomed as concert artistes in the present day coaching system.

A disturbing trend which has set in, in the last few years is the replacement of gurus by electronic equipment such as tape recorders and computers for learning music. Starting with taped music lessons for teaching of ``sarali'' to ``varnam'' stage by competent artistes it is shifting fast to cyber classes through which music lessons are made available. It is thrilling to know that a person sitting in far away America or Australia is able to have access to music lessons conducted by a competent maestro stationed in Chennai. Under this type of ``impersonal'' coaching, the teacher would never know whether the student has understood the lessons correctly and the music is flawlessly rendered. The teacher will have no opportunity to correct the mistakes. The students could commit mistakes in rendering the music by improper understanding of the lessons taught. Every student who tries to learn through taped music may not possess the same level of standard in musical knowledge. The capacity of a student to understand intricate and ``Bhava rich'' ragas or compositions depends on the taste or ``Sangeeta Jnanam'' the person has. The richer the ``Sangeeta Jnanam'' the faster and more accurate would be the absorption of intricacies. A competent teacher would be able to gauge this aspect and modify his teaching method to suit the student. This is possible only when the teacher and the taught interact and this is totally absent in a tape student relationship. Carnatic music is full of subtle nuances, oscillations and half note usages which could be beyond proper comprehension to even competent students unless taught by the guru directly.

Another important aspect in Carnatic vocal music is the necessity for the right voice production. A full-throated open rendition is the most appropriate method of voice production in the vocal rendition of Carnatic music. Use of false voice or a muffled rendition could fail to bring out the real depth of our music. Any correction in this regard is possible only when the guru is able to listen to the Sishya's rendition. A direct teaching by a vidwan could be recorded by a student for later use at home during practice sessions.

Use of taped music lessons only for learning music in a serious manner is an unhealthy trend that is setting in. Any student aspiring to become a concert artiste in Carnatic music will have to necessarily undergo rigorous training under a competent guru, with all the entailing regimen putting in unstinted concentrated effort for a pretty length of time to achieve the aspiration. No fast track is available.

V. SUBRAHMANIAM

(Senior disciple of Sri Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer).

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