Dear brother-member, mridhangam,mridhangam wrote:my gurus Tanjore Ramadoss and Ramanathapuram M N Kandaswamy, did not allow me to play on the mridangam until and otherwise i got the three speed for a particular lesson orally.
In the same manner, every music teacher must start with Chaturashra-jati i.e., ki-ta-ta-ka - 4 syllables per each second (of 3rd degree of speed) which is Maatra-kala - uttering ‘ki-ta’ along with the beat of the right hand followed by ‘ta-ka’ along with the beat of the left hand, to the aspirant whose instinct of Laya is at such a required level that he/she could finish it within one day only and start the 7 Jati-lankaras which he/she could finish them successfully within a couple of days. Unless the aspirant becomes able to spell out the Jati-alankaras in Ata and Triputa-talas in the 3rd degree, he/she should not be taught even the 1st Saralee-svara at all. If all the music teachers follow this we can maintain high-standards and , no doubt, many of the aspirants will become stalwarts. amsharma.