IN SEARCH OF A VERY GOOD MUSIC TEACHER.

[S.NAGESWARAN]

Many of the Rasikas may be knowing that my Grand daughter Srinidhi was
Blessed with a photographic memory in respect of absorbing music. Many uploads of songs sung by my grand daughter have been uploaded in Rasikas. Org thread from time to time
And appreciated by the senior Rasikas sri cmlover, arasi etc.

Last year during the Rasikas meet at my home in December 2009, Srinidhi had sung a few songs.

Srinidhi was able to sing near about 50 Thukkada songs of Nithyasree, Sudha Raghunathan, Soumya etc after listening to the songs from my Cassette and CD collections.
Right from the age of 5 she won the appreciation of many musicians [Sri G.S.Mani,
Mysore Bros, Tiruvarur Bhakthavatsalam, Akkarai Swaminathan, their daughters Subbalakshmi, Swarnalatha etc].

When Srinidhi sang many songs at T.V.Sankaranarayanan’s home,
Sri Vembu Iyer [who had a fracture in his leg and sitting inside] called us all in and
wanted to see Srinidhi and blessed my grand daughter.

I took Srinidhi to Sri P.S.Narayanaswamy with the intention of putting Srinidhi
for tuition with him. After listening to Srinidhi singing a few songs,
Sri PSN enquired about her age {she was 6 years young then].

Sri PSN opined that being a child, she may not be able to sit through even for 30 minutes {playful in nature then} and suggested that regular teaching of fundamentals of music from the Age of 8 would be better.


Sri Sathalapathy Balasubramaniam, a noble hearted gentlemen who would shed tears
even when you mention the name of MMI, heard a few songs from Srinidhi and was immensely pleased by Srinidhi’s Singing.
I expressed my wish to he be the Guru for teaching music from the fundamentals
to Srinidhi. He said that he would be the happiest person to teach Srinidhi
But for his health conditions [Had heart operation].

Then he has recommended that Sri Shrirangachari, Disciple of TNS and Calcutta Krishnamurthy [Sri PBS sang in our forum concert] will be the best teacher for Stinidhi.

Sri PBS opined that he may have observe my grand daughter for 2 or 3 months
And then only he may be able to select a method for reghular lessons in music.
Sri PBS however asked us to send Srinidhi for tuitions under him.

Within 3 months, Srinidhi became a darling of all the students and stunned even senior students by singing what the students were taught even better than them.

But one problem then was Srinidhi would sit for the lessons only for 5 or 10 minutes
And she will be playing with seniors and simultaneously singing whatever Sri PBS
used to teach the senior students.

When she is in the class it used to be fun and frolic for other senior students in the class.
In about 6 month’s time, in addition to learning 4 varnams, she used to sing the Chakravakam Krithi, Nagasvarali Krithi, PBS’ own sahithyam “Nanda Thanujam in the raga Durga” etc which were taught to the senior students.

After sri PBS shifted his residence to a far away place, there was a break in her music training.

I have uploaded a few more songs sung by Srinidhi in Rasikas.org and sent to my friends.
Miss Akkarai Subbalakshmi, after listening to the songs, she was a bit upset that I am yet to put Srinidhi under a very good teacher.

Sri R.Parthasarathy, Veena player and Sri Ramesh Vinayagam music Directer advised me to put Srinidhi under Sri Ravikiran, Chitra Veena player or with Sri Vijay Siva.
Both of them felt that Sri Ravikiran and Vijay Siva have the best traditional padantharam. When I contacted Sri Vijay Siva [being nearer to our house], Sri Vijay Siva indicated that he doesn’t teach to ladies. Then we have requested Vijay Siva’s mother to teach my grand daughter. Considering the extraordinary talent of Srinidhi, we requested her to give extended individual training to Srinidhi. My son in law was prepared to pay any extra payment.

But Vijay Siva’s mother told us that no special individual training will be given and Srinidhi must learn music along with other children. In spite of this Srinidhi joined
the general class.

With 2 classes in a week for about 1 hour duration for 10 to 15 students, only one line of the varnam was taught in the one hour duration with each student to sing the one line of the
Varnam and corrections made for each student. By this time the class is over for the day.

Not satisfied with the progress in music training, after 3 months we have stopped sending Srinidhi for the classes,

We tried to put Srinidhi under Mrs.Seetha Rajan. The stringent conditions which couldn’t
be complied with by us compelled us to drop the idea.

Now Srinidhi is 11 years of age and studying in 6th class now [from April 2010.].

Bio Data;-Date of Birth; 15.06.1999.

First song sung on25.12.2002 [At the Age of 3 years and 6 months ]; “Rama Namame Thudhi Maname in the Raag Desh {Video].
After singing the first 2 Stanzas assisted by her mother, Srinidhi sings the 3rd Stanza alone followed by singing a Slokam again in Desh in an extempore mood without any prompting.

Audio recorded on 15.06.2009.
Download links;

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ywakpzg99 ... inidhi.mp3

2. http://www.mediafire.com/file/sz258p1g6 ... inidhi.mp3

3.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/68i8h88hd ... hi-01.06.0
9.mp3

4. http://www.mediafire.com/file/3ts5ryb34 ... inidhi.mp3

5. http://www.mediafire.com/file/v02a7idxx ... inidhi.mp3

6. http://www.mediafire.com/file/hnf967vw8 ... inidhi.mp3

7. http://www.mediafire.com/file/bal3c57wi ... inidhi.mp3

8. http://www.mediafire.com/file/mmbypb986 ... inidhi.mp3

9. http://www.mediafire.com/file/3e767p7ng ... inidhi.mp3

10. http://www.mediafire.com/file/vxdhpbp6c ... inidhi.mp3

11. http://www.mediafire.com/file/azc7u86i9 ... inidhi.mp3

Whether we were able to get a good teacher for Srinidhi?

To be continued under the thread “MUSIC SCHOOL” .

S.NAGESWARAN.
31.07.2010.

[VK RAMAN]

Thanks Sharmaji for this service to the community.

[msakella]

Dear brother-member,VK RAMAN, Thank you for your kind appreciation.

Everybody is the part and parcel of the community irrespective of his cast or creed or religion or employment or earnings or knowledge etc., etc., and everybody must strive hard for the enlightenment of the community to be well remembered even after his demise. That is only the true service but not getting TTK award or Sangita Kalanidhi or Padmashri or Bharat Ratna or Noble-prize which are of no use after demise.

Having blindly followed the traditional way of teaching music I could not properly and efficiently serve my community in my Govt. service of 35 long years. Only after my retirement that too only by the grace of the Almighty I have been blessed with this bent of mind to sincerely serve my community. In this process when my good old friend Shri S.Nageshwaran requested me to teach music to his grand-daughter, Chi. Shrinidhi, I readily accepted. More over, the next day, when I have listened to her I found her fit for learning music in every way. That’s why I could start teaching her enthusiastically.

In my umpteen experiments on a number of aspirants who are handy in my Govt. service as Lecturer, I have found that the traditional way of quantitative-teaching, having no logical background, which is followed blindly by all the music-teachers, hinders the growth of the aspirant in one way or the other. Thus, only by the grace of the Almighty, I have been guided towards a fool-proof and logical method of qualitative-teaching by which the process of teaching has been made ‘Time-bound and Result-oriented’. I have trained Chi. Shrinidhi and she is able to finish of 8 Adi-tala-varnas, one Ata-tala-varna in Bhairavi and Shyama Shastry’s Svarajati in Bhairavi and became cable to sing intricate-rhythmical-svarakalpana in Khanda-chapu and Mishra-chapu even without learning a single Kriti, all within a span of 4 months only. This is for your kind information. amsharma

[mohan]

Sri Nageswaran - is the Srinidhi on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jen-1ofuU4 the same child?

[rajeshnat]

msakella gAru
Nice of you to train srinidhi. I did hear the hindolam swara clipping that shri nageswaran uploaded few weeks back in shri kulkarni's house , definitely the turnaround time is very very fast.

Mohan
Both sirnidhis are different

[Nick H]

If the arrangement with our respected msakella is going ahead, then nothing more needs to be said.

Otherwise, I would reccomend you to hear K Jyotsna, in T Nagar on (I think) 18th August. I say this because I was so impressed with her concert, and was told that she prefers teaching to performing. There were a number of enthusiastic (but well-behaved: nobody put talam loudly!) young ladies of various age at the concert.

[msakella]

Getting good impression depends upon the different tastes of the listeners but not the qualities of the performers alone.
Putting Talam aloud could never be treated as a misbehavior. Many of the music-teachers do not know how to initiate an aspirant in rhythmical intricacies right from the first day of their lesson and due to this lack of knowledge of the music-teachers the aspirants are suffering a lot until their life time. While ‘Shruti’ gives pleasure the ‘Laya’ only instills confidence into the aspirant which is highly needed in their prosperity. amsharma

[Nick H]

Putting Talam aloud could never be treated as a misbehavior.

Indeed not ...in the classroom or the practice room. My guruji advised "beating the rhythm into your blood".

In the concert hall, however, the making of sound should be left to the musicians on stage, and audience members should respect each other, and not make noise with hand or mouth!

As an ordinary audience member (you could say "paying customer", except for that fact that, in Chennai, we rarely have to!) I think that teachers should inform their students of good manners. One might as well be on the roadside watching buses as try to listen to a piece of music in rupaka talam through the unwanted accompaniment of half a dozen students : SLAP SLAP ---- SLAP SLAP ---- SLAP SLAP ----

I beg today's teachers to save tomorrow's audiences from this!

[ragam-talam]

In the concert hall, however, the making of sound should be left to the musicians on stage, and audience members should respect each other, and not make noise with hand or mouth!

Typical western perspective. No need to get so anal about this. Carnatic music concert has a certain controlled informality about it. And putting thalam is an inherent part of the enjoyment aspect.
Please, let's keep the 'perfect silence' ambience for the western classical concert. It's such an artificial atmosphere, btw. So much so that you can 'hear' people in the audience controlling their cough!
CM is more like a jazz recital, with its informal atmosphere and audience involvement. Hope it stays that way in the future.

[vasanthakokilam]

r-t, we had discussed this thala keeping sound issue before, may be we can continue this in another thread. I am with you on the informality aspects but I think what Nick is referring to is that the audience overdoing it to the point of disturbance. They can still keep thalam but softly. Anyway, in another thread...

[Nick H]

Typical western perspective ... CM is more like a jazz recital

Sure, another thread... where, as usual, most of the rasikas will agree that loud talam putting should not happen.

But, I have to say, r-t, that I am very well aware of what a carnatic music concert is like --- and you know that!

[msakella]

Dear brother-member, rajeshnat, I have trained Chi. Shrinidhi to strictly sing all these Varnas @ 1-unit or 1-svara per each second along with the 120 bpm of the Metronome and she very successfully sang all those Varnas in that speed. I have also insisted her not to sing without Metronome. But, sometimes she is used to sing even without Metronome. She must have sung the Hindola-svarapallavi without Metronome by which she sang it very fast. amsharma