With the Gundecha brothers resorting to lessons on Skype, Vivacity takes a look at how the digital revolution can indeed keep tradition alive
In an early morning session, Shuchita Rao, a disciple of Gundecha Brothers, is busy striking the right notes along with her gurus. The well-known Dagarvani dhrupad singers, Umakant and Ramakant Gundecha, are appreciating her mesmerising voice and adding soulful notes to her singing. But they are not sharing any stage. The disciple is in Boston and her guru in India, and they are doing a joint session on Skype. Shuchita is one of the several Gundecha’s students who take Dhrupad lessons from the masters on Skype on a regular basis. “I approached them five years back when they visited Boston for a performance and asked if they would teach me. They agreed and my first class was in Boston, face-to-face at learnquest Academy of Music. We continued lessons via Skype after that. Sometimes when Ramakantji would be on a performance tour, we would continue class from locations around the world (such as Brazil). I had a desire to learn and he supported my interest generously by giving me time,” Shuchita tells us over email. After her training, she has been able to guide many young children as well as women singers in Boston to sing Dhrupad. “The tradition is being kept alive and will hopefully be carried forward by some of the gifted and enthusiastic musicians in this group,” she says.
With their Internet classes, Gundechas are training international students and fostering the tradition, which is supposedly on a decline. According to them, there’s a huge interest of people abroad who are pursuing regular classes from many Indian connoisseurs over Internet. “We used to get a lot of requests from abroad. So we decided to give online classes and people have approached us since then,” says Ramakant.
No matter how much the online tutorials are flourishing, experts still believe that one-on-one training is more effective. Sometimes, even the masters fail to detect the errors or in which direction the learning is flowing. “If one has a sound understanding of sur and laya to start with, one can easily learn music through Skype. I feel face-to-face lessons are beneficial in the more advanced aspects of singing Dhrupad — jod and jhaala movements and also spontaneous layakaari with live accompaniment along with a pakhavaj player,” observes Shuchita.
However, there’s hardly any barrier in learning classical music through Internet. “We have practised our art for decades. We can gauge the depth and flaws just by a glimpse of their performance. We can detect where the laya is going wrong. We immediately correct them. Classes are kept informal so that students don’t come under pressure,” says Ramakant.
Online tuition through live video chat devices is becoming a popular medium of learning Indian classical music and dance in the Western world. Maestros in India, especially from the southern belt, are available on Skype and other live video technology for overseas students. Be it the intricate body movement of Bharatnatyam dance or the high-pitched carnatic ragas, online modules are available. But can learning online be as effective as face-to-face sessionsIJ
“Gurus are not available everywhere. The online medium makes programmes (lessons) easily accessible. Students can see it well, interact and learn. The distance learning doesn’t reduce the ability to learn or teach,” says Indira Kadambi, who has established a virtual music and dance school in Chennai.
Although Dublin-based Anuradha Anu Ammal has long had a successful career in technology, she has also dreamed of perfecting her skills as a musician. She searched online for a top instructor and found the ideal teacher, Shyamala Rangaraja, in Tamil Nadu, some 8,600km from Dublin.