The traditional way to learn Carnatic classical music is for the student to sit at the feet of the master and, over the course of years, absorb his expertise. This is a slow and laborious process, and one of its disadvantages in the present day is that the student must be where the master is and that they must both work at the same time. Brhaddhvani, a Chennai-based non-profit institution for music education and research, is using ingenuity and technology to overcome these difficulties.
A Brhaddhvani project called COMET, from Correlated Objective Music Education and Training, combines research, documentation, archiving, and recording with teaching, self-learning, and performance. It was developed by Karaikudi Subramanian, a noted veena musician and founder of Brhaddhvani. He is the ninth generation of his family to play the veena, and has 40 years’ worth of learning, teaching and performing around the world.
The key to COMET’s method is that it takes Carnatic music to its most basic level. In the West, music is a sequence of notes that can be annotated and written down very precisely so that a whole piece can be “read” and executed, even by a beginner. This is not possible in Indian classical music, because every nuance of the performance is not typically captured in the traditional written notations.
COMET has created what Subramanian calls a simple, graphic music notation which can be “read” by learners as well as connoisseurs. Its work is already being used by music students, scholars, teachers and institutions in India and elsewhere.
“Combining technology with the traditional methods of music would reduce the time consumed to convey a lesson to the students,” says Subramanian. He has been researching interdisciplinary approaches to music using technology for over 20 years. With the help of technology, he says, a student can learn music in as little as one year, and can also be exposed to the style of more than one teacher.
Anmol Vellani, Executive Director of the India Foundation for Arts says that Brhaddhvani’s method greatly increases the number and kinds of people that can connect with Carnatic music according to their different interests and abilities.
Bombay Jayashri Ramnath, a leading Carnatic vocalist, says, “The beauty of COMET is the sheer empowerment it gives the student. A student can learn from any master without being a direct disciple. COMET offers a platform to learn from the maestros without dilution.”
Subramanian has also invented the svarasthana notation, a system that can document not only Carnatic music but any melodic style. These notations are transferable to Western notation, he says, and allow foreign students and even children to access, read and write music.
Divyanand Caird, a student from Koppa in Sringeri in Karnataka, says Brhaddhvani’s method accelerates learning. “I could grasp the lessons fast,” he says, “and can learn and listen to lessons more sharply.” In the traditional gurukul system, certain lessons are difficult to pick up and usually we practise in doubt. But since now I get it in recording I can listen any number of times and can perfect myself.”
According to Caird, 10 exercises in Sarali varisai (a beginners’ lesson) take at least two months to master in the traditional way, but with technology they take one month. The music school where Caird studies, Sangeeta Vidya Pedam, has 250 students and is connected to Brhaddhvani. The students learn through Skype.
| > How it is done
Since gamaka (oscillation of a note or a swara) is the heart of Indian music Brhaddhvani uses technology to plot the movements of the gamaka on a computer screen. This is said to help students relate to the upward and downward movement and be able to replicate it. |
Thus a student can break any archived composition into notations and plot it, and replicate any maestro’s version of a composition. In this way, the musical tradition can be preserved and passed on without the ordinary distortions of transmission between a teacher and a student.
Having perfected this methodology with the Karaikudi Conservatory of is founder, Brhhadvani is also researching the other great Carnatic conservatories: Ariyakudi, Semmangudi, Dhanamal (T Vishvanathan), Pinakapani, Lalgudi and Pazhani.
