A place for music to call home

Next month, 29 girls between the age of 12 and 16 from the Bangalore School of Music will travel to Dresden, Germany, to take part in a children’s choir fest. This is the first time a choir from India has been invited. The group, Songbirds of India, will represent the country with Kannada, Konkani and Bollywood songs. Founder and managing trustee of the school, Aruna Sunderlal, talks about the milestones on the journey of the 22-year-old school

Music for young ones
We’ve started Kindermusic — music for children between the age of three and six. We were able to get a volunteer from the US and we are now teaching 55 students. The idea is to acquaint children with the different kinds of instruments,  get them singing and basically, make them understand rhythm patterns. By the time they turn six, they will know the basics of music, not too much theory, but singing and melody. They will be quick learners with the two basic elements of music melody and rhythm in their hand. They will progress faster and their ears will be attuned. So they will be able to hear themselves while playing an instrument. We encourage humming or singing while playing an instrument. That helps to memorise and aids in concentration.

Start them young   
The earlier the child is exposed to art and music, the better it is. Many children come in as teenagers; they don’t really know what instrument to choose because their parents have not exposed them to music from an early age. I advise parents to take their children to art shows, dance, and music shows. If they do, by the time they are eight or nine years old, they will know what sound appeals to them, and this in turn will help them pick an instrument.

Benefits of music
It has been proven that when you are involved in music, the brain’s grey cells are activated. It’s a little known fact. We’ve publicised this among people who come here. We also tell them about the benefits of music, that is, that if a child begins learning music between the ages of three and 16, his intelligence is enhanced by 34%. Music heals and counterbalances stress; music therapy can even heal cancer. It’s a pity there are hardly any trained music therapists in our country.
8Music as a foundation

When you have the basic knowledge, you can create your own music, you can go into other genres, be it pop or rock. Western classical music gives you the basic knowledge to move higher and further. Most big bands have trained in Western classical. That’s how they are able to do more. If you just go into rock and pop you will come to a dead-end after some time. Many Indian rock and pop artists come to us to learn theory and the Western classical style of playing.

Module for Western music
Earlier, the piano was the most popular Western instrument in India because it had the largest number of teachers. Slowly, our school has initiated the teaching of the classical guitar, wind instruments, violin, etc. Therefore, there are a fair number of students in each of these disciplines. We recognise the importance of singing along. That trains the ear to hear sounds and it helps in aural training and preparing for exams. We follow the London Board examination module, and hopefully one day, there will be an Indian module for Western music, which we’ve tried in the past. We don’t force anyone to take the examination. About 40% of the students opt to do so themselves.

Shortage of teachers
When I came here 20 years ago, everyone was in a state of depression; there were hardly any concerts taking place. Nobody wanted to become a music teacher and quite a few were literally starving. Private teachers wouldn’t be paid when students went off on world tours for the three to four months. Now, quite a few schools have opened. We have discouraged teachers from home-tutoring as there’s no respect shown. There’s a shortage of good music teachers. We even have people coming in to help from abroad. Sadly, they can only stay for six months due to visa restrictions. It’s difficult for them to go back and then revisit.
8Paucity of good halls

Most of our concerts are held at Alliance De Francaise because of its central location and parking facilities. The hall has the right ambience. It can seat about 300, which is a very good number for a classical music evening as this music lends itself to an intimate experience between the artist and audience. Also, it is within one’s budget. The other halls are too huge and too expensive. We would like to take this to other parts of the city, but need halls that are suitable. Many people are unable to come because of traffic jams or lack of transport. We don’t want the senior citizens to be left out.

A theatre for Bangalore
We’re trying to initiate a theatre like the museum theatre in Chennai. Our orchestra performed there last year. It had perfect acoustics. It is a replica of the Albert Hall and is quite old. We would like to build a hall in Bangalore for chamber music and opera. Operas only go to Delhi and Mumbai, where they have the facilities. We don’t get the opera here because, we’ve been told, there is no proper hall. The hall we are planning will be a centrally located, a 600-seater and a classical music theatre-cum-opera house. We want citizens to help us by coming forward with ideas. First, we have to get two acres of land and it would be nice to have a café. It’s only a dream that may materialise. We will take it up very seriously at our board meeting.