Classical music riyaz reinvented

While the weekly, bi-weekly class for students of Hindustani classical music goes well, the practice at home remains a challenge. Often erroneous notes/pitch can become difficult-to-weed-out habits by the next class.

So how does one resolve this? Riyaz, an AI-powered pocket music app which helps people sing better by guiding them with instant visual feedback showing the nature of mistakes made is doing just that. This helps one's singing improve faster has made it the biggest thing to rock the world of Hindustani classical music.

Riyaz (which literally means practice, a term commonly used by Hindustani musicians) the virtual guru has had 10 lakh downloads on play store alone with over 7,000 users practising singing lessons for 25 minutes everyday.

“The app currently crunches the same time with users each day as would a brick and mortar academy with about 450 full-time teachers,” says Gopala Krishna Koduri, CEO of MusicMuni Labs which has created the app. “All the growth so far has been organic, without spending a penny on marketing,” he beams

While singing is a household passion around the world, in India the response to reality shows based on singing talent shows shows how passionate this country is about singing – both as a hobby or a profession. And yet only a tiny fraction of people actually get a chance to improve their skill under the tutelage of a guru. With no readily accessible solution to learn singing until now it meant finding a teacher and going through the grind.

Koduri accepts there are skype classes, online music courses, youtube channels which can help acquire basic concepts. “But most of a learner’s time is spent on practicing, which requires a constant feedback to improve. This is the main bottleneck in building an accessible technological solution because of the requirement of a human in the loop.”

He explains how Riyaz has brought the intelligence of a human teacher to one's pocket. “These days when you can get smartphones with crazy configurations under Rs 5,000 and a data plan cheaper than buying water, technology can help unleash a singer's talent and open opportunities.”

As a PhD in music technology from the Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (which specialises in sound and music computing research) Koduri is part of the team that spent decades working on music technologies companies like Yamaha, Korg and BMAT. Admitting that this helped him when it came converting research to a product like Riyaz. He told this writer: “Our vision is to enrich this world by making music literacy ubiquitous resulting in a positive tangible impact on the livelihoods of millions of people,” and added, “We work towards this by catalysing and scaling music education and infotainment domains in ways accessible by and affordable to masses. We believe this is only possible with a synergy between pedagogical knowledge and artificial intelligence, with a particular emphasis on learner engagement and automated evaluation.”

27-year-old Kolkatan Rupak Bhattacharjee, a BSc graduate, who gave up his job as a web developer in pursuit of his passion for music is all praise for Riyaz. “Every class I approached was either too expensive or too far. My parents were unhappy I was devoting so much time to what they felt should be only a hobby and that's when I discovered Riyaz in November last year,” he told DNA. “I'm now able to practice 3-4 hours daily and have learnt so many new ragas. In fact I'm teaching singing to a few children and have saved enough to buy a harmonium,” says this collegian, now part of band which performs in local venues.

Verdict says...

This writer tried the app himself and found it helped improve his singing. Currently being taught Raga Bhimpalasi, he had missed quite a few classes only to find that the app helped him revise exercises that his guru suggested. Given how much of a technophobe he is, it was refreshing to see how easy the interface (pictured right) is.