A laid-back Sunday
interview
On the 11th of August
2024, a few musicians sat down together after breakfast and had a chat.
[Alan M Eben & Team
Interviewing two eminent musicians from the US]
Alan
Hello! I am a western
classical musician of the pipe organ inclination trying to grow more of that
here in India. Poorvi is really into musical theatre, and we actually put up an
excerpt from Encanto, Disney's Encanto.
Sandra
Oh really? I love that.
Dr Susan
Good music, yeah.
Alan
And Aaron is very much
into the...
Aaron
I am just an enthusiast.
Dr Susan
Do you play something or
just sing?
Aaron
I can't play an
instrument, but I sing a lot with the Chapel Choir.
Alan
He is more involved in the
management side of it because he is one of the choir secretaries...
Dr Susan
Oh nice. Music
Administration. There we go.
Aaron
Not administration proper
but taking care of almost all administrative stuff. Yeah.
Alan
Perhaps that's where we'll
start because like he said, he doesn't think it's “administration proper”
because we don't have a lot of proper professional choirs. We just mostly have
kind of informal settings like a Chapel Choir, we just have a small group singing
session. We don't have professional training as such. And so how do you think
we can bring the kind of very rich choral tradition that you have somewhere
maybe in the US. You have the Tabernacle Choir and very well-renowned choirs
who even have their own record label. So, do you think something like that
could be brought about here?
Sandra
I think so. Yeah, any of
you can. So, for background, part of my degree was in choral conducting and in
fact that's what's keeping me sane in America, getting my paycheck.
So, the coral world, I
mean I came from India, so I studied at Bain School and I was trying to explain
to my choral teacher that the culture here is so… I don't want to say laid
back, I mean it's still great because we have great voices, we have great instruments
(The professional way of referring to instrumentalists).
A lot of Indians tend
to… we have really good voices, which is great. But the issue is when I came to
the US and I auditioned at our main collegiate level choir, we had to learn
certain excerpts and then there was a sight-reading portion and I did not know
how to sight read at all.
And I remember, so when I
went for my audition and everything else went fine and one thing we do have as
well is we have great aural skills because we do everything by ear. So that's
one of the components in auditioning for auditions but when I came to sight-reading,
I sat there and I was like… and he was like, just try it. I said, sure, why
not? I said, sure, I'm going to fail miserably but he still let me in. But with
education, through aural skills and like theory and all that it helped because
our choirs there, you need to know how to sight read.
You need to have great
aural skills and that's how… because what happens is right now there is a
communication gap between the choir and the conductor.
I mean you can always
gesture but then if they're not able to like sight read or if the conductor is
not able to communicate through the words of how we use our musical terms then
there's going to be a communication gap whereas if we all learn that basic
knowledge of sight reading and aural skills then you can bridge that
communication and that's what keeps those choirs like together and they're able
to go further than just being an established well-grounded choir if that makes
sense.
Dr. Susan
Yeah, I think just going
back to basics so when I'm looking at your hymnal, it's just words. It would be
better if there was music with western notation so that you can see where the
phrase is going.
The (Bishop Heber Chapel)
choir sounded wonderful, but if I was to work with a choir I would try to have
everybody breathe at the same time or have certain people breathe and then
other people breathe later and that's the conductor's job is to bring people in
THAT way.
I think a practical suggestion would be to put a mirror on the organ
because a lot of times the organ and the choir were not together and the
organist…
I mean there is a choir
leader but the organist is really pushing the tempo and pushing, like you know
and so being able to communicate between the organist and the choir director
because right now he sees his back because he can't see so in America a lot of
churches we just put mirrors so then you look in the mirror and you can see the
choir director and so when he cuts off the organ should cut off the organ
shouldn't keep going.
Maybe for a second but not
for five minutes. Just having everybody stay together is very helpful.
Reading
the music, understanding the music, actually analysing it and looking at the
chord structures and knowing (I) chord, (V) chord, (IV) chord what is all that,
where is everything going in the music and then once you know the musical lines
so we usually start with solfège where we do like do re mi fa sol la ti do.
We learn the pitches
correctly, we learn where to breathe we learn the dynamics, how loud, how soft,
crescendo, decrescendo then you have to look at the words and what are we
saying and so we want to make sure we express the words through how we sing it and
that's the conductor's job.
That's the conductor's job
to lead the choir in that understanding. So it's a process, it's not just play
the hymn and sing there's a lot more to hymn singing and then being able to
play the organ in such a way and have the choir sing in such a way that the
congregation just follows right along so you have the whole body of the church
joining in together.
Sandra
Are you planning an MCC
choir or is the choir in the chapel the college choir?
Poorvi
So the choir in the chapel
is just a couple of them we had about a hundred of us but then not many come to
the service and we practise one day before and not everybody is accustomed to
the hymns too!
Sandra
I think, yeah, that's the
difference I did notice with the American choirs is even with like, we had a
lot of non-majors like so many non-music majors who did not know how to sight
read but they learned eventually.
Dr. Susan
Because honestly when you
look at the notation even if you don't know exactly what's C, what's F, what's
A you can see the note go up, the note go down you can start to learn intervals
you can start to see it goes up a little, goes up a lot and you can kind of,
that's how you start to read music. But I think reading music, if I was to come
here and teach that would be the very first thing I would say is start learning
what is the notation on the paper?
How does that correlate to
what's on the piano? Everybody, you don't have to know how to play the piano
perfectly but you should know what the piano keyboard looks like and what's C,
D, E, F, G, A there's only seven letters, right and then it's different
pitches, different octaves, right so, yeah, that would be the first thing is
knowing the notation, the time signatures, the key signatures and being able to
analyse like where it's going.
If we're in the key of C,
so this is a C chord, it's a I chord ah, we just changed to F, did we transpose
or are we just doing a IV chord and then heading back to C I mean, whenever I
look at any piece of music the first thing I do is I sit down and I analyse I
look at all the chords because honestly, especially for musical theatre a lot
of times I'll play, I do a lot of auditions for musical theatre in New York and
people will just throw music at me and sometimes I've never seen it before and
my job is to play it in such a way that they can show their best you know, on
stage for the casting people and many times.
I mean, you don't play every note,
but there I quickly look at what the chord structure is and I try to keep that
harmonic rhythm going so that the singer can sing confidently, they don't need
the pitches they know their song, but they need me to play a G chord when
they're in G they need me to play an F chord when they're in F and so I look at
the chord structures and so being able to quickly do that is really, really,
really helpful and so what could help and could, so practice is one of the
major things so in our collegiate choir, we practice the school was Monday to
Friday we practice Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from four to two hours,
oh man and what he did.
Because like I said, there are so many students who I
mean, there are a few freshmen that are selected in the choir but they won't
know the depth of theory or aural skills that you need and you're going to have
non-musical majors so what he would do for the first almost 30 minutes vocal
warm-ups, like immense, really good vocal warm-ups that are for the corporate,
for the whole choir not just for individual voices and then he would add, we
would do some aural skills and some theory skills at the same time so there's a
lot of structures into that that would like start help building up and because
he would do that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday every working day of the
whole semester of our 15 weeks by the end of the semester students who've never
sight read before have at least a basic understanding just by those 30 minutes
or 20 minutes honestly of aural and theoretical skills and if you need.
I don't
know if you have my contact information but my teacher is amazing he actually,
he did his thesis with aural skills and the building blocks of aural skills I
don't know the exact term but all his resources are on his website and it's for
people to just use and I'm more than happy to like connect and bridge that gap
because he's all about having everyone and anyone learn and it's not something
for only people to understand it's for everyone to be able to understand he has
a good way of, because I used to play for the women's choir and I played for
chorales also but I played for the women's choir and the women's choir was not
auditioned anybody could sign up for it a lot of times somebody needs a music
credit or something so they would just jump into the women's choir having no
background whatsoever they were saying before and everything and he had the
system of like teaching like solfège rhythms, yeah I forgot the name of the
thing.
Dr. Susan
Gordon Rhythm structures
being able to like figure out so like in the Gordon Rhythm thing it's,
[Demonstrates the Edwin Gordon music learning theory for rhythms]
When you're
teaching children or you're teaching someone who's new at music sometimes it's
just easier when you're looking I'm, even myself sometimes I have to use those
I use the rhythm, yeah or something a little tricky I try to break it down into
okay what's the yeah, and what I realised and so this and coming on that
there's several different versions so I actually, I was crazy so I was one of
the assistant conductors for the women's choir and part of our training was
like to be able to teach them and I was mean and I chose something really tough
I chose Falanda which is, yeah, they did so well but it was so tough for
someone because it goes, it's mixed meter and it's odd meters it's 5/8, it was
in Tamil and so I was teaching these westerners who have no music training and
what could help too is the Takadimi system because there is a rhythm so it was
created by a white person so it wasn't really an Indian but he used the, he
took terminology from Indian rhythm syllables and made them translated into
western notation so and it's so, I used to because some of our syllables are so
fast that they wouldn't be able to use the western rhythm syllables so we'd
have to use the Takadimi system and be like and they got it really fast so
meaning they could use the Takadimi system because you're already like immersed
in that so there is like, there's several and it's so simple there's several,
oh my gosh I can't read it, I mean definitely it has to be established, it has
to be like a unified someone coming in and possibly and you need to do it every
rehearsal.
Dr. Susan
Yeah like when she says
vocal warmups it's not just to warm up those vocal exercises are to teach
people how to sing without worrying about the actual music so it would be like
we would do exercises like scales and then the next group would start we would
do it in rounds but the point was to try to listen to the different parts and
to follow the conductor like he would raise his arm he would put his arm down
it's like all that practice and you're not looking at music you're not, it's
all by just and he had a whole system. He should come here.
Sandra
Oh my gosh and he's a good
friend of mine so I've been trying to force him to come
Dr. Susan
I've done honours choir
with him oh he would, yeah he's great and he's worked with so many so many
schools. So in the high schools they have a thing called honors choir in our
country and so the students audition and the best of the best get to come to do
honors choir there's hundreds of kids and he was the conductor for this thing
and we put it together Friday, Saturday and then concert on Sunday and I was
the pianist for it but he picked five pieces and then the kids come prepared
they kind of know the pieces and then we put on a concert but he could come for
like a week we could drag him out here for a week yeah drag him out and then do
like an intense you know depending on the schedules and stuff but learn five or
six pieces and then the point would be to put on a recital or concert at the
end of the week but learning all these different techniques and any of your
people who are conductors that want to be conductors like he could do seminars
with them to do some crash course in choral conducting because it's a whole.
I
mean I can conduct from the keyboard I'm pretty good at conducting because I
bob my head around and I do this but there's a whole different technique to
when you're standing up in front of a group we call it stick conducting but
choral directors don't always use sticks no we only use it when you're using
when you have an orchestra the instrumentalists tend to use a stick but I find
stick conducting very very challenging I actually had to take two classes in it
and I struggled through it.
That's because I'm so used to moving my body and doing all
this from the piano and that's just not the way you're supposed to conduct
every single gesture you make when you're conducting has to have a meaning or a
purpose so there's no point in having both arms going at the same time this arm
needs to do something like move it to do something to bring in somebody or to
make somebody go quieter but doing this mirroring it's very common for myself,
newbies to conduct like this but that's not the way you are supposed to conduct
yeah, doing my conducting lessons sometimes you would have to have one hand out
even if I'm going to use a mirror it would be like holding hands in the back
hands in the back and then and also there's like
Sandra
Yeah, there are conductors
also there's another thing, gesture means a lot so we don't conduct up here at
chest level. He used to get mad if you have a tendency you'd be like, no you
can't because then the choir people are going to see that and they're going to
want to breathe from here but the idea is that your diaphragm your whole body
is working towards it so we used to conduct from here.
Dr. Susan
Which is interesting
because in band and orchestra conducting you have to conduct up this way
because the people in the back can't see you if you're down here so I'm in a
masters program right now I'm finishing this year but last year I took private
lessons to try to improve my conducting and I took it with a band conductor so
I was doing the conducting like I was taught down here and she was like, what
are you doing? and I can't see you so then I had to like change my whole arm
posture it was so hard to do that but the conductor is the pulse and the
heartbeat of the choir the reason the Tabernacle Choir is good is because of
who their director is and how those people are in charge of being and being
able to rally all those great singers and for the Tabernacle Choir they don't
have to audition to get in that is just so anybody can sing in it anybody can
sing in it but they have the world's greatest organist the world's greatest
music directors and the people that put it together they really know what they're
doing and the administrators like the marketing, the social media they know
what they're doing but that's because remember it's the Mormons. It's in the
Mormon Tabernacle so they're Mormons so their church is like a big big big deal
the whole life revolves around the church so being able to sing everybody wants
to do it.
Sandra
I think you have my
contact. I'm going to just send them Adam's website and then we can. I will
send it to you.
Dr. Susan
I'll send you as many
resources as I can there's a YouTube video series that an old old lady was done
in the 70s so it's really funny but it's the best conducting patterns like how
to conduct patterns and she teaches you how to conduct the patterns and I'm
going to look up what her name was I can't think about the top of my head but I
had to learn though I had to work with that video when I was taking my
conducting lessons my teacher was like every day you have to do those lessons
every day.
Aaron
Could we just quickly
shoot another question?
Sandra
Yes absolutely
Aaron
So I’ve got two questions
and they're quite related to the topic we're talking about right now so most of
us come into the choir here with no prior experience in music and we do a lot
of classical stuff especially for our Carol services we learn Hallelujah Chorus
and what not we do a lot of Handel. Last year for the Easter concert we did
Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum yes we did that so my question would be how do we
sustain that interest bringing more people into this kind of separate culture
within a choir?
Sandra
I mean you do have fun
things to do like you guys do a carwash fundraiser we have a whole cab we have
a cabinet we have a big cabinet for our choir like we have a president a vice
president I mean you don't even have to have such a big leadership as long as
you're able to and I understand because this culture here doesn't necessarily
and here's a thing here's a thing in the US too it's this culture of
specifically talking about classical music it almost seems like it's elite and
only for people to understand and it's unfortunate because it's not like that
and it shouldn't be like that I don't believe it. I mean most classical
musicians and don't believe that it's only for the people who can understand
and so how do you translate that to people who already believe that it's only
for it's such a conundrum but I think I mean education is the biggest thing for
that as long as if we're able to explain I mean interest has to be there for
sure and like those fun stuff that you can do like
Dr. Susan
T-shirts! Just the act of
wearing a T-shirt that has you know MCC Chorale or choir or whatever you call
yourselves having a T-shirt it's belonging to a group. It's the culture. How do
we like promote the concerts you have to like put pictures up and promote the
concerts on social media that's where you need a social media like coordinator
one of the students you know can be putting it on Facebook and on Instagram and
all the things and you just become excellent and all of a sudden people are
going to be like wow that's cool I want to be a part of that. Recruitment.
Beginning of the school year I mean I don't know in our colleges they usually
have like tables set up on the first couple of days of school and the different
sororities and fraternities and sports clubs and all the different clubs will
set up and be like a fair where people can walk to each table and it depends on
how enthusiastic people are you know if you say how cool it is and how much fun
it is.
You can't you know you're not going to recruit people if it's not good
like if you do a concert and it's really bad people are going to be like not
going to come but if you're good and people are like wow that's really really
cool you know and like in our choir or chorale they wear uniforms so they wear
like a black women wear black dress men wear black suit and then they wear they
have a tuning fork they do a lot of things acapella and it's so pretty though
because they have the black clothes and then they have a red necklace with the
tuning fork on it and it's so beautiful and it's just I don't know in our
school like chorale is like the big thing and it's audition only like it's not
like you have to audition you have to show certain skills to get in so maybe
not now like now you just want to get as many people as you can but once you
start to get really really good it becomes more elite I mean more if you're a
mature choir you know then you take people who don't take people who are tone
deaf.
There are people out there that want to sing and they just can't you know
but the biggest thing I think is recruitment. Enthusiasm you know, camaraderie!
make it like a sports team you know people love the soccer teams they love
their football teams they love their baseball teams the choir is a team just
like any other team and the joy of singing in a group or playing band playing
in an orchestra playing in a band just making music in a group is so special
you can't change them that's why in church a lot of churches all the ones I've
worked at they really encourage community singing they don't want it to be
soloist and just exclusive and just the choir they want the choir to sing so
well that the people join in and everybody is singing those hymns you know so
yeah I hope that helps.
Alan
Oh it does yeah!
Aaron
One more question but
regarding to the people who come freshly in the clean slate they have no
knowledge in music but they're really into the kind of music that's being sung
or played here so one person struggles like me. I'm one of these kind of people
so I grew up with a lot of passion for classical listening to classical music
so I eventually wanted to sing it now the issue would be when I ask people okay
so how do I progress from this how do I make it like something much more bigger
than that .Maybe not like a professional vocation that I take so there's people
who have been trained in classical music who have done their grades and there
are people who haven't.
Who almost sing together with them all the time could
there be a third space for people who do not wish to take it to a more
professional level but can sing still be a part of it you know because that's
the case we see here in MCC most people even people like Poorvi that's because
she's in theatre as well so how do we create this third space where we're not
exactly telling people oh you'll have to do your grades before so for you to
sing it anyway is there any other third way that we can accommodate them.
Dr. Susan
I think that requires
yeah, it requires in our school we had the chorale which at that point of time
that we were involved with the chorale it was very exclusive.
He only picked a
certain number of people because he balances like he wants ten sopranos with
ten altos and ten tenors and he like balanced the voices so not everybody got
in especially if you had ten sopranos but there was only one spot he would take
the best one and then if you know altos he might ask some of those sopranos to
then become an alto or whatever so he would balance it but then there's women's
choir and men's choir so you can have a women's choir or men's choir or you can
have a coed choir that's not your auditioned chorale that's your highest level
music you could have one that's just for everybody and to incorporate that
education that you would get from and maybe not have the pieces be as
complicated maybe do two part music instead of four part music and gradually
yeah there's all different levels of you can still sound really good and then
at your concerts you can have the women's choir perform and men's choir perform
the whole chorale perform and then put every… we did pieces where we put
everybody together we call it the choral prism concert but your important thing
is going to be your directors whether it's students or teachers I mean we had
great students Sandra was one of the student directors of the women's choir you
know we had the overall director was supervising and giving corrections and
making sure everything was done right but the students can certainly learn how
to conduct and teach and learn.
The other thing you got to have a good
accompanist I mean I hate to boost my own to my own work but the accompanist
will make or break the choir if the accompanist is playing lousy the choir is
never going to be good but if the accompanist is good and if the accompanist
works well… this is why Sandra and I are going to work together forever
probably because we I can already read her mind. If I'm playing for her for
choir rehearsal, I already know what she's thinking. And I know where she's
going with that. And if she says, can you double the altos? I'm right on it. So
you need a good experienced accompanist.
Poorvi
I just wanted to add
something to it. So this is a question related to Indian classical music. So if
somebody has done Carnatic or if you're done Hindustani, and I really want to
pursue also western classical, how would that shift be?
Susan
Oh, that's not bad at all.
It is not hard. I think so. I believe, so I'm actually before I studied
classical, not that it's the same at all, because Indian classical music is
insanely amazing. I was a jazzer and a pop singer before I even like when I came
to Roberts.
When I went to the US to audition, I wasn't even planning on
auditioning for classical music. I had auditioned for jazz and then I did it
out of courtesy for the family I was staying with and I fell in love with opera
and the fear was and in some areas it is the culture where you're not able to
cross genres. But in this day and age in our really modern world where
everything is global.
As long as you have like a good foundation like a good
classical western classical foundation that you can gain very easily. You
should be able to cross genres and that shouldn't be an issue because correct
me from wrong with Hindustani and Carnatic music you're using a lot of it's a
lot of throat singing. Which is not bad but because most of the time you all are
especially women are on like higher higher parts.
So you're not really
straining your vocal folds. That's why there's more longevity otherwise
generally throat singing can be damaging but because of the frequency and where
your line is meaning you can translate that and you can sing like most I would
think most Indian women singing Carnatic and Hindustani can be sopranos because
of their high frequency voice rather where they already placed their voice in
Carnatic music.
So there can be a shift as long as you get like a basic
foundation they can absolutely absolutely do it. It'll just have to be a few
months of like training and understanding how to bridge Indian classical music
to western classical or musical theatre.
On the plus side of musical theatre most
of the time you're belting too so you're going to get used to using a throat
but classical.
Dr. Susan
But here's the thing with
musical theatre you have to be very careful because you can hurt yourself with
belting. If you don't have an upper teacher you're not doing it correctly. I've
seen a lot of people blow their phones out and not be able to sing anymore so
just be careful about all the things. That's the other thing I was going to say
when you say how do you make your choir better if you had vocal faculty.
It's
helpful also because the individual people are still working on their own
individual singing skills and then they bring that to the table in the choir
and make it even better. Because the director can't sit there and teach you how
to sing. That's up to you to learn and take lessons and be able to sing on your
own.
But in the choir there's only so much they can do to actually teach you
technique but they can teach you group singing and reading music and dynamics
and singing together and breathing together and doing all that stuff. That's
what the choir director's job is. But being able to learn on your own and take
lessons on your own is also very very beneficial. I mean our choir sounds so
good because of people like you and Abby and Maggie.
We had some really good
voices in the choir. So everybody is important but then there are some voices
that just really... And that might help too if you're trying to let's say the
director doesn't have a lot of time or there's just...practice is going to be
crazy. We appoint what we call section leaders so each line... Yeah sectionals.
That's one of the best places to hone in and learn with your own voice group.
We have so many sectionals especially when a director is away. It also gave
good experience to the students that were the section leaders to be learning
how to teach you. Because if you can teach it then you know what you're doing.
Oh yeah. Oh, a little torture. Sorry. Our teacher was really...Oh my gosh when
it came to him grading because it was also part of my grade. Oh he was ruthless
though. Yeah he was kind. But he made...I mean thanks to him I'm able to
conduct many choirs and like it's been so easy to just...
Because it is
daunting when you're on that podium. However the idea...our teacher we always
called it not to be conductor centric. Our words were...we could not...we had
to use words like we instead of I. And each time I said an I he wrote that
down. He said why did you use the word I? So that's the other thing. It's about
when you have a leadership that's about using we as a term. That also aids in
realising that there's no hierarchy. So that helps to not have hierarchy.
Also
Chorale, women's choir, men's choir...they were all credit classes. You can
get...ooh when you can get credit. Yeah and that also increases the volume of
people that come because they know they're going to get a college credit out of
it. And fame and glory when they have concerts. Yeah. That's right.
Aaron
Do we get credits for
being part of the choir?
Alan
No we don't.
Sandra
Oh you should petition for
it!.
Poorvi
We should. We put in so
much effort. We don't get credit for it at all.
Sandras
Oh you should at least a
credit. At least one credit.
Alan
So does music making also
happen at the primary school level? I know that in the U.S. it is mandatory to
learn an instrument I think.
Dr. Susan
So in New York. Not in New
York. Not in New York. In New York yeah. Starting in third grade many of the
schools do recorders because they have little hands. So they can learn, they
learn the pitches and a little bit about rhythm, a little bit about... They
start reading music in third grade. And music education that makes for a New
York state. Yeah people go to school for four years to get certified in music
education.
They have to take tests to get licensed and then they go work in the
schools. But then in fourth grade, when I was in fourth grade we had to choose
choir or band. Or you could do both. But you had to do at least one. So I
played the flute in a band. I played the piano too but they didn't have a piano
for the band so I just played the flute in the band. And then in middle school…
you had to do choir or band.
And high school… High school, I went to a private
high school so I did theatre. I was the accompanist for the theatre and I
played the piano for everybody. But they had a choir and they had show choirs.
They were show choirs. So they sing musical theatre tunes and they dance. But
it's like a choir. Glee basically. Glee. It's glee. Yeah, it's like glee. So
that was my high school. And then, yeah, so everybody in high school, yeah, I
think that in high school, you don't have to do four years of music. I think
you have to do two credits.
Sandra
But one thing great about
New York specifically is there's something called NYSSMA. Which is like the New
York State School Music Association. It's a big thing where... Music education
in New York state is great. It really is. They really promote it. And students,
you're graded on this.
Dr. Susan
Because there's so much
research that shows that students that know music, that either sing or play an
instrument, they excel at school. Yeah. Generally the kids that are musical
excel at school. Because music teaches maths. It teaches language. It teaches
thought. It teaches critical thinking. It has so many benefits to it. So that's
why in New York it's valued. And everybody has like an hour a day of some type
of musical training. It's a nice way to break up the day. You have your maths
and your sciences. And it's so hard. And then you have a break. And not
everybody wants to go play basketball.
Sometimes playing music or singing is
very relaxing for the kids. So that's why it would be nice to really start
encouraging schools to break the day up. Or start the day. Like in high school,
I used to play the piano for a high school. And they would start the day with
music. They would have the choirs meet. It was like they'd do homeroom and then
they would have 7:30 to 8:30. They'd have choir and band and orchestra
practice. And then the kids would go on to their schoolwork.
Sandra
I know. I wish. Because I
would explain to my friends who were going into music education. I was like, my
music education was our choir room. And we didn't even have electricity
sometimes. And our piano was there. And we sat on the floor. And our teacher
would be like, sing this note together.
And then we'd learn it that way. And
then when I came to New York. I didn't even know how to read music. No, I did
not. Like it was so. It was hard. But the teachers that we had, they knew how
to teach students.
And like I said, one of the benefits I've noticed with
Indians is that we are, because Carnatic and Hindustani, are taught aurally,
right?. Which is a blessing being that a lot of, in fact, our teacher, one of…
who taught me oral skills, her thesis or another thing that she's done is about
music literacy or music learning, which is a new method where they call it
sight, sound before sight. Normally, and actually there's a thing in New York
right now and they're trying to change it. And she's one of the few people that
try to change it. You would sight read first and then hear it.
Her idea is that
you have to hear it and then sight read. And so that's why we do have an
advanced, I mean, I was able to pick it up quite fast, surprisingly. And I
think that's because of how we were brought up here, how we do sound before,
but we don't even have sight. So I think it's, I think it would be picked up
easily as long as there are a lot of, they would promote it and love that to
happen.
Dr.Susan
Now I'm going to give you
a secret. There's an app that I've seen you dance about. Oh, Duolingo. There's
an app called Duolingo. They have music, they have a music partner. Oh, I
didn't know that. Yeah, it has music now. I added music and maths, intermediate
English for this because I needed to do English. But they added those, so they
have a basic music app and then it'll ask you, what's your level of music
training? And you can say, I don't know anything. And you start with that and
it actually starts with a picture of a piano and it says, push C. And you push
the key to say C and they'll say, yeah, you did it. And then you have to do it
on the notation. It'll be like, place the C on the notation.
Yeah, it's very
good. And it's a nice way to start learning. I sometimes have it at that. I
selected music and I'll have it at level one just for when I'm really tired and
I don't want to learn German. So I was just like, just to make sure my streaks
are going. I'm just like, C, C, C. And I get my Duolingo in three hundred and
fifteen days. Yeah, keep my street going.
Dr. Susan
So, but I'm going to put
together, when I get back home, I'm going to put together some work, some of
the basic stuff that, yeah. That I think that would help, you know. And you
know what they would love? Because they love learning about Hindustani and Carnatic
music in the U.S. They love it. I mean, every time I do, they would ask me to
give a talk and I will always showcase. I'm like, I am not that well-versed.
I'm doing my own research about it, but they would love to get an experience in
that.
Well, I'll tell you, we were talking with Sandra's dad, who was a music
teacher at some of our schools in town. I forgot the name. We went yesterday,
we were there for like their annual day and it was so beautiful. These kids put
on, they did the dance, the traditional dancing and it was, it was spectacle.
It was like a Broadway show. Like it was, it was outstanding. And I said to her
dad, I said, you know, if we could get like a field trip to the U.S., we would
love to show this off to the students where I work and have them do some like
workshops with the students, teach our students that style of dance and the
sitar, you know, the sitar. And then what you're talking about is carnatic
music, have you guys, if we can get some of you to come to the U.S. and teach
that people would go nuts over that. They would.
Poorvi
You were talking about the
Takadimi system right? There's something called music language where they use
it for dance. Right. And the people who are dancing, they dance according to
what you say. So there's like a small orchestra and also the people who are
dancing on the side, they sing along while they're dancing.
Sandra
That's like, that's
insane. That's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah, I've always liked that. That's
one of the things I would show. I'm like, this is what it is. Because I have no
experience. I'm like, I, but no, they would, they would love that. They would
love that. I mean, actually when I was in Texas, I went to go see an
arangetram.
I saw an arangetram. And the amount of people that came to it,
people love, they love, America loves. We love, yeah, exotic. It's exotic to
us. It's very, very unique. And it's, you know, we want, we always want
something new. Like we always want to see something new and different. And we
don't like when people copy things. They're very much after originality. You're
kind of dancing and you kind of singing. And actually there's an Indian
restaurant right near my house.
It's called Pali of India. And they have a
Sitar player every Friday night. And I go with my husband all the time just to
hear from him. It's so cool and relaxing. It's very, very nice music. But we're
working with Godwin and your professors.
Like we're talking about trying to do
some type of a music education certificate so that we would actually come up
with some type of a curriculum where I may come out here like for the summer
and do like all kinds of Western music education, like theory, aural skills,
history, like a crash course. And then we're going to maybe try to develop
online, because I can't be here all the time, but I could maybe develop some
kind of an online program through Roberts Wesley University that we work at and
do some type of modules where you guys can get the lectures online and then
take the tests.
And then I would do it as a mastering program so that you can't
move on to the next module until you get 100 on that first module. Then in the
second module, you have to learn the material, answer the questions. Once you
get it right the whole time, you can do it as many times as you want. You've
got to get it perfect, then you move on to the next, right? And then I would
come the following summer again to do like sort of final testing, like just to
double check that everybody knows enough, you know, and then try to see if we
can get the university from the U.S. to issue a certificate in conjunction with
MCC.
So then when you graduate, if you did decide to become a music teacher,
you'd have that extra certification that you go to the schools. They might pay
you more or you'd have a higher likelihood of getting jobs. Or just even for
your own education, you know, and or you want to work as a doctor, but I also
work as a musician. I just do it, I do part time on the side and it's, you
know, it's my passion and something I love doing. If you have that knowledge,
then you can want to teach kids.
You can open your own little music studio or
something and teach kids. You know, I know there's a big demand here for
Western style learning. People want to learn piano and they want to learn, you
know, how to, how, you know, the European style of music is. So that's what
we're trying to do here. So let's see what happens.
Yeah. And then we're going
to do, we're going to, I have an organ professor that I think, if I could get
him to come here, that would be awesome. And now we'll try to do like a zoom
where at least he can at least talk to you guys and, you know, find out where
you're all are at and you all can play for him and he can give you some
suggestions.
But if you're doing any
musical theatre stuff, you probably have music for that or? Yeah, yeah, we do.
Poorvi
Yeah. We usually didn't
have it before. What we do, we pre-record it and then sing. We used to do that
now because most of the time there aren't kids who can actually play along to
it. Right. Last year we had a group. So last year the English play was like a
musical plus theatre. It was not, the full thing was not like music. So yeah,
last year was pretty decent. Nice.
Sandra
No, that's amazing. The
fact that you all are doing this, I applaud you all. Thank you. Because that's,
I mean, it's start, it has to start somewhere. So, and you all are, thank you.
That's okay.
Dr. Susan
I'd like to, I'm going to
try to come next summer and try to put on some type of, yeah, I'd like to put
on, I could bring some people with me and I'd like to put on a musical and
maybe an opera. Like, you know, well, maybe I'm being overly enthusiastic, but
I would like to see if I could. It would be so cool if I could connect. And
maybe we do a small opera, but maybe if there's nobody that sings opera here,
we'll bring some opera singers. We'll invite some people. Yeah.
Sandra
And I bet you there's a
few people that secretly are singing opera just don't tell anybody. Yeah, yeah,
yeah.
Alan
Yeah, because I was just,
one of my friends who is in the Physics department, I was just casually talking
to him quite a while ago. And I just happened to mention Bach and he asked me
which one? Then it turns out he practises six hours a day on the piano to
become a concert pianist. So there are so many people like that on campus.
Sandra
Oh my gosh.. they're so
silent because the culture doesn't seem to deem it important. I know. But if
you start having recitals and concerts, you may initially make it free to the
public and start to like let people know about it. People will become interested
because it's such a large amount of beautiful music. And it's for the public.
That's the biggest thing. And that's a struggle in the US too. Like it really
is sometimes...
Related Post: On Collaborating with Eastman School of Music
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