Indian Classical music stays active as online academies see a huge expansion in enrolments

It took a pandemic and a lockdown for nine-year-old Ahana Balaji to at last select for Hindustani Classical music classes, something she had been planning to accomplish for longer than a year. An understudy of Carnatic music who likewise plays the guitar and learns Bharatanatyam, Ahana had next to no an ideal opportunity to seek after Hindustani Classical music during her pre-pandemic daily schedule.

“Most of my day went in commuting as I had to travel to various parts of Chennai to take my music and dance lessons. However, the pandemic shifted my classes online and I saved a lot of time that I otherwise spent travelling,” says the resident of OMR in Chennai who has been taking online lessons since March.

Like Ahana, a few music aficionados went to online classes during the pandemic. The majority of the online foundations enlisted a critical expansion in enrolments for Carnatic and Hindustani Classical vocal courses with enquiries dropping in from around the globe.

Pratibha Sarathy, originator of VoxGuru, an online Indian Classical music mentoring gateway says, “E-learning, in general, has seen a lot more acceptance during the pandemic. To keep up with the times, we put out a lot of content and singing challenges on our YouTube channel. We also launched new courses on our app such as ear training and voice culture. The academy witnessed a 100% growth in a single quarter during this period.”

The Shankar Mahadevan Academy (on the web) saw enquiries for their classes pouring in from over the world during the lockdown. “We have seen many individuals who began learning just wondering and stuck on. We likewise have seen the individuals who had been learning before and needed to cease because of various reasons, and were presently getting back to their enthusiasm,” says Sridhar Ranganathan, CEO and prime supporter.

He adds, “I feel online learning removes these and a lot of other barriers — you don’t have to travel, so you are not hassled and are quite relaxed and in the mood to learn when you start your class. Moreover, we do very intimate batch sizes, so the teacher can give individual attention to each student.”

It was such advantages that made Shobha Prabhakar, a corporate representative situated in California says pick online classes over face to face ones, However, her pre-pandemic routine scarcely gave her an opportunity to stay aware of her online classes.The lockdown gave her an occasion to find her music classes. “I could not keep up with the riyaz and anyone who understands music would know how important it is to practise every day to get the ragas right. Once the work-from-home routine set in due to the pandemic, I decided to make up for all the missed classes. Without having the distractions of going out for a movie or dining with friends, I put in a lot more hours into my practice,” says the local of Visakhapatnam who learns Hindustani Classical music. Notwithstanding, it isn’t only the understudies who are exploiting the additional time close by. Set up artists also are spreading out.

Quarter century old Shivani Mirajkar concluded that the lockdown was the best an ideal opportunity to dispatch her institute, Sarang in August. A Hindustani Classical artist by calling, she had since quite a while ago supported the fantasy about beginning a foundation.

“I had been postponing the plan of launching the academy for several months as I had to travel for my concerts and classes. The travel restrictions gave me ample time to work on the functioning of the academy. In a matter of two months, I have over 10 students. Ideally, I would take two or three classes per day but during the pandemic, I had to take more as the enrolments went up significantly,” says the Dharwad-based singer who previously worked as a trainer with VoxGuru.

About Author

Disclaimer: The views, suggestions, and opinions expressed here are the sole responsibility of the experts. No Bengaluru Bytes journalist was involved in the writing and production of this article.