Online Hindustani Music Classes

The sooner you start the better. Some parents introduce classical music to their babies in cradles. Such kids start taking classes from 3 or 4 years of age. But, there is no upper limit of age when it comes to learning Hindustani classical music. Students come from diverse age groups including children, teenagers, college-goers, working professionals or even seniors in the age bracket of 60 to 70 years of age.

The most inevitable career option for a Hindustani classical music student is to become a singer. Years of dedicated practice under the guidance of an accomplished Guru will help you to achieve this. The second option is to become a teacher and impart the knowledge you acquired from your Guru, to help other potential singers.

You can practice at any time of the day. But the best recommended time for learning new things is early morning between 4-6 AM. It helps in the habit formation. However, adult students who have several personal and professional commitments might find it difficult to adhere to such a strict regime. They can fix a time of the day as per their convenience. Only make sure that you sit down for practice with a fresh mind and follow it everyday like a ritual.

If you are a beginner and still learning the basics, try to set a fixed time of day and sit for at least 20 to 30 minutes. Apart from helping you to master the basics, this will help you in your habit formation for self-practice sessions. How do you sit for long hours while maintaining a certain posture while practicing? How should your arms be positioned while playing the accompanying musical instruments? How should you set the right scale, rhythm, and tempo for an electronic device? All of these and many more concerns that a beginner-level student faces. That is why, it is recommended to sit for the practice for a short period but maintain the time duration and schedule diligently.

For intermediate and advanced-level students of Hindustani classical music, learning goals should be prioritized more than the duration of practice. Ideally, take up one concept at a time and perfect it. It could take more than a day’s practice to reach a certain level. Also, the self-practice regime does not just include singing. It also involves listening and musing over the concept. You might sit down to practice the piece vocally for a fixed time. But you should also listen to various artists who have sung that composition. You should keep humming the tunes while carrying on with your day-to-day activities to make the learning process holistic and fruitful.

There are several levels of learning Hindustani Classical Music. The first level includes perfecting the Swaras. Some students take up to one or two months to it the right notes while some do it within a week’s time. Likewise, for every level the time taken to perfect the concepts varies from student to student. However, an estimated 2-3 years will take for you to perform some complex Semi-classical compositions such as Thumri. You can add 2-3 years more to it for performing a Raga in its full spectrum.

As we mentioned before age can never come in the way of your learning Hindustani classical music. Trust your teacher to evaluate your learning abilities and understand your learning objectives, and create a completely customized lesson plan for you.

There are no specific distinctions as such. All the ragas taught at the beginner level can also be taught at the intermediate and advanced levels. Only the intensity changes. New and more complex vocal techniques and rhythms are introduced. The goal is to train the students to create their own musical content and be comfortable singing in diverse rhythmic structures and tempos so that they become well-rounded professional performers.

At the beginner level, the focus is to get the basic concepts right. Just like we learn the alphabet at the elementary level in school. From there slowly we learn to form words, then sentences, and gradually - paragraphs, and then long-form essays or stories. In vocal music, the first step is to learn to identify the swaras and sing them in their correct frequencies. Next is to learn to sing in rhythms and maintain the tempo. The next step is to identify the structure of the ragas and the different elements that make up a complete khayal repertoire.

The lesson plan for beginner-level Hindustani vocals depends on the students’ grasping capacity and learning objectives. Some students are in their early years or maybe seven or eight years old. They need constant handholding. Mostly they only repeat after the teacher. Older students who have just started learning need to be evaluated based on their learning abilities and the teaching methodology is adopted accordingly. Also, some students have learned some form of vocal music earlier. The teacher has to evaluate whether their concepts are correct or not. They are evaluated based on their proficiency and a customized lesson plan is designed accordingly.

On an average, the duration of one class for Hindustani classical vocals is between 45 minutes to an hour. However, the timings is kept a little flexible children and beginners level students. ipassio offers customized sessions, the students can take their own time to slowly get accustomed with the learning process.