CHENNAI : Paromitha Sharma had to travel about 15 km every day to reach her violin class. Despite the physical strain of having to travel by bus to reach her destination, the 25-year-old made it to her class regularly. When she moved to London, she was worried about the future of her musical journey. Enter online classes. “About four years ago, there were not many classes that taught instruments online. After a year of searching, I found a musician from Chennai taking Skype classes and I enrolled myself for `1,200 a month,” says Paromitha who has finished her advanced training in classical violin.
In the last three years classes that offer personalised online music/instrument lessons have mushroomed. We caught up with some online tutors in the city, who have made learning to play an instrument more accessible.Harish R Prahalad, a resident of Adyar teaches mridangam through Skype to students in the US and Australia. When an acquaintance from Bostwana got in touch with Prahalad about four years ago to learn mridangam, he took it up as a challenge to train him over Skype. “I am an old-timer and prefer the traditional way of learning and student-teacher relationship but, Skype classes have been surprisingly successful! I was apprehensive in the beginning,” he says.
Today, several options are available for an aspiring musician on the internet. From learning an instrument from scratch, acquiring advanced skills, learning specific modules to learning film music one can do it all. Isaac Thayil, a self-taught guitarist has been teaching Tamil guitar lessons for five years. “It all started when I wanted to learn the chords for a few songs. There weren’t many options online, especially for Tamil songs. That’s when I began learning it myself and once I was equipped with the knowledge, I decided to teach others too,” says the musician, who has a YouTube channel ‘Tamil Guitar Lessons’ with about 19,000 subscribers. He has taught over 150 students across the globe and the numbers are increasing by the day. The fee for online classes differs according to the musical knowledge of the student, number of lessons, and country.
“Teaching students across the globe has also become a platform for cultural and music exchange,” says KP Prateesh, a self-taught keyboardist. In the last two years, students who prefer to sit at the comfort of their home and learn has increased. “In a way, it is good for the tutors — the student is at ease, and learning becomes an enjoyable process,” he shares.Gone are the days when a student had to squeeze in a class of about 15-odd students and learn the same lesson every day until everyone ‘mastered’ it. Prateesh teaches students from different parts of the world, including Iran and Canada. “We are connected virtually and even engage in country-based musical discussions. There have been no challenges so far,” he adds.
Learning an instrument over skype has its own disadvantages. For instance, a video call over Skype may lag. What do you do if you want to learn the instruments without any glitches? Bmusician, a two year old online music academy has its own in-built video call option. “We have used plug-ins and other technology to avoid such lags. It is useful and important while teaching the talams,” says Surendran Ravindran, founder, Bmusician. It specialises in over six genres of music and has about 1,000 registered users.
“The courses are split into different modules. Once the student completes all the modules, they will be evaluated by a guru (specific to different instruments),” he says.Bmuscian has a customised dashboard for every student. “From recording a video of the ongoing class, taking notes, accessing study materials to rescheduling a class, anything can be done. Students also receive reminders and can track their progress,” he says.