Without music, life would be an error,” remarked German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. And the residents of Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music (SAM) echo his sentiment. It is a place where you don’t just learn but create music. Set across a sprawling four-acre campus amidst lush greenery, at MARG Swarnabhoomi, 75 kilometres from Chennai, the first thing that you notice at SAM is its logo- “Live your dreams”. And its students actually get to live their dreams. SAM is the only professional music college in India that offers a six-month diploma programme in music performance which focuses on contemporary rock, jazz and world music. What sets SAM apart from other music schools in India is its ambience and the faculty, most of them are accomplished musicians who have brought in a certain amount of expertise to create a contemporary sound at SAM.
The man who gave shape to what was just an idea initially is 41-year-old Prasanna, a guitarist-cum-composer. Prasanna, who holds an honours degree from the famous Berklee College of Music, Boston, US, wanted to open a contemporary music college in India for a really long time. “The idea was to give back to people in some way and do something that stands on its own and SAM was the perfect way to fulfilling that need,” says SAM’s president. GRK Reddy, chairman and managing director of Marg Swarnabhoomi supported Prasanna’s idea and agreed to give space for the institute in his mega real estate project, MARG Swarnabhoomi.
On campus
Set up in July 2010, SAM is a residential high-tech gurukul that offers a creative and stimulating environment for learning and creating music. The music school’s main building is shaped as a grand piano. The institute was by completely designed by Studio 7.
The most important part of SAM is its distinguished faculty which includes Steve Zerlin, who teaches bass, fusion guitarist Ed Degenaro, Natalie John and famous drummer Benny Greb.
According to Zerlin, SAM is a great place for any music enthusiast where the students are exposed to world music and also get to experience music from different cultures. “I always wanted to study music and improve my craft. It is inspiring to have students who are interested in music and always keen on learning. Playing music is the best thing I love to do,” says Zerlin, who also studied at Berklee.
Gurukul advantage
Since SAM is a residential school, the students and faculty have to stay on campus. The students literally eat, live and sleep music at SAM – don’t be surprised if you hear the strums of guitar way past midnight.
Learning at SAM is not restricted to the classroom. The faculty-student ratio at SAM is 4:1. An informal environment allows SAM’s inmates to break traditional barriers between the learned and learner – you would often find faculty and students hanging out together, practicing, exchanging ideas and learning music together. As Prasanna describes, “SAM is an ashram for people to be together, live together and learn music under one roof.”
The course
SAM offers a diploma certificate programme in music performance with majors in any of the following — guitar, bass, drums, Indian percussion, piano and voice. The current batch has 24 students. Three students of the previous batch are continuing their musical journey at SAM. “The exposure at SAM is insane. The faculty changes in every batch, so you learn new things from every teacher. There is so much to learn. You are exposed to all kinds of music — from Brazilian, to African and Hungarian,” says Gokul Ramdas, a 24-year-old sound engineer who is interning at SAM.
Aditi Veena, a 21-year-old student of SAM took a break from her architecture course to study music. “We don’t have a fixed curriculum. We have classes on rhythm, harmony, various styles of music where we learn and analyse. There is a lot of interaction with the faculty who are very encouraging and amazing. I can’t even describe how the experience at SAM has changed my life. I have learnt so much in the past few months,” she says.
Her classmate John Mogayzel from Virginia, USA, came to know of SAM after attending a concert of Prasanna in the USA. “There is a lot of interaction with the faculty here. The facilities are world-class and I have learnt Indian and Carnatic music along with music theory and techniques,” says 23-year-old Mogayzel, who was studying music in a community college in Virginia before joining SAM.
Most of SAM’s students are pursuing their musical journeys — few are working on their albums.
Infrastructure
SAM boasts of state-of-the-art facilities — they have ensemble rooms equipped with a public address system where students are coached on all aspects of ensemble playing. SAM has around 10 ensemble rooms and each room is named after a famous musician like Zakir Hussain, Ali Akbar Khan, AR Rahman and Johann Sebastian Bach.
The school also has voice labs, recital halls, a café, guitar, piano, percussion labs, library, private studios for Indian percussion, guitar, bass and voice, an amphitheatre, rooftop performance space and recording room. SAM also has top of the line gear which includes kawai concert grand piano, upright and digital pianos, guitar amplifiers, bass amplifiers, drum kits and many more instruments for the students.
A few feet away from the main campus is the hostel. Students and faculty live in three-bedroom apartments that are Wi-Fi enabled, have laundry facilities and also a departmental store. The library has a huge collection of books on compositions, music theory, audio recording, engineering and a wide range of DVDs for guitarists and drummers.
Apart from the breathtaking scenery and breeze that greets visitors on the institute’s first floor, what really awes you are the 15 musical huts – small cottages with well-manicured lawns — that have been designed for individual practice sessions.
Workshops
Summer and fall camps are an integral part of SAM. People from across the globe get an opportunity to experience the music at SAM — this makes these intensive workshops interesting and fun. A student who can’t take up the six-month diploma course gets an opportunity to learn and experience SAM in these summer camps. More often than not, many of the participants inevitably enrol for the diploma course. The programme in SAM is very intensive to the point of exhaustion.
SAM’s real treasure is its students who come from across India and the world. “What is happening here is an explosion of identities. SAM is giving refuge to a kind of music that the industry doesn’t support. The diversity that the students and faculty bring in makes SAM fun. It ensures every pounce of your time in music is well utilised,” adds Prasanna.
Future plans
SAM eventually plans to offer multiple programmes like a master’s, bachelor’s or an artist’s degree. Plans are also on the pipeline to expand the principle instrument learning at SAM to wind, brass and saxophone. While retaining its gurukul model, SAM hopes to rope in musicians of different genre=s so as to offer more variety to the students. “We have made a start. We are happy to show things in action, maintain transparency and retain the core element,” says Prasanna.
prerna.c@newindianexpress.com
