A MUSICAL BRIDGE TO DIVINITY

April 9, 2022

I had a tough day recently. A client of mine who does music for wellness sessions with me began a debate that morphed into an increasingly unpleasant conversation. The client, who had believed in less strict Covid protocols through the pandemic compared to mine, started questioning why my sessions hadn’t...

ANALYSING OUR MUSICAL THUMBPRINT

March 26, 2022

Back in my college, I had a friend who was my ‘philosophy buddy’. We were teen philosophy geeks who prided themselves on having armchair discussions on the greatness of life and its profound realities. During one of our discussions, Bugs, as I used to call her, came up with this...

WHAT MAKES RAAGAS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER MUSIC?

March 5, 2022

This is a question that many professional musicians are often asked, by people who are uninitiated into classical music. ‘Different kinds of music make me feel happy. What is so special about Indian Classical music? Why should I try it?’. The first thing that should be done to help them...

Discipline In Classical Music And How It Can Help Us

February 19, 2022

Riyaaz is a meaty word with a lot of gravitas. All Indian classical musicians know what I mean when I say that this word carries a level of importance than classical music itself. Riyaaz in simple words means practice. But it has deeper layers of meaning too. It is central...

Nature And Music: A Divine Connection

February 5, 2022

A young and brilliant court musician was taking a stroll around the gardens of Akbar’s palace one cloudy evening four hundred years ago. It was a day that not only foretold the monsoons but also a beautiful milestone that was to come in classical music. The sky was pregnant and...

CLASSICAL MUSIC CAN BE YOUR SAFE SPACE

January 22, 2022

I had an interesting session today with a student of music. This session was one that had to combine therapy with music, since the student in question had approached me with a specific purpose. She wanted to see how learning and engaging in classical music could help her through some...

USING MUSIC TO BUILD CONFIDENCE

January 10, 2022

I was once at a wedding celebration of a friend. It was a grand occasion as weddings usually are. There was fun, frolic, and a festive mood at the venue. Relatives and friends were huddled in groups, some enjoying the gourmet wedding food, some engaged in an impromptu session of...

USING MUSIC TO BUILD CONFIDENCE

January 8, 2022

I was once at a wedding celebration of a friend. It was a grand occasion as weddings usually are. There was fun, frolic, and a festive mood at the venue. Relatives and friends were huddled in groups, some enjoying the gourmet wedding food, some engaged in an impromptu session of...

MAKING CLASSICAL MUSIC ACCESSIBLE TO CHILDREN

December 25, 2021

Indian Classical music has been always considered a serious and stuff form of traditional music meant more for the wise and elderly. We can conjure up images of a septuagenarian artist with his accompanying artists on stage tuning his taanpura and holding his Sur in a meditative state. Even the...

TIMELESSNESS IN CLASSICAL MUSIC

December 11, 2021

It was the tenth of December yesterday, and I look back on how quickly time seems to have flown. It seemed just like yesterday that I was laughing at a WhatsApp forward, a GIF of a happy Santa Claus holding a vaccine syringe and dancing to ‘Jingle Bells’. The jubilation...