BackString theory
How an experimental school in Bengaluru is trying to shape ears and minds to understand music
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In a snug room, Sreela Deb, founder of Accel, a fledgling school, is busy polishing her presentation. The wide uncluttered desk in front has colourful Post-its, a few books on Western classical music, and a laptop. “It is difficult to explain the concept of this school to parents," Deb says.
Deb wants to establish a unique institution where children from the elementary school level will not just receive an education in music but, more importantly, grow up in a musical ambience. “Conservatories are meant to expose students to world-class training," she explains. But Accel, unlike the traditional conservatories of Europe, teaches other subjects too. It was set up in 2012 “to create students who will eventually turn out to be musically educated and may opt to pursue music as a career", explains Deb.
There are three parts to her vision—the Aamod Centre of Liberal Arts, the Bangalore Institute of Music and Art (BIMA) and Accel. Aamod, which she set up in 2003, provides musical training to children above the age of 4. Its faculty comprises conservatory-trained musicians. Deb hopes this institute will eventually become a music conservatory in its own right. She set up BIMA, which provides masterclasses for trained music professionals, six years later. Top musicians from all over the world are invited to hold sessions.
But Deb believes Accel is the future, though few students have enrolled full-time for music so far. “I decided to concentrate on nurturing students worthy of such teachers."
The school offers a Montessori programme and a loosely structured syllabus till class VII. Music and art are compulsory subjects, and interestingly, the three music and two artist teachers “may not even take a class the whole day, but are (present in the school) playing music or interacting with the children".
One of the musician-teachers is Takafumi Mori. The resident pianist has done his master’s from the Rotterdam’s Coddart Conservatory, as well as four years of rigorous training in Moscow as a solo pianist. Finding the life of a solo pianist “quite hard", Mori decided to teach. He is eager to help young students here evolve their own style in playing piano.
Mori recalls a project he had given his class of nine-year-olds. They had to make flutes out of straws. “Although they didn’t turn up with the assignment on the assigned day," he says, “the next day, I was in for a surprise." The class begged him to play the piano for them and when he lifted the cover, he saw perfectly made straw flutes.
This is the kind of music immersion Deb is talking about.
In a class for slightly older children, British flautist Patricia Smith teaches the basic concepts of music. Six of the students are clapping their hands rhythmically to create a musical pattern. A trainee teacher, who trained at BIMA, is clapping along with them. “We need teachers who will be able to help students considering careers in the creative arts achieve a high quality of professional development," Deb says.
As someone who learnt classical music as an extra-curricular activity, Deb wanted to roll out a sound professional music education. Trained in teaching children with special needs, she started a club for children in the gated community she lived in in 2000. “While organizing art and music activities for children, I realized that Indian classical music teachers refused to standardize processes or inscribe a methodology," she recalls. When a teacher quit, the students had to realign themselves to the new teacher because each teacher has his/her own methodology and students often have to relearn something in a totally different way.
That is when Deb’s neighbour offered to invite a friend, Joana Marteel from France, for a few months to teach the children. “I had no idea about finances or a plan ahead but took the plunge," says Deb. Marteel stayed for several years and helped establish the format. Today, all three institutions are located in the same premises.
For Deb’s conservatory to actually sprout wings, there have to be takers for it. So far, only a few parents seem keen on their children pursuing a career in music. Bengaluru resident Sujatha Ramdas, for instance, says her three sons are pursuing different fields of music as career options.“Initially, I was apprehensive, but now I am convinced there is a future for them," she says. Ramdas predicts a demand for such professionals in the field of scoring music (for films and advertisements), sound engineering, and gaming. “In India, performing musicians have the least opportunities at the moment," she says.
Like a “typical Indian parent", she has insisted on a Plan B. Her oldest son, Gautam, 24, studied engineering, but now scores music for the gaming industry. Her 18-year-old twins, Arjun and Arvind, are proficient in playing “practically any musical instrument".
Gayatri Palla’s daughters, Vedha (9) and Deeksha (3), study at Accel. Looking at the way Vedha is lapping it all up—the girl stayed up late into the night to make the straw flute—Palla feels she may just choose music as a career. “I am absolutely fine with it," says the engineer-mother. “But if the girl changes her mind, that too is completely acceptable."
So far, however, students enrolling full-time are few. At Aamod alone, 700 students have learnt vocals (Hindustani) or instruments since 2003. Only one student, a pianist, has chosen to pursue music professionally. Deb, however, is sure that even those who don’t pursue it as a career will benefit from the music immersion.
Aniruddh D. Patel, professor of psychology at Tufts University in the US and author of Music, Language, And The Brain, says in an email interview that music neuroscience includes many studies of how the brain changes when people, especially children, begin to learn to play music. He says music is not just about the auditory system; it draws attention to all the other things that the brain does, such as planning, remembering, imagining, and feeling. This means that music shows up in some surprising contexts. For instance, learning to play a musical instrument improves the brain’s processing of speech and helps children who are learning to read. Music cognition is a whole brain (as opposed to the left/right side of the brain) phenomenon.
As he puts it: “How do we process complex sequences with complex hierarchical structures and make sense of them? How do we integrate sensation and action? How do we remember long and difficult sequences of information? These are fundamental neuroscience questions, and music can help us answer some of these questions."
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